Search results for "Racketeering"

showing 3 items of 3 documents

An Agent-Based Model of Extortion Racketeering

2016

Mafias can be considered as criminal organisations that are in the business of producing, promoting, and selling protection. Here, we describe the Palermo Scenario, an agent-based model of protection rackets aimed to deepen our understanding of protection rackets, and help policymakers to evaluate methods for destabilising them. Additionally, since the system is explicitly specified, we can use it to investigate the entire causal pathway from cause to effect: not only from actions to Mafia destabilisation, but also the intermediate actions along the path and actors' internal mental representations among the population.

Agent-based modelCausal pathwayeducation.field_of_study05 social sciencesPopulationracket02 engineering and technologyMicroeconomicsExtortionRacketeering0502 economics and businessPath (graph theory)0202 electrical engineering electronic engineering information engineeringMental representationmedia_common.cataloged_instanceMafia020201 artificial intelligence & image processingBusiness050207 economicssocial normseducationnormscrimemedia_common
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Resisting the extortion racket: an empirical analysis

2018

While the contributions on the organized crime and Mafia environments are many, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the firm’s decision to resist to extortion. Our case study is based on Addiopizzo, an NGO that, from 2004, invites firms to refuse requests from the local Mafia and to join a public list of “non-payers”. The research is based on a dataset obtained linking the current administrative archives maintained by the chambers of commerce and the list updated by the NGO. The objective of this paper is twofold: first, to gather sound data on the characteristics of the Addiopizzo joiners; second to model the probability to join Addiopizzo by a two-level logistic regression model. We …

Economics and EconometricEconomics and EconometricsEngineeringOperations researchmedia_common.quotation_subjectPopulation01 natural sciencesHuman capitalOrganized crime010104 statistics & probabilityMultilevel regression modelsExtortion; Multilevel regression models; Organized crime; Social mobilization; Business and International Management; Economics and Econometrics; LawRacketeering0502 economics and businessmedia_common.cataloged_instanceOrganised crime050207 economics0101 mathematicsBusiness and International ManagementSettore SECS-P/01 - Economia PoliticaeducationEmpirical evidencemedia_commoneducation.field_of_studyDiscrete choiceExtortionbusiness.industry05 social sciencesMultilevel regression modelExtortionSocial mobilizationDemographic economicsPsychological resiliencebusinessLawEuropean Journal of Law and Economics
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The economics of extortion: Theory and the case of the Sicilian Mafia

2023

This paper studies extortion of firms operating in legal sectors by a profit-maximizing criminal organization. We develop a simple taxation model under asymmetric information to find the Mafia optimal extortion as a function of firms’ observable characteristics, namely size and sector. We test the predictions of the model on a unique dataset on extortion in Sicily, the Italian region where the Sicilian Mafia, one of the most ancient criminal organizations, operates. In line with our theoretical model, our empirical findings show that extortion is strongly concave with respect to firm size and highly regressive. The percentage of profits appropriated by the Mafia ranges from 40% for small fi…

Organized crime Mafia Extortion racketeering Economic development Optimal taxation
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