Crime and regional growth in Italy

Date of This Version

February 2013

Abstract

Building on standard growth-theory models, this paper provides an empirical investigation of the effects of crime on regional economic performance in Italy, as measured by labour productivity growth. Our analysis relies on a panel of annual data on the Italian regions and, contrary to previous studies in the field, adopts a flexible and efficient panel estimation approach which controls for parameter heterogeneity, cross-section dependence and variable endogeneity via mean-group estimation, multifactor modelling and Granger-causality methods. Our results strongly support the hypothesis that crime has significant negative effects on regional growth in Italy.

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