Causes and penalties of the Sicilian Mafia

The prison syndicate acknowledged as the Mafia has played a defining role within the Sicilian economy and politics since its inception within the mid-nineteenth century (Dimico et al. 2012), and has most ceaselessly been proffered as one among the head clarification why Sicily has lagged at the again of the the leisure of Italy in financial and social building.

Even supposing many aspects of the Sicilian Mafia are lively to the commercial and social conditions of the island and its explicit historical past, there are furthermore several commonalities between the Sicilian Mafia and pretty loads of organised crime syndicates in Italy (comparable to the Camorra in Naples and ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria), as well to the assorted drug gangs in Mexico, Colombia, and Central The United States (glimpse Bianchi et al. 2017 and Barone and Narciso 2012 on the outcomes of crime syndicates on corporations and governments).  Most severely for our choices, all of these organisations appear to own partly filled the void created by a mature order, and can own contributed to the continued weak point of order institutions and to financial underdevelopment. Our unusual paper (Acemoglu et al. 2017) seeks to make contributions to the literature on the causes and penalties of the Sicilian Mafia and pretty loads of prison organisations (Alesina et al. 2016, Acemoglu et al. 2013, Buonanno et al. 2015, Daniele and Geys 2015, De Feo and De Luca 2017, Del Monte and Pennacchio 2012, Dimico et al. 2017, Pinotti 2015).

The spread of the Mafia in Sicily

We characterize that the spread of the Mafia in Sicily at the head of the nineteenth century was once partly formed by the rise of Peasant Fasci organisations, the main celebrated socialist motion in Italy. The Fasci articulated loads of the grievances of the peasants and day labourers of Sicily. Chief among their demands were higher wages, land redistribution, better working conditions, longer-term contracts for land leases, the return to sharecropping preparations, and the reduction in indirect taxes, which fell heavily on peasants (Romano 1959, Renda 1977, Casarrubea 1978). In an atmosphere with mature order presence, this socialist threat brought on landholders, estate managers, and local politicians to expose to the Mafia to face up to and fight peasant demands. The historical anecdote shows many conditions wherein the Mafia fought in opposition to the Peasant Fasci and collaborated with the armed forces in suppressing protests and killing protesters.

Figure 1 depicts the distribution of Peasant Fasci in 1893 and the intensity of the Mafia in 1900 across Sicilian municipalities and shows a undeniable association between these two variables. This visible correlation cannot after all be taken as evidence of a causal make for the identical outdated reasons that disregarded elements is more seemingly to be accounting for both the presence of Peasant Fasci and the Mafia in a municipality.

Our blueprint to beat this jam is to profit from 1 among the important thing drivers of the Peasant Fasci motion spherical this time, which was once the very severe drought of 1893 that ravaged grand of the Sicilian countryside, increasing wide hardship for day laborers and exiguous-scale tenants. We characterize intimately how the severity of the drought in a municipality acted as a substantial residing off for the Fasci. This relationship between rainfall (or drought) and the Peasant Fasci is powerful to a vary of geographic controls as well to loads of the ability fairly loads of determinants of the position of the Sicilian Mafia — comparable to the presence of sulphur mines and citrus cultivations, highly reliable activities in nineteenth century Sicily, and therefore inclined to the protection (and the consequent rent-searching for) activities of the Mafia (Buonanno et al. 2015, Dimico et al. 2017, Del Monte and Pennacchio 2012). More importantly, we furthermore veil that it is rainfall all via the rising season of 1893, and now no longer rainfall all via assorted months or rainfall in fairly loads of years, that predicts the rise of Peasant Fasci organisations, and that rainfall in 1893 is uncorrelated with several social financial variables earlier than 1893.

Motivated by this relationship, we explain measures of rainfall or severity of drought as a supply of variation within the position of the Peasant Fasci after which, utilizing this variation, we strive and estimate the affect of this peasant organisation on the Mafia (measured in 1900), which thus isolates the outcomes of the reaction of landholders and agricultural estate managers in direction of peasant organizations on the spread of the Mafia. We glean robust and big outcomes from Peasant Fasci on the spread of the Mafia. Quantitatively, our estimates veil that the presence of the Peasant Fasci in a municipality increases the Mafia index in that municipality by 1.5. To set this in perspective, veil that an expand within the Mafia index from 1 to 2 corresponds to a commerce from miniature presence of the Mafia in a municipality to most well-known presence. This quantitative magnitude implies that as grand as 37% of the strength of the Mafia in 1900 within the center of Sicily can also own been attributable to its deployment in opposition to the Peasant Fasci, thus suggesting that the episode we are specializing in can also own played a pivotal role within the Mafia’s dominant position on the island.

