Maximal fines and corruption: An experimental study on illegal waste disposal.

Corruption is known to be one of the real life situations which may jeopardize the effectiveness of fines in deterring crime. We present a model of 'crime with corruption' by which both the dilution of crime deterrence due to corruption, as well as the possibility of crime encouraging fines, are formally highlighted. More importantly, by running an experiment on a subject pool of students for the case of illegal waste disposal, we provide experimental evidence on the validity of our theoretical predictions. We find that increasing fine rate may become crime encouraging, or at least ineffective, beyond a context-specific fine threshold. From a policy perspective, we suggest that the optimal design of a crime-deterring sanctioning system must simultaneously account for both corruption practices and anti-corruption policies.

Interacting locally, acting globally: trust and proximity in social networks for the development of energy communities.

In this article, we analyze the role of social capital in the formation of sustainable energy communities. Specifically, we study the impact of different dimensions of social capital (i.e., structural, relational, cognitive) in determining willingness to participate in an energy community. Our survey data suggest that social contexts contribute to the development of energy communities, via (at least) two channels: (i) a family path, with individual perspectives showing a partial correlation with those of at least one relative, and (ii) a social channel, with higher social trust and greater interaction with neighbors favoring the propensity to participate in an energy community. The social coordination required for the formation of sustainable energy communities is determined by the quality of social interactions, and the spread of virtuous behavior is determined by not only economic policies (i.e., incentives), but also forward-looking policies favoring local aggregation and the creation of high-quality social capital. Thus, local actions and interactions can contribute to solving global climate change challenges.