Abstract
This paper studies how economic incentives affect soldiers’ behavior towards civilians in a war context. We use evidence from the WWII Italian Campaign (July 1943 - May 1945), when Allied forces slowly pushed Axis troops North along the Italian peninsula. We argue that plausibly exogenous frontline movements shocked both the potential gains from soldiers’ misbehavior against civilians, due to increased insecurity, and its cost, resulting from decreased accountability. We compare treated municipalities that happened to be on the front at stabilization (within 40km of the frontline on the German side) with a control group of municipalities that remained distant from the frontline (more than 40km away). We present three key findings. First, the likelihood of mass civilian victimization increased by 63% in treated municipalities relative to the control ones upon front stabilization. This differential increase persisted for three days. Second, the effect was concentrated in municipalities located away from divisions’ headquarters, routinely tasked with policing duties at the front, and in proximity of less experienced units. Third, we do not find evidence of differential increase in civilian mass killings in municipalities exposed to more intense bombing and partisan resistance. Thus, decreased accountability and lack of combat experience emerge as the major drivers of the observed increase in civilian victimization in the context of World War II Italy.