Arbeitspapier

Organized Crime and Electoral Outcomes in Sicily

This paper investigates the relationship between mafia and politics by focusing on the market for votes. It exploits the fact that in the early 1990s the Italian party system collapsed, new parties emerged and mafia families had to look for new political allies. It presents evidence, based on disaggregated data from the Italian region of Sicily, that between 1994 and 2008 Silvio Berlusconi's party, Forza Italia, obtained higher vote shares in municipalities plagued by mafia. The result is robust to the use of different measures of mafia presence, both contemporary and historical, to the inclusion of different sets of controls and to spatial analysis. Instrumenting mafia's presence by determinants of its early diffusion in the late XIX century suggests that the correlation reflects a causal link, which would be coherent with mafia's choice to back Forza Italia in exchange for favorable policies.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: Quaderni - Working Paper DSE ; No. 965

Classification
Wirtschaft
Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Buonanno, Paolo
Prarolo, Giovanni
Vanin, Paolo
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche (DSE)
(where)
Bologna
(when)
2014

DOI
doi:10.6092/unibo/amsacta/4079
Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET

Data provider

This object is provided by:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.

Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Buonanno, Paolo
  • Prarolo, Giovanni
  • Vanin, Paolo
  • Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche (DSE)

Time of origin

  • 2014

Other Objects (12)