We study the relationship between suicide rates and socioeconomic factors by using a panel data at Italian province level in the time span 1996-2005. Our analysis focuses on the impact of social norms on suicidal behaviours. In particular, beyond the usual social correlates of suicide rates, we...

Criminal activity performs like a tax on the entire economy - it discourages domestic and foreign direct investments, it reduces firms’ competitiveness, and reallocates resources creating uncertainty and inefficiency. Although the impact of economic variables on crime has been widely...

In the last decades, the interest in the relationship between crime and business cy- cle has widely increased. It is a diffused opinion that a causal relationship goes from economic variables to criminal activities, but this causal effect is observed only for some typology of crimes, such as...

The aim of this paper is to gauge the cost of crime in Italy by concentrating on a subset of offences covering about 64% of total recorded crime in year 2006. Following the breakdown of costs put forward by Brand and Price, we focus on the costs in anticipation, as a consequence and in response...

This paper analyses the linkage between tourism and crime with particular focus on the distortions generated onto criminal activities by the presence of visitors. Controlling for socio-demographic and economic variables, we empirically investigate the contribution of tourist arrivals to...

We use national panel data at provincial level to investigate the relationship between suicide rates and socio-economic factors in Italy. The role of family, drug and alcohol consumption, social conformism and population density are the main factors in explaining the suicide rate in Italy. In a...

In the last decades, the interest in the relationship between crime and business cycle has widely increased. It is a diffused opinion that a causal relationship goes from economic variables to criminal activities. This work aims to verify this proposition by using the dynamic factor model to...

This paper employs provincial data to study the relationship between several crime typologies, namely murder, theft, robbery and fraud, and economic output in Italy. We employ a spatial econometric approach where the spatial proximity is defined by a measure of physical distance between...

What factors drive the length of a kidnapping experience? A theoretical model is developed to conduct comparative statics. A unique data set covering all kidnappings for ransom in Sardinia between 1960 and 2010 is analyzed. Factors related to the ability to pay and cost of abduction matter. The...

Gambling represents a channel through which some relevant aspects of our social life, such as audacity, competition and risk, manifest themselves. Gambling is both a pleasing diversion and a way of socialisation, where gratification and problematic issues alternate. Most gamblers are social...