Contact Information

Department of Economics
Northwestern University
2211 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
Mobile: +34-625817392
Phone: (847) 3469 1-8250
michele.rosenberg@northwestern.edu
Personal Webpage

Fields of Specialization
Applied Microeconomics, Political Economy, Development Economics, Economic History

Curriculum Vitae
Download_Vita (PDF)

Position
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Northwestern University

Education
Ph.D., Economics, Carlos III University, 2020
M.A., Economics (Honor Student), Collegio Carlo Alberto, 2013
M.A., Political Science, University of Turin, 2012
B.A., Political Science, University of Turin, 2010

Job Market Paper
“Tell Me What You Grow and I’ll Tell You What You Think: Westward Expansion and the Politics of Slavery in the US South” with F. Masera
Slavery had long been one of the dominant labor institutions before its demise in the nineteenth century. This paper shows that changing economic interests determined shifts in political sup- port for slavery. We exploit the competitive forces generated by the westward territorial expansion of the Southern United States between 1810 and 1860 to identify changes in local economic incentives for the use of slave labor. We show that areas losing their comparative advantage in the production of cotton with respect to wheat changed their production decisions and reduced their use of slave labor. Evidence suggests that economic benefits for the white laborers and the planters elite’s political influence sustained a broad pro-slavery coalition. The local decline of slavery profitability decreased wages and shifted newspapers’ pro-slavery content, reducing the incentives to support the institution for the non-slave-owners. The paper shows that the Westward Expansion divided the South’s productive, political, and social system in the decades leading to the Civil War.

Working Papers
“Agricultural Modernization and Contested Land: Evidence from Brazil”  with S. Falcone
This article examines the effect of agricultural modernization on conflict over land. We show that the expansion of capital- and land-intensive agricultural sector induced by economic liberalization in the mid-90s in Brazil led to an increase in cases of contested land. Traditional communities were particularly active in this surge of land disputes. We find empirical support for a mechanism involving a reduction of informally accessible land, and an increase in land inequality and rural unemployment. Moreover, our results suggest a role for employment opportunities in the industry in mitigating conflict. Additional findings indicate that leaders mobilized the land-poor and that mobilization advanced land redistribution by the government.

“External Players in the Political Economy of Natural Resources” (Submitted)
This paper studies the role of external players in shaping incentives to fight for natural resources in weak countries. I build a model in which the presence of a multinational company affects incentives for the domestic government and the domestic opposition to reach peaceful solutions regarding the control of natural resources. Multinational companies in the extractive sector negotiate their relative share of the rent with the domestic government. The outcome of the bargaining process depends on the relative strength of both the company and the government. The presence of the external player distorts the incentives to fight for the rent and can sustain peaceful equilibria. At the same time, this creates incentives for the external player to support the opposition group in order to weaken the government’s ability to negotiate. The model rationalizes two classic ideas: the effect of a power vacuum on peace, repression, and conflict on the one hand and the use of the divide and rule strategy as a way to gain a higher proportion of the rent for the external player on the other.

Working in Progress
“The Political Economy of the Industrial Revolution” with F. Curci (Draft Coming Soon)
The paper studies the institutional determinants of local industrial development in England. First, we document a reversal of fortune from the 16th century to the 19th century, showing a shift of the South’s productive activities to the North. Second, we analyze the mechanisms behind this transformation. We test the hypothesis that divergent institutional trajectories led to divergent patterns of economic development. We show that locations in proximity to more participative institutions — cities with elective representatives — as opposed to cities dependent on local lords, resisted more technological adoption and, as a result, became less industrialized during the 19th century. We argue that the development of inclusive institutions was more conducive to creating local grass-rooted organizations that enabled workers threatened by labor mechanization to resist technological adoption. Higher resistance to technological adoption, in turn, resulted in the relocation of economic activities away from traditional centers of production.

“The War after the War: The Dynamics of Racial Violence in a Post-Slavery Society” with F. Masera and S. Walker (Draft Coming Soon)
This paper studies the effect of Civil War casualties on racial violence in the US South from 1865 to 1930. Leveraging the randomness of the variation in casualties rate at the county level, we show that counties with higher war deaths experienced a higher lynching incidence. The primary mechanism we investigate is the role of sexualizing rhetoric in nourishing racial violence. First, we document the fact that lynchings were often associated with allegations of sexual assaults. Second, we investigate the role of sexual allegations as part of the mechanism that led to a higher level of racial violence. We find that the casualty rate predicts concerns of interracial sexual contacts captured by newspapers’ accounts. We hypothesize that changes in the sex ratio induced by white males’ death caused by the Civil War affected the likelihood of interracial contacts, spurring white concerns for racial purity. Data on the skewness of the marriage market, racially mixed families, and allegations of sexual assaults corroborate our hypothesis. The paper shed light on the dynamic of racial violence, highlighting the Civil War’s role in inducing white supremacist fear of losing control to the African American population.

“Holding on to Power: Labor Relations in a Post-Slavery Society” with J. Clegg, F. Masera, and S. Walker (Data Collection)

References

Prof. Joel Mokyr
Prof. Noam Yuchtman
Prof. Irma Clots-Figueras
Prof. Luis Corchón