The Economic Costs of Organised Crime: Evidence from Southern Italy
研究了意大利南部两个地区在1970年代后受黑手党活动影响的经济表现，通过合成控制法估计无组织犯罪时的经济状况，发现黑手党使人均GDP降低16%，原因是私人资本被效率较低的公共投资替代。
I examine the post‐war economic development of two regions in southern Italy exposed to mafia activity after the 1970s and apply synthetic control methods to estimate their economic performance in the absence of organised crime. The comparison of actual and counterfactual development shows that the presence of mafia lowers GDP per capita by 16%. Evidence from electricity consumption and growth accounting suggests that lower GDP reflects a net loss of economic activity, due to the substitution of private capital with less productive public investment, rather than a mere reallocation of resources from the official to the unofficial sector.