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Alessandro Pizzigolotto

@pizzigolot.to

136 followers 322 following 19 posts

Pokémon Trainer and Postdoctoral Scholar at University of Copenhagen | PhD @nhhecon.bsky.social | applied micro on political economy, religion, history and many other things | devoted bass player and music nerd | I like volcanoes 🌋 🌐 pizzigolot.to

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Alessandro Pizzigolotto @pizzigolot.to · 15/07/2026

This paper is really interesting: arxiv.org/abs/2602.22401 I have been interested into AI workflows for applied social science research for over a year, before the first harness came out, and I have not figure out the perfect setup yet, after so many attempts.

Vibe Researching as Wolf Coming: Can AI Agents with Skills Replace or Augment Social Scientists? Paper by Youngjun Zhang.

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Alessandro Pizzigolotto @pizzigolot.to · 10/07/2026

Here's the twist: only Protestants moved. Everyone else kept right on secularizing. So the money did not bring the country together around faith — our results suggest it pulled it further apart. Sound familiar?

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Alessandro Pizzigolotto @pizzigolot.to · 10/07/2026

And it didn't stop at the pews. Views hardened against abortion and homosexuality, gay-marriage bans became more likely, gender-attitude gaps widened. These programs did not just deliver welfare. They seem to have moved what people believe.

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Alessandro Pizzigolotto @pizzigolot.to · 10/07/2026

People showed up, too. Among Americans who weren't regular churchgoers, we find 9% started attending monthly or more. That's a bigger shift than most persuasion campaigns we know of — political advertising included.

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Alessandro Pizzigolotto @pizzigolot.to · 10/07/2026

Faith-based initiatives rolled out across the US in the 1990s–2000s. The White House called it a "quiet revolution." Our estimates suggest it worked: ~2,258 new faith-based organizations, reaching up to 4.9 million Americans a year. When government funds religion, you get more religion.

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Alessandro Pizzigolotto @pizzigolot.to · 10/07/2026

Washington is once again floating the idea of routing more money through religious organizations and build bridges between Church and State. We have been here before. We looked at what actually happened last time. Our paper, out now in @aeajournals.bsky.social www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

Divine Policy: The Impact of Religion in Government. Paper in AEJ: Applied Economics by Jeanet Sinding Bentzen (University of Copenhagen), Alessandro Pizzigolotto (University of Copenhagen, Lena Lindbjerg Sperling.

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