IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v17y2024i14p3393-d1432648.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Crime Influence Investment in Renewable Energy Sources? Empirical Evidence from Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Giuseppe Scandurra

    (Department of Management Studies and Quantitative Methods, University of Naples Parthenope, 80134 Naples, Italy)

  • Alfonso Carfora

    (Department of Management Studies and Quantitative Methods, University of Naples Parthenope, 80134 Naples, Italy
    Department of Law and Economics, University of Macerata, 62100 Macerata, Italy)

  • Antonio Thomas

    (Department of Business and Economics, University of Naples Parthenope, 80134 Naples, Italy)

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals are significantly increasing investments in the production of energy from renewable sources (RESs). To this end, the supply of monetary incentives by public institutions has increased sharply. This flow of money inevitably attracts the attention of criminal organizations (henceforth COs) that use their power to increase the volumes of investments, while public authorities might react by deciding not to make investments in RESs in areas at risk of distorted use of incentives. In this context, the research question is as follows: does the presence of COs slow down or encourage investment in RESs? Until now, this topic has received little attention from researchers, at least in the European Union. In particular, the presence of COs is particularly pervasive in the economic system of Italy. Given the heterogeneity of this country, a spatial econometric approach was used, taking into account geographical dependency relationships and their impact on the relevant variables. The main result of the research shows a negative relationship between Italian areas with higher CO levels and RES investments. In other words, investments are discouraged in these regions. This situation is detrimental to the target regions in terms of sustainable development and increasing the gross national product (GNP). Furthermore, we found that micro-crime cannot in any way influence investments in RESs.

