Published in:Bank of Italy Temi di Discussione (Working Paper) ; No. 1180
Extent:
1 Online-Ressource (37 p)
Language:
English
DOI:
10.2139/ssrn.3210783
Identifier:
Origination:
Footnote:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments June 15, 2018 erstellt
Description:
We study the relationship between the accrual of large financial transfers from a central level of government and the incidence of white collar crimes against public administration and public faith at the local level. We analyse the case of EU funding to Southern Italy and make use of within-municipality variation in the flow of funds between 2007 and 2014. We find a statistically significant effect of transfers on white collar crimes: our estimates suggest that in the absence of EU funding disbursements, the annual number of white collar crimes in Southern Italy would have been 4 per cent lower. We acknowledge that the evidence we provide cannot be taken as fully conclusive given the possible simultaneity of criminal activities and funding assignments and disbursements. Nevertheless, we provide evidence that the correlations we estimated between transfers and white collar crimes are unlikely to be spurious or due to confounding effects