Fighting crime for improved recycling: evaluating an anti-mafia policy on source separation of waste

Anna Laura Baraldi, Claudia Cantabene and Alessandro De Iudicibus

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: It is well documented that organized crime heavily affects the waste management system. This paper focuses on examining the impact of Law 164/1991, one of Italy’s most stringent measures against organized crime. The law, designed to counteract suspected mafia infiltration by mandating the dissolution of city councils, is investigated for its role in reinstating a more efficient waste management system. This involves an increase in selective waste collection for recycling purposes. We exploit the staggered enforcement of Law 164/1991 to show that both the percentage and the per-capita tonnes in selective waste collection, measured for municipalities in Apulia, Calabria, Campania and Sicily, increase sharply starting from the first election after compulsory administration in dissolved municipalities compared to the control group of those never dissolved; the average treatment effect of the anti-mafia policy is measured in a 5 percentage points and 17.5 Kg increase in the percentage and in per-capita tonnes of selective waste collection, respectively. This outcome is influenced by the city council dismissal, as it severs the connections between organized crime and local politicians. The resulting refreshed pool of elected officials, characterized by lower levels of corruption, then implements policies that are unfavorable to organized crime. This leads to a more effective allocation of public funds in sectors specifically targeted by organized crime, such as waste management.

Keywords: Selective waste collection; Anti-mafia policies; Staggered Diff-in-diff; Corruption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C2 D73 D78 I38 K42 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-11-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env, nep-inv, nep-law and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/120296/1/MPRA_paper_120296.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:120296

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().