I am a fixed term Assistant Professor at the University of Bologna, where I use empirical industrial organization methods to study development and crime.

I received my PhD from University College London in 2026.

You can find my CV here. I can be reached at davide.zufacchi.20@ucl.ac.uk

Working papers

• Competition and Violence in Illegal Markets: Theory and Evidence from Naples
  Details

  Abstract: This paper studies how market structure-the number and distribution of competitors-shapes the use of violence in illegal drug markets. Using new data on gangs, conflicts, and drug seizures from Naples, I document that fighting reduces the number of active gangs, but it also generates violence, which attracts police attention and disrupts the drug market. I develop and estimate a quantitative model of an oligopolistic market in which consumers choose where to buy drugs, gangs fight to expand market share, and police responds endogenously. The results reveal an inverse U-shaped relationship between market fragmentation and violence, reflecting the combination of a declining probability of conflict with an increasing intensity of each fight. I evaluate three enforcement strategies (kingpin targeting, selective enforcement, and drug legalization), allowing their effects to depend on the initial market structure. This approach, in the spirit of the entry-deterrence literature, reconciles seemingly contradictory evidence on enforcement and violence in illegal markets.

  Presented at: University College London; Institute of Fiscal Studies; Northwestern University; University of Chicago - Harris; Oxford University - OXDEV 2025; NBER Economics of Firearm Markets, Crime, and Gun Violence 2025; London School of Economics; ASSA 2026; Cattolica University; Università Ca' Foscari Venezia; Bologna University; Cornerstone Research; Namur University

  Grants: Laboratory for Effective Anti-poverty Policies (LEAP), Bocconi University

• From Forests to Plantations: Agricultural FDI in the Liberian’s Palm Oil Sector, with Tommaso Sonno
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  Abstract: Agriculture in low-income countries leaves suitable land uncultivated, occupies most of the workforce almost entirely in self-employment, and produces very little. We explore how this equilibrium changes with agricultural FDI, studying palm oil land acquisitions in Liberia, and comparing land and households just inside and just outside the same concession boundary before and after the grant. Imports of the fertilizers, harvesting tools and extraction machinery the crop requires rise sharply, with no comparable increase for similar non-palm oil specific products. Forests are converted to plantations: tree cover falls by around 4 percentage points and the decline is followed by an increase in palm oil coverage. Agricultural wage employment rises by 6.3 percentage points for wives and 7.3 for husbands, against control means of 1.6 and 8.1 percent. Reported ownership of agricultural land does not decreases, so this is not the mechanical consequence of change in land ownership. These results are consistent with a two-sector account à la Lewis (1954): as capital expands in the sector, land is converted to plantations, labour moves into wage employment, and production expands.

  Presented at: Bologna University; Ghent University; Bocconi University; Online Political Economy Seminar Series; Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; University College London; Queen Mary University of London

  Grants: Modigliani Research Grant, Unicredit Foundation

• Digging Deeper: Mining Companies and Armed Bands in the DRC, with Eliana La Ferrara
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  Abstract: This paper investigates the effects of armed conflict on mineral production in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The bottleneck is measurement, which we solve by using tropospheric nitrogen dioxide columns as high-frequency proxy for industrial extraction intensity. We find that that armed-group violence significantly reduces industrial extraction, with the decline heavily concentrated in mineral concessions prone to artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM). Combining a selection model with a Bartik-style shift-share instrument for survey effort, the paper shows that armed conflict shifts production toward artisanal mining. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that foregone industrial output averages roughly 106,000 metric tonnes per year between 2004 and 2020, while only a small fraction of this lost volume is recovered through artisanal channels, suggesting as substantial deadweight loss.

  Presented at: Harvard University; Harvard Kennedy School; PIEP Conference; Washington University; University College London; Bocconi-LSE joint Crime seminar; ENS Lyon; Toulouse School of Economics; CEPR Paris Symposium 2023; CEPR-RPN on Geoeconomics and RPN on Preventing Conflict: Policies for Peace; World Congress of the Econometric Society

Policy Reports

• About Risk Premiums: from country, to region, towards firm (2025). Joint with Tommaso Sonno, Irene Rizzoli, Jeremy Boccanfuso, and Vincenzo Scrutinio

• Regional Risk Premiums: a new approach to risk premiums (2024). Joint with Tommaso Sonno, Jeremy Boccanfuso, and Vincenzo Scrutinio

• Country Risk Premiums: what we know and why they are not working well (2023). Joint with Tommaso Sonno, Jeremy Boccanfuso, and Vincenzo Scrutinio

• Peace Impact of Private Investments: Evidence from Multinationals investments in Africa (2022) Joint with Tommaso Sonno.

• Voucher: uso e contestualizzazione alla luce del Covid-19 (2020). ADAPT Working Papers. Joint with Enrico Cavallotti, Maddalena Conte, Sergio Inferrera, Lorenzo Navarini, and Filippo Passerini (in Italian).