Cristian Barra
12243750600
Publications - 7
Socio-political determinants of circular economy behavior: A cross-sectional analysis across Italy
Publication Name: Socio Economic Planning Sciences
Publication Date: 2025-08-01
Volume: 100
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
The circular economy (CE) has emerged as a crucial alternative to the traditional linear economic model, which relies on resource extraction, production, and waste disposal, resulting in significant environmental degradation and resource depletion. In contrast, the CE emphasizes resource efficiency through practices such as reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling, providing both environmental and economic benefits. This study investigates the complex interaction between socio-political factors and individual-level CE practices in Italy, addressing gaps in existing research that primarily focus on specific consumer behaviors or demographic characteristics. Particularly, utilizing probit and multivariate probit analyses on the 2021 AVQ “Aspects of Daily Life” dataset from ISTAT, the research examines how socio-political involvement, budget constraints, positive educational externalities, and demographic factors influence CE behaviors. The findings reveal that socio-political factors, particularly political trust in local governments, significantly influence circular practices, with higher trust associated with greater adoption of sustainable transportation and local products, while lower political engagement correlates with increased waste and reduced sustainability, highlighting the need for targeted educational initiatives and localized policies to promote a circular economy effectively.
Open Access: Yes
Institutional factors and environmental performance: Insights from global economies
Publication Name: Economic Systems
Publication Date: 2025-01-01
Volume: Unknown
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
This study investigates how institutional quality, democratic governance, political orientation and economic policy uncertainty influence environmental performance across different economies globally. Even if there is literature that highlights the importance of strong institutions and democracy for environmental outcomes, empirical evidence remains inconsistent. Using data from 130 countries between 1996 and 2018, we apply a two-stage approach: first, estimating environmental performance via a stochastic frontier, and then analyzing institutional factors with a FEGLS regression and time lags to address endogeneity. The results reveal that strong institutional quality significantly improves environmental performance (β = 0.032), with its impact amplified in countries with medium and high levels of democracy (interaction terms: β = 0.012 and β = 0.010, respectively). While democracy alone exerts a mixed effect, the presence of robust institutions offsets the negative influence of economic policy uncertainty (β = −0.0273). This study provides new insights into the interplay between institutional quality and governance in fostering environmental sustainability. It also offers policy implications for achieving a balance between economic growth and ecological preservation.
Open Access: Yes
How Does State Fragility Drive Environmental Degradation? A Multidimensional Analysis of Governance and Socio-Economic Vulnerabilities
Publication Name: Kyklos
Publication Date: 2026-05-01
Volume: 79
Issue: 2
Page Range: 399-428
Description:
The growing crises in the environmental sector worldwide have increased the call for better comprehension of the linkage among governance, socio-economic stability, and environmental degradation. In this respect, state fragility—a term covering governance gaps, political instability, and economic turmoil—has emerged as a vital and rather unexplored cause of environmental degradation. This study examines how state fragility drives environmental degradation by analyzing the Fragile States Index (FSI) and PM2.5 air pollution across 130 countries from 2006 to 2020. Using generalized least squares (GLS) and Lewbel (2012) heteroskedasticity-based IV estimators, we disaggregate FSI into cohesion, economic, political, social, and external-intervention dimensions to identify heterogeneous effects. Results show that higher overall fragility is associated with increased PM2.5 and CO2 emissions, with economic and political fragility exerting the strongest positive impacts. Social pressures and external interventions also worsen air quality, while cohesion's effect is context-dependent—positive in baseline GLS but negative after addressing endogeneity—suggesting measurement and endogeneity issues. Controls reveal trade openness tends to raise pollution, whereas FDI and stronger institutions reduce it. Findings are more pronounced in low-income countries, underscoring sample heterogeneity. Policy implications stress strengthening governance, mobilizing green finance, and aligning external assistance with environmental objectives to break the fragility–pollution nexus.
