Mafia, elections and violence against politicians

Organized crime uses political violence to influence politics in a wide set of countries. This paper exploits a novel dataset of attacks directed towards Italian local politicians to study how (and why) criminal organizations use violence against them. We test two competing theories to predict the use of violence i) before elections, to affect the electoral outcome and ii) after elections, to influence politicians from the beginning of their term. We provide causal evidence in favor of the latter hypothesis. The probability of being a target of violence increases in the weeks right after an election in areas with a high presence of organized crime, especially when elections result in a change of local government

Organized Crime In Strong States: Vote Buying, Migrants\u27 Exploitation And Public Funds Misappropriation

Groups competing with the state, from insurgents to criminal organizations, are widely believed to emerge in weak states unable to provide protection to their citizens. This dissertation considers a common but less investigated phenomenon: criminal groups often expand to states with strong economies and institutions. How do they manage to expand? Which policies can states adopt to fight against them? My first paper proposes a theory of expansion. I argue that criminal organizations expand by striking agreements with political and economic actors facing competition and to which they can offer critical resources to gain an edge over competitors. I test two predictions of the theory in the context of move of Southern-Italian mafias to the North. First, I show that increases in market competition (due to a construction boom) and in mafias’ capacity to offer cheap illegal labor (by exploiting migrants from mafia-controlled areas in the south) allowed criminal groups to expand. Second, I find that parties in agreements with criminals gained a persistent electoral advantage in mafia-infiltrated cities. This chapter suggests that criminal groups leveraged fragile categories and deals with political and economic actors in strong states to expand. In my second paper, I show that a similar strategy allows them to thrive. I study the effects of a campaign providing migrants in agriculture with the tools to denounce labor exploitation. I find that the campaign increased both police reporting of exploitation and prosecution of criminal organizations, often responsible for smuggling and controlling migrants. This suggests that fighting migrants\u27 exploitation directly damages criminal groups. My third paper studies another non-violent method to fight organized crime: targeting their revenues. We study an Italian policy fighting mafia-misappropriation of public funds and find that criminals strategically react by displacing their activity where the policy does not enforce investigations, underscoring the importance to design anti-mafia policies that anticipate criminal groups\u27 sophistication. My dissertation highlights the need to re-conceptualize criminal organizations not only as substitutes for weak states, but also as complements to states with strong institutions and considers policies to fight them based on understanding the strategies they use to persist in strong states

A single espresso, please! Rationalizing espresso price dispersion across Italian cities

This paper aims at providing an explanation of the observed espresso price dispersion across major Italian cities. The empirical evidence suggests a positive relationships between the average espresso price in a city and the number of coffee shops (normalized for the adult population) operating in that city. This finding is shown to be robust after controlling for GDP per capita and consumers.price index. We provide an interpretation of the empirical findings relying on a model of price competition delivering a continuum of Nash equilibria, where firms adjust the mark-up to offset the negative effect of any increase in their number

Organized Crime in Strong States: Vote Buying, Migrants\u27 Exploitation and Public Funds Misappropriation

Groups competing with the state, from insurgents to criminal organizations, are widely believed to emerge in weak states unable to provide protection to their citizens. This dissertation considers a common but less investigated phenomenon: criminal groups often expand to states with strong economies and institutions. How do they manage to expand? Which policies can states adopt to fight against them? My first paper proposes a theory of expansion. I argue that criminal organizations expand by striking agreements with political and economic actors facing competition and to which they can offer critical resources to gain an edge over competitors. I test two predictions of the theory in the context of move of Southern-Italian mafias to the North. First, I show that increases in market competition (due to a construction boom) and in mafias’ capacity to offer cheap illegal labor (by exploiting migrants from mafia-controlled areas in the south) allowed criminal groups to expand. Second, I find that parties in agreements with criminals gained a persistent electoral advantage in mafia-infiltrated cities. This chapter suggests that criminal groups leveraged fragile categories and deals with political and economic actors in strong states to expand. In my second paper, I show that a similar strategy allows them to thrive. I study the effects of a campaign providing migrants in agriculture with the tools to denounce labor exploitation. I find that the campaign increased both police reporting of exploitation and prosecution of criminal organizations, often responsible for smuggling and controlling migrants. This suggests that fighting migrants\u27 exploitation directly damages criminal groups. My third paper studies another non-violent method to fight organized crime: targeting their revenues. We study an Italian policy fighting mafia-misappropriation of public funds and find that criminals strategically react by displacing their activity where the policy does not enforce investigations, underscoring the importance to design anti-mafia policies that anticipate criminal groups\u27 sophistication. My dissertation highlights the need to re-conceptualize criminal organizations not only as substitutes for weak states, but also as complements to states with strong institutions and considers policies to fight them based on understanding the strategies they use to persist in strong states

Organized Crime in Strong States: Vote Buying, Migrants\u27 Exploitation and Public Funds Misappropriation

Groups competing with the state, from insurgents to criminal organizations, are widely believed to emerge in weak states unable to provide protection to their citizens. This dissertation considers a common but less investigated phenomenon: criminal groups often expand to states with strong economies and institutions. How do they manage to expand? Which policies can states adopt to fight against them? My first paper proposes a theory of expansion. I argue that criminal organizations expand by striking agreements with political and economic actors facing competition and to which they can offer critical resources to gain an edge over competitors. I test two predictions of the theory in the context of move of Southern-Italian mafias to the North. First, I show that increases in market competition (due to a construction boom) and in mafias’ capacity to offer cheap illegal labor (by exploiting migrants from mafia-controlled areas in the south) allowed criminal groups to expand. Second, I find that parties in agreements with criminals gained a persistent electoral advantage in mafia-infiltrated cities. This chapter suggests that criminal groups leveraged fragile categories and deals with political and economic actors in strong states to expand. In my second paper, I show that a similar strategy allows them to thrive. I study the effects of a campaign providing migrants in agriculture with the tools to denounce labor exploitation. I find that the campaign increased both police reporting of exploitation and prosecution of criminal organizations, often responsible for smuggling and controlling migrants. This suggests that fighting migrants\u27 exploitation directly damages criminal groups. My third paper studies another non-violent method to fight organized crime: targeting their revenues. We study an Italian policy fighting mafia-misappropriation of public funds and find that criminals strategically react by displacing their activity where the policy does not enforce investigations, underscoring the importance to design anti-mafia policies that anticipate criminal groups\u27 sophistication. My dissertation highlights the need to re-conceptualize criminal organizations not only as substitutes for weak states, but also as complements to states with strong institutions and considers policies to fight them based on understanding the strategies they use to persist in strong states

A single espresso, please! Rationalizing espresso price dispersion across Italian cities

This paper aims at providing an explanation of the observed espresso price dispersion across major Italian cities. We present some preliminary empirical evidence that suggests a positive relationships between the average espresso price in a city and the number of coffee shops (normalized for the adult population) operating in that city. The finding is shown to be robust after controlling for GDP per capita and consumers\u2019 price index. We provide an interpretation of the empirical findings relying on a model of price competition where firms adjust the mark-up to offset the negative effect of any increase in their number