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What determines crime in tropical and sub-tropical countries? Exploring the dynamics of climate change, corruption, and information & communication technology

Author

Listed:
  • Navneet Kumar Singh

    (Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur)

  • Biswanath Behera

    (National Institute of Technology Rourkela)

  • Devi Prasad Dash

    (Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur)

  • Daniel Balsalobre-Lorente

    (University of Castilla-La Mancha
    UNEC Research Methods Application Center, Azerbaijan State University of Economics (UNEC)
    Czech University of Life Sciences Prague
    Western Caspian University, Economic Research Center (WCERC))

  • Narayan Sethi

    (National Institute of Technology Rourkela)

Abstract

This paper investigates whether crime in the economies is influenced by the climate change, corruption, and ICT usage outcomes. Based on the information from the 64 tropical and sub-tropical economies, we demonstrate that carbon emission (proxied for climate change) leads to higher crime and corruption control still ameliorates crime more over the time. We further discover the positive impacts of ICT usage and rising human development in terms of decimating crime. Additionally, we incorporate and exploit the combinations of few factors such as govt. expenditure, inflation, and financial development to account for crime controlling. We observe inverse association with govt. expenditure and crime, whereas the findings remain reversed for inflation and financial development. Moreover, our findings from threshold analysis confirm the similar results w.r.t earlier estimated models. Further the comparative perspectives between tropical and sub-tropical economies reveal that sub-tropical region holds better advantage in terms of controlling crime because of emergence of better human development, robust inflation control, higher financial development, and effective corruption control mechanism. From emission perspective, our findings reveal that 10% increase in emission leads to 0.3% and 2.54% increase in crime in tropical and sub-tropical economies, respectively. By harnessing these variations across economies, this study helps credibly identify the fulcrum of new insights in climate change crime dynamics in these new tropical and sub-tropical zones.

Suggested Citation

  • Navneet Kumar Singh & Biswanath Behera & Devi Prasad Dash & Daniel Balsalobre-Lorente & Narayan Sethi, 2025. "What determines crime in tropical and sub-tropical countries? Exploring the dynamics of climate change, corruption, and information & communication technology," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1-31, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:ecopln:v:58:y:2025:i:4:d:10.1007_s10644-025-09910-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s10644-025-09910-2
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    JEL classification:

    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation

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