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Local opposition to the installation of renewable energy sources is a potential threat to the energy transition. Local communities tend to oppose the construction of energy plants due to the associated negative externalities (the so-called 'not in my backyard' or NIMBY phenomenon) according to widespread belief, mostly based on anecdotal evidence. Using administrative data on wind turbine installation and electoral outcomes across municipalities located in the South of Italy during 2000-19, we estimate the impact of wind turbines' installation on incumbent regional governments' electoral support during the next elections. Our main findings, derived by a wind-speed based instrumental variable strategy, point in the direction of a mild and not statistically significant electoral backlash for right-wing regional administrations and of a strong and statistically significant positive reinforcement for left-wing regional administrations. Based on our analysis, the hypothesis of an electoral effect of NIMBY type of behavior in connection with the development of wind turbines appears not to be supported by the data.

The synthetic control method (SCM) allows estimating the causal effect of an intervention in settings where panel data on a small number of treated and control units are available. We show that the existing SCM, as well as its extensions, can be easily modified to estimate how much of the ``total'' effect goes through observed causal channels. Our new mediation analysis synthetic control (MASC) method requires additional assumptions that are arguably mild in many settings. We illustrate the implementation of MASC in an empirical application estimating the direct and indirect effects of an anti-smoking intervention (California's Proposition 99)., Comment: We have benefited from comments by Simone De Angelis and participants at several seminars, workshops, and conferences. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of Italy. Addresses for correspondence: Giovanni Mellace (giome@sam.sdu.dk) and Alessandra Pasquini (alessandra.pasquini@bancaditalia.it)

To what extent, hiring incentives targeting a specific group of vulnerable unemployed (i.e. long term unemployed) are more effective, with respect to generalised incentives (without a definite target), to increase hirings of the targeted group? Are generalized incentives able to influence hirings of the vulnerable group? Do targeted policies have negative side effects too important to accept them? Even though there is a huge literature on hiring subsidies, these questions remained unresolved. We tried to answer them, comparing the impact of two similar hiring policies, one oriented towards a target group and one generalised, implemented on the italian labour market. We used administrative data on job contracts, and counterfactual analysis methods. The targeted policy had a positive and significant impact, while the generalized policy didn't have a significant impact on the vulnerable group. Moreover, we concluded the targeted policy didn't have any indirect negative side effect., Comment: 30 pages including the appendix, 6 figures, 14 tables, previous versions presented at IWCEE2017 and Astril 2017 Conferences