Organized Crime, Captured Politicians, and the Allocation of Public Resources
研究意大利南部地方政府中黑手党与政客勾结对公共财政的影响，发现被渗透的市镇在建筑和垃圾管理上投资更多，但垃圾税征收效率更低。
Abstract What is the impact of collusion between members of criminal organizations and politicians on local public finances, in contexts in which organized crime is well-rooted? This article addresses this question by focusing on local governments of Southern Italy, over the period 1998–2016. In order to capture the presence of organized crime, we exploit the enforcement of a national law allowing the dissolution of a municipal government upon evidence of collusion between elected officials and the mafia. We measure the consequences of this infiltration of mafia groups within local governments by using data on local public finances at the municipality level. Difference-in-differences estimates reveal that captured municipalities commit on average more resources for investments in construction and waste management and are less effective in collecting taxes for waste and garbage. This indicates that organized crime groups exploit the collusion with local politicians in order to distort the allocation of public resources toward key sectors of strategic interest for the criminal business.