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.1111/kykl.70031
Institutional quality and the environment–finance nexus: evidence from global economies
Publication Name: Environment and Development Economics
Publication Date: 2025-01-01
Volume: Unknown
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
This study examines the intricate relationship between financial development, institutional quality and environmental efficiency. While financial development has the potential to support environmental sustainability, concerns remain regarding its unintended negative effects through unchecked economic expansion. The objective of this research is to investigate how financial development affects environmental efficiency and to assess the moderating role of institutional quality, particularly when financial development proxies reflect financial market accessibility and efficiency. Using a directional distance function within a stochastic frontier framework and incorporating multiple financial development indicators alongside measures of institutional quality, we find that financial development significantly reduces environmental inefficiency, with institutional quality strengthening this effect. These results highlight the importance of policy approaches that simultaneously enhance financial development and institutional quality. Furthermore, our findings support targeted initiatives such as promoting green finance, building institutional capacity and investing in research and data infrastructure to inform evidence-based policymaking for sustainable development.
Open Access: Yes
Doing more with less: the role of institutional quality in enhancing energy efficiency in Italy’s “hard-to-abate” sectors
Publication Name: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics
Publication Date: 2026-01-01
Volume: Unknown
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
This paper investigates the role of institutional quality in enhancing energy efficiency within Italy’s “hard-to-abate” industrial sectors, which include cement and lime, glass and ceramics, metal, pulp and paper, and refineries. These sectors account for a significant share of global energy consumption and CO2 emissions and face unique challenges in decarbonization. Using a novel dataset from the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), covering 329 Italian plants from 2013 to 2019, the study applies the Directional Distance Function (DDF) to measure energy efficiency and explores the impact of institutional quality on energy performance through Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) regression. The analysis highlights greater energy efficiency among multi-plant firms, firms in the pulp and paper sector, and firms located in Central Italy. Regression results further show that institutional quality has a significant positive effect on energy efficiency, especially in competitive markets, among multi-plant and non-innovative firms, in Northern regions, and in the glass and ceramics and metal sectors. This paper contributes to the literature by underscoring the importance of institutional quality in driving energy efficiency in energy-intensive sectors and offers policy implications for promoting industrial decarbonization.
Open Access: Yes
The role of democracy and institutional quality on environmental performance: empirical evidence using a stochastic directional distance model
Publication Name: Economics of Governance
Publication Date: 2026-12-01
Volume: 27
Issue: 1
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
This paper investigates the role of institutional quality and democratic governance in enhancing environmental performance across global economies. As countries confront escalating environmental challenges, understanding these factors is crucial for achieving sustainable development. Despite existing literature emphasizing the importance of high-quality institutions and democratic governance in improving environmental performance, empirical evidence remains inconsistent. Our study refines this understanding by exploring how specific dimensions of institutional quality and varying degrees of democracy impact environmental performance. Basically, we use a stochastic directional distance model to assess how democracy and institutional quality directly affect environmental performance in an unbalanced heterogeneous sample (127 economies) between 1996 and 2018. We find that high institutional quality generally improves environmental performance, though its impact varies with different degrees of democracy. The synergy between higher institutional quality and democratic governance enhances environmental performance, though the effects’ magnitude and direction are context-dependent. This paper provides new insights into how institutional quality and democratic governance work together to enhance environmental performance, offering valuable implications for policy development aimed at balancing economic growth with ecological sustainability.
Open Access: Yes
Assessing the impact of climate policy uncertainty on lobbying: An empirical analysis of European countries
Publication Name: Ecological Economics
Publication Date: 2026-07-01
Volume: 245
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
Climate policies are a key focus of the European Union's political agenda. Lobbyists aim to exert influence on these policies to advance their interests. This paper uses a panel dataset from 2011 to 2022 of European organizations to investigate the relationship between Climate Policy Uncertainty (CPU) and Lobbying Expenditure (LE). The dataset includes annual observations from organizations across eight European countries, incorporating both microeconomic and macroeconomic factors. The results indicate a positive association between CPU and LE, suggesting that higher levels of CPU are systematically linked to increased lobbying efforts within our sample. This relationship remains robust after addressing potential endogeneity concerns using the Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) approach. The effect is particularly pronounced in countries with high GDP or high CO₂ emissions, as well as for organizations with lower participation in European Commission meetings. The study also examined the presence of an exogenous shock, specifically the COVID-19 pandemic. While COVID-19 did not alter the existing relationship between CPU and LE, an analysis focused on the pandemic period revealed a reversal in the relationship. These findings carry important policy implications. Governments should prioritize transparency in lobbying activities and address the regulatory challenges posed by CPU to uphold accountability, balance diverse organizational interests, and safeguard the integrity of climate policymaking.
Open Access: Yes
