Political Manipulation Behind the COVID-19 ‘Color Code’ in Italy?

During the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Italian government implemented stringent containment measures (lockdown) to curb the spread of the virus. However, in the subsequent wave, a regional approach was adopted, categorizing areas into different colored zones with varying restrictions based on local risk levels. This study aims at investigating whether, in addition to health considerations, political factors such as the facilitation of mobility flows influenced the imposition of regional restrictions. The underlying premise is that if restrictions are solely driven by public health factors as mandated by law, the probability of assigning a particular color to a region should be determined solely by these health-related factors. Using probit and logit models on a regional panel dataset, our findings suggest potential indications of political manipulation.