Suggested Citation

  • Giuseppe Scandurra & Alfonso Carfora & Antonio Thomas, 2024. "Does Crime Influence Investment in Renewable Energy Sources? Empirical Evidence from Italy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(14), pages 1-19, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:14:p:3393-:d:1432648
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/14/3393/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/14/3393/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. António Marques & José Fuinhas & José Manso, 2011. "A Quantile Approach to Identify Factors Promoting Renewable Energy in European Countries," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 49(3), pages 351-366, July.
    2. Coakley, Jerry & Fuertes, Ana-Maria & Smith, Ron, 2006. "Unobserved heterogeneity in panel time series models," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 50(9), pages 2361-2380, May.
    3. Daniela Andreatta & Serena Favarin & Maurizio Lisciandra & Emanuele Millemaci, 2023. "Digging into waste: an analysis of waste crime in the Italian provinces," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(7), pages 1367-1379, July.
    4. Andrea Mario Lavezzi, 2014. "Organised crime and the economy: a framework for policy prescriptions," Global Crime, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1-2), pages 164-190, April.
    5. Romano, A.A. & Scandurra, G. & Carfora, A., 2015. "Probabilities to adopt feed in tariff conditioned to economic transition: A scenario analysis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 988-997.
    6. Michelle T. H. van Vliet & David Wiberg & Sylvain Leduc & Keywan Riahi, 2016. "Power-generation system vulnerability and adaptation to changes in climate and water resources," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 6(4), pages 375-380, April.
    7. Wirth, Herbert & Kulczycka, Joanna & Hausner, Jerzy & Koński, Maciej, 2016. "Corporate Social Responsibility: Communication about social and environmental disclosure by large and small copper mining companies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 53-60.
    8. Gianmarco Daniele & Benny Geys, 2015. "Organised Crime, Institutions and Political Quality: Empirical Evidence from Italian Municipalities," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(586), pages 233-255, August.
    9. Chien-Heng Chou & Sa Ly Ngo & Phung Phi Tran, 2023. "Renewable Energy Integration for Sustainable Economic Growth: Insights and Challenges via Bibliometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-26, October.
    10. Peter C. B. Phillips & Donggyu Sul, 2003. "Dynamic panel estimation and homogeneity testing under cross section dependence *," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 6(1), pages 217-259, June.
    11. J. Paul Elhorst, 2014. "Matlab Software for Spatial Panels," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 37(3), pages 389-405, July.
    12. Francesco Chiodelli, 2019. "The Dark Side of Urban Informality in the Global North: Housing Illegality and Organized Crime in Northern Italy," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 497-516, May.
    13. Paolo Pinotti, 2015. "The Economic Costs of Organised Crime: Evidence from Southern Italy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(586), pages 203-232, August.
    14. Noblet, Caroline L. & Teisl, Mario F. & Evans, Keith & Anderson, Mark W. & McCoy, Shannon & Cervone, Edmund, 2015. "Public preferences for investments in renewable energy production and energy efficiency," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 177-186.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francesca Calamunci & Francesco Drago, 2020. "The Economic Impact of Organized Crime Infiltration in the Legal Economy: Evidence from the Judicial Administration of Organized Crime Firms," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 6(2), pages 275-297, July.
    2. Cafora, Alfonso & Romano, Antonio Angelo & Ronghi, Monica & Giuseppe, Scandurra, 2017. "Substituting fossil energy sources: the role of the climate funds and effects on the economic growth," MPRA Paper 82373, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Galletta, Sergio, 2017. "Law enforcement, municipal budgets and spillover effects: Evidence from a quasi-experiment in Italy," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 90-105.
    4. Kapetanios, George & Price, Simon & Tasiou, Menelaos & Ventouri, Alexia, 2021. "State-level wage Phillips curves," Econometrics and Statistics, Elsevier, vol. 18(C), pages 1-11.
    5. Daniele, Gianmarco, 2019. "Strike one to educate one hundred: Organized crime, political selection and politicians’ ability," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 650-662.
    6. Ylenia Brilli & Marco Tonello, 2015. "The contemporaneous effect of education on adolescent crime. Mechanisms and evidence from regional divides," CHILD Working Papers Series 41 JEL Classification: I2, Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic Economics (CHILD) - CCA.
    7. Markus Eberhardt & Francis Teal, 2013. "No Mangoes in the Tundra: Spatial Heterogeneity in Agricultural Productivity Analysis," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 75(6), pages 914-939, December.
    8. Paolo Pinotti, 0. "The Credibility Revolution in the Empirical Analysis of Crime," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 0, pages 1-14.
    9. Stefania Fontana & Giorgio d’Agostino, 2024. "Anti-mafia policies and public goods in Italy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 198(3), pages 493-529, March.
    10. Marco Le Moglie & Giuseppe Sorrenti, 2022. "Revealing "Mafia Inc."? Financial Crisis, Organized Crime, and the Birth of New Enterprises," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(1), pages 142-156, March.
    11. Cavalieri, Marina & Finocchiaro Castro, Massimo & Guccio, Calogero, 2023. "Organised crime and educational outcomes in Southern Italy: An empirical investigation," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    12. Tamara Fioroni & Andrea Mario Lavezzi & Giovanni Trovato, 2023. "Organized Crime, Corruption and Economic Growth," Discussion Papers 2023/298, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    13. Daron Acemoglu & Giuseppe De Feo & Giacomo Davide De Luca, 2020. "Weak States: Causes and Consequences of the Sicilian Mafia," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(2), pages 537-581.
    14. Markus Eberhardt & Francis Teal, 2011. "Econometrics For Grumblers: A New Look At The Literature On Cross‐Country Growth Empirics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 109-155, February.
    15. Markus Eberhardt & Francis Teal, 2008. "Modeling Technology and Technological Change in Manufacturing: How do Countries Differ?," CSAE Working Paper Series 2008-12, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    16. Daniele, Gianmarco & Dipoppa, Gemma, 2017. "Mafia, elections and violence against politicians," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 10-33.
    17. Cavgias, Alexsandros & Bruce, Raphael & Meloni, Luis, 2023. "Policy enforcement in the presence of organized crime: Evidence from Rio de Janeiro," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    18. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Tosetti, Elisa, 2011. "Large panels with common factors and spatial correlation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 161(2), pages 182-202, April.
    19. Scognamiglio, Annalisa, 2018. "When the mafia comes to town," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 573-590.
    20. Francesco Calderoni & Tommaso Comunale & Gian Maria Campedelli & Martina Marchesi & Deborah Manzi & Niccolò Frualdo, 2022. "Organized crime groups: A systematic review of individual‐level risk factors related to recruitment," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(1), March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:14:p:3393-:d:1432648. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.