Crime and Sport Participation in Itay: Evidence from Panel Data Regional Analysis over the Period 1997-2003.\

What is the broad impact of sport participation and sport activities in a society? The first aim of this paper is tackling this crucial point by studying whether or not there is a relationship between sport participation and crime. A panel dataset have been constructed for the twenty Italian regions over the period 1997-2003. The impact of spot participation on different type of crimes has been studied. Results show that: (i) there is a robust negative association between sport participation and property crime; (ii) There is a robust negative association between sport participation and juvenile crime; (iii) There is a positive association between sport participation and violent crime, but it is only weakly significant.