Protected Areas such as national parks are increasingly implemented to achieve the long-term conservation of nature and the provision of ecosystem services, hence preventing biodiversity loss. We study the environmental and socioeconomic impacts generated by eight Italian National Parks. We estimate the impacts i) on the short and medium term, ii) on the local population and on the neighboring areas (i.e., their spillovers), and iii) differentiating the analysis by the macro-geographical context in which National Parks are embedded (i.e., north, center, and south of Italy). The analysis is based on the combination of the Propensity Score Matching with the Doubly Robust Difference-in-Differences estimator. We find that the National Parks have a positive and increasing-over-time impact on the share of forested areas. Moreover, from the socioeconomic point of view, their impact has been positive on the number of local units, workers employed (especially in the tourism sector), and the number of incoming work commuters, but negative on the number of agricultural holdings. However, these results depend on the geographical contexts, i.e., most of the positive socioeconomic impacts are in the north. Finally, we find (positive) spillover in terms of forested areas, but non-significant socioeconomic ones.

中文翻译：

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意大利国家公园的环境和社会经济影响：不同地理背景的时间和溢出效应


越来越多地建立国家公园等保护区，以实现自然的长期保护和生态系统服务的提供，从而防止生物多样性丧失。我们研究八个意大利国家公园产生的环境和社会经济影响。我们估计了 i) 对短期和中期的影响，ii) 对当地人口和邻近地区（即其溢出效应）的影响，以及 iii) 通过国家公园所在的宏观地理背景来区分分析（即意大利北部、中部和南部）。该分析基于倾向得分匹配与双重稳健双重差分估计器的组合。我们发现国家公园对森林面积的比例具有积极且不断增加的影响。此外，从社会经济角度来看，它们对当地单位数量、就业工人（尤其是旅游业）和入境工作通勤者数量产生积极影响，但对农业土地数量产生负面影响。然而，这些结果取决于地理环境，即大多数积极的社会经济影响发生在北部。最后，我们发现森林地区存在（积极的）溢出效应，但社会经济溢出效应并不显着。