Figure 1 Distribution of Peasant Fasci in 1893 and Mafia intensity in 1900

Notes: High map experiences in grey municipalities with a Peasant Fasci organisation in 1893; bottom map experiences the intensity of Mafia presence in 1900.

The affect of the Mafia on local financial building

We explain the supply of variation within the position of the Mafia in 1900 to estimate its medium-term and long-term outcomes. The causal chain is that once the Mafia spread in converse to fight peasant demands and organisations, it took root within the municipality and can own therefore impacted medium- and long-hurry financial outcomes by weakening order ability or right away impacting the allocation of sources (via corruption or coercion). Crucially, and associated to the falsification exercises mentioned above, we verified that rainfall or even severe droughts (in fairly loads of years, and thus now no longer working via peasant organisations) haven’t got any make on local financial, social, and political outcomes. This bolsters our self belief that the causal chain outlined right here is most well-known.

We glean most well-known and quantitatively huge negative impacts of the Mafia on literacy and varied public items within the 1910s and Twenties. For instance, in accordance to our estimates increasing the Mafia in 1900 variable from 1 to 2 (much like an expand from miniature presence of the Mafia to most well-known presence) is expounded with an approximately 10 share point decline in literacy in 1921 (about 20% of its indicate) and a 5 share point expand in toddler mortality (about 30% of its indicate). These outcomes, and their quantitative magnitudes, are fairly robust.

How did the Mafia generate these negative outcomes? Even supposing we are now no longer ready to make a comprehensive reply to this ask, we provide suggestive evidence that a part of the reply might perchance presumably lie in local politics. Ancient and case glean out about evidence means that the Mafia is ceaselessly heavily thinking about local politics. It discourages sure parties and candidates from campaigning and is furthermore engaged in voter intimidation and fraud. This means that the footprint of the Mafia in local politics will seemingly be veil within the focus of votes across candidates within the municipality. In conserving with this expectation, our analysis shows that municipalities with fairly extra intense Mafia presence characteristic systematically higher focus of votes across candidates and as a result decrease political competition in 1909 parliamentary elections. Quantitatively, the outcomes are even larger than for financial outcomes. For instance, an expand from miniature presence of the Mafia to most well-known presence (from 1 to 2) is expounded with a 30 share point decrease in political competition in 1909 (about 38% of its indicate).

We furthermore glean negative outcomes of the Mafia on longer-term measures of industrial building (within the Sixties, 1970s and Eighties) despite the proven fact that these are usually weaker and most ceaselessly handiest marginally most well-known. This means that the affect of the Mafia has attenuated over time, which is now no longer surprising in search for of the decline of the Mafia all via Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship and its subsequent reconfiguration. On the other hand, our outcomes counsel that the Mafia’s affect on focus of votes across candidates has continued strongly into the latter a part of the 20th century.

Concluding remarks

Our work shows huge negative outcomes of the Mafia obedient a number of decades after its spread within the center of Sicily within the helpful decade of the nineteenth century. The Mafia appears to greatly slice again literacy, expand toddler mortality and limit the supply of a diversity of local public items. We furthermore glean a titanic make of the Mafia on local politics – in locations where the Mafia took root, the distribution of votes in parliamentary elections is highly concentrated. This means that the Mafia, partly by preventing parties and politicians now no longer allied with itself from campaigning or even performing within the municipality, can also own greatly reduced local political competition. We conjecture that that is more seemingly to be one among the main channels via which the Mafia impacts local financial building. Future work in this condominium investigating the explicit mechanisms via which fairly loads of prison organisations influence the organisation of local authorities, local corruption, and local politics would be particularly informative. To illustrate, our system does now no longer indicate whether the Mafia can also own reduced local financial building thanks to local corruption, fairly loads of outcomes of local prison job or thanks to its affect on local political competition.

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