Gabriel Rodríguez-Puello (p)

This paper evaluates the local effects of an exogenous economic shock, specifically, the mining boom that started in 2004 on crime levels in Swedish municipalities. The Becker theory of crime and different mechanisms suggest that there are competing effects that could result in an increase or decrease in overall crime rates. The identification strategy is based on the exogeneity of the mining boom and the geographical location of minerals. I use Synthetic Control Method to estimate the effect of the mining boom, using municipality-level panel data for the period 1996-2013. The paper focuses on two broad types of crimes: crimes against persons and wealth, which are also disaggregated to analyze heterogeneous effects by types of crime. I find evidence that the mining boom in Sweden negatively affects the number of crimes against persons per 100,000 individuals in mining municipalities compared with the Synthetic control unit. While for the number of crimes against wealth per 100,000 individuals, there is no significant result. The paper aims to contribute causal empirical evidence to the literature on the impact of commodity booms, specifically mining, on criminal activities since most evidence focuses on the energy sector.

Tommaso Rughi (p), Maria Enrica Virgillito, Jacopo Staccioli

This paper provides a direct understanding of the twin transition from the innovative activity domain. It starts with a technological mapping of the technological innovations characterised by both climate change mitigation/adaptation (green) and labour-saving attributes. To accomplish the task, we draw on the universe of patent grants in the USPTO since 1976 to 2021 reporting the Y02-Y04S tagging scheme, defined by the USPTO as patents referring to green technologies. After such identification, by means of a textual-content algorithm, we identify those patents reporting an explicit labour-saving heuristic. We characterise their technological, sectoral and time evolution and their overall technological penetration. Finally, we explore their impact on employment share at state level in US, using SUSB data. In a nutshell, our findings challenge the common understanding of the “green transition” as only labour augmenting.

Lynn Bouwknegt (p), Jan Rouwendal

This paper attempts to identify the causal effect of a loss in trees for Amsterdam. There is a lot of pressure on green space in Amsterdam because of densification. However, green space has many benefits for residents such as environmental, social and economic benefits. The paper utilizes a staggered Difference-in-Difference application of Hedonic Pricing Analysis. Data is utilized from Dutch real estate agents (NVM), the municipality of Amsterdam, aerial photography and Boomregister data on trees. Houses that are sold within near proximity of a tree that was cut down are used as a treatment group and are compared to a control group of houses further away from the cut down tree. The trees are cut down for unplanned reasons such as disease. Using this exogenous shock as treatment can help estimate a more convincing causal effect of the loss in green space on housing prices. Results find a 2 percent negative and statistically significant effect on housing prices resulting from the tree that was cut down. Change in other green space is also taken into account, as previous papers that estimate the effect of green space on housing prices do not usually include multiple data points for green space. The results found are comparable to previous literature.