Geographical Distribution of Crime in Italian Provinces: A Spatial Econometric Analysis

For a long time social sciences scholars from different fields have devoted their attention to identifying the causes leading to commit criminal offences and recently lots of studies have included the analysis of spatial effects. Respect to the Italian crime phenomenon some stylized facts exist: high spatial and time variability and presence of “organised crime” (e.g. Mafia and Camorra) deep-seated in some local territorial areas. Using explanatory spatial data analysis, the paper firstly explores the spatial structure and distribution of four different typologies of crimes (murders, thefts, frauds, and squeezes) in Italian provinces in two years, 1999 and 2003. ESDA allows us to detect some important geographical dimensions and to distinguish crucial macro- and micro- territorial aspects of offences. Further, on the basis of Becker-Ehrlich model, a spatial cross-sectional model including deterrence, economic and socio-demographic variables has been performed to investigate the determinants of Italian crime for 1999 and 2003 and its “neighbouring” effects, measured in terms of geographical and relational proximity. The empirical results obtained by using different spatial weights matrices highlighted that socioeconomic variables have a relevant impact on crime activities, but their role changes enormously respect to crimes against person (murders) or against property (thefts, frauds and squeezes). It is worthy to notice that severity does not show the expected sign: its significant and positive sign should suggest that inflicting more severe punishments does not always constitute a deterrence to commit crime, but it works on the opposite direction.Crime, Spatial Econometrics

Geographical Distribution of Unemployment: An Analysis of Provincial Differences in Italy

Unemployment rates appear to vary widely at a subregional (e.g., local or provincial) level. Using spatial econometric models for spatial autocorrelation, this paper focuses attention on the spatial structure of regional unemployment disparities of Italian provinces. On the basis of findings from the economic literature and of the available socio-economic data, various model specifications including different explanatory variables are tested to investigate the geographical distribution of unemployment in the 103 provinces of Italy for the years 1998 and 2003. The results suggest that there is a clear explanation of unemployment differentials in terms of spatial equilibrium and disequilibrium factors and a significant degree of spatial dependence among labour markets at the provincial level in Italy. Provinces marked by high unemployment, as well as those characterized by low unemployment, tend to be spatially clustered, demonstrating the presence of unemployment 'persistency' in space and time regimes

Life Cycle Consumption and the Great Recession

Using Italian Household Budget Survey data for the period 1997-2013, this paper estimates the life cycle profiles of consumption and cross-sectional variance in the Great Recession. The study examines age profiles for total and durable expenditure, and four subcomponents of non-durable expenditure. We document significant heterogeneity in the way the recession affects consumption and the variance within-cohorts. The crisis has entailed a fall in expenditure for the youngest cohorts, and a notable reduction of inequalities for the middle and oldest cohorts with some differences between high and low income elastic expenditure. We also found that socio-demographic factors account for a substantial heterogeneity in consumption behaviour during the recession across households and expenditure subcomponents

The Diversification of Sicilian Farms: A Way to Sustainable Rural Development

Rural areas still suffer from a lack of sustainable development, and the diversification of farms may be a step in the right direction. The paper provides a detailed picture of the diversification of Sicilian farms into tourism services. Specifically, we propose a simple indicator of localization intensity of agritourism farms and explore their spatial distribution at municipality level. Our study highlights that Sicilian farms rarely diversify into tourism services, despite being situated in attractive areas. That said, some significant spatial clusters of municipalities where agritourism farms are highly concentrated do emerge from the study

Assessment of subjective economic well-being in Italy

Using the European Survey on Income and Living Conditions for the year 2005, we analyze the subjective economic well-being and its determinants relating to some sub-groups of Italian households by means of an Ordered Logit Model (OLM), whose dependent variable is represented by a perception variable, that is the ability of households to make ends meet. The empirical results highlight that the main determinants of subjective economic well-being are the same for the four typologies of households. The subjective economic well-being is not only related to the economic status, but it is mostly influenced by socio-demographic variables, as work and education conditions. Furthermore, the level of subjective well-being of Italian households changes passing from a specific status of socio-demographic variable to another one

Is Participation in Tourism Market an Opportunity for Everyone? Some Evidence from Italy

Exploring the main determinants of tourism participation at national and international level, the paper investigates if there are differences in tourism consumption behavior among Italian families which reflect disparities in their standard of living. To achieve this a Heckman model has been used on a huge sample of Italian households over the period 1997-2007. Results show that participation in the tourism market is strongly affected by the personal characteristics of individuals and that tourism consumption is an income sensitive good. The analysis reveals that tourism is generally a luxury good reflecting the disparities in the standard of living among Italian families. We have found that participation in the tourism market is affected not only by economic constraints, but also by cultural and territorial factors