di Stefano della Vigna, Ruben Durante, Brian Knight, Eliana La Ferrara
American Economic Journal, applied economy, 2016
Abstract.
During Berlusconi’s terms as prime minister, there was an increase of advertisements on Mediaset, his media company, and a change in the composition of spending with one class of companies (“regulated companies”) shifting their ads towards Berlusconi’s television channels. This behavior is presented by the authors as proof of their “key assumption”, i,e. the expectation of policy favors. By foregoing the search for other explanations, they miss a fairly plausible one. The authors exclude political considerations from their line of reasoning, but end up reaping a fruit of significant political importance, the measure of the increase of profits for Berlusconi’s networks.

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