Carrots, sticks, and environmental crime in Italy

This paper investigates the effect of legal deterrence (sticks) and economic conditions (carrots) on environmental crime in Italy. We have a unique dataset of environmental crime related to illegal wastewater and waste activities across regions for the decade 2006–2016. Considering that, albeit scant, a first recent literature on environmental crimes in Italy has already begun to study the relationship between economic growth, socio-economic variables, and environmental crime, our analysis is committed to explore the extent to which enforcement and deterrence variables can have an impact on the phenomenon under observation. Consistent with the law and economics literature, our empirical findings show evidence that both economic conditions and enforcement efforts may be effective tools for the fight against environmental crime and, thus, support policy makers to better target environmental crime-control policies in Italy.