Periodic Reporting for period 3 - CLEAN (Clean evidence on dirty deeds)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2023-03-01 do 2024-08-31
The ERC project CLEAN advances our knowledge of crime in two main directions. First, I explore the effects of organized crime on the allocation and effectiveness of public spending, focusing on two important areas of government spending: public procurement and public subsidies to private firms. This analysis will advance our knowledge of the practices through which captured politicians can distort the allocation of resources in favour of criminal organizations, their implications for the efficiency of government intervention, and the effectiveness of alternative policy responses.
Second, whilst previous research has focused almost exclusively on the traditional areas of origin of criminal organizations, I study the effects of criminal groups moving to new regions and countries. I focus in particular on three different contexts: i) the “transplant” of criminal organizations from southern to northern Italian regions; ii) interactions of immigrants and natives in criminal activity in the wake of recent migration to the Netherlands; and iii) the inflow of members of the Sicilian Mafia into the US during the period of alcohol prohibition (1920-1933). The present proposal advances our understanding of how criminal groups can relocate to new regions and countries; their interactions with the criminal groups that may already be present there; and the economic and social effects in the areas of destination. From a methodological perspective, all projects take advantage of unique micro-level data and state-of-the-art econometric methods for impact evaluation to provide clean evidence on causal relationships.
Second, whilst previous research has focused almost exclusively on the traditional areas of origin of criminal organizations, I study the effects of criminal groups moving to new regions and countries. I focus in particular on three different contexts: i) the “transplant” of criminal organizations from southern to northern Italian regions; ii) interactions of immigrants and natives in criminal activity in the wake of recent migration to the Netherlands; and iii) the inflow of members of the Sicilian Mafia into the US during the period of alcohol prohibition (1920-1933). The present proposal advances our understanding of how criminal groups can relocate to new regions and countries; their interactions with the criminal groups that may already be present there; and the economic and social effects in the areas of destination. From a methodological perspective, all projects take advantage of unique micro-level data and state-of-the-art econometric methods for impact evaluation to provide clean evidence on causal relationships.
The PI and the collaborators hired on the ERC grant CLEAN have completed three papers. The first paper estimates the effectiveness of a large program of public subsidies to Italian firms operating in disadvantaged areas. The results suggest that subsidies significantly increased employment, the more so when they were allocated on the basis of objective rules rather than political discretion. Political discretion is especially detrimental in areas characterized by a more widespread presence of criminal organizations. The other two papers summarize the existing evidence on the relationship between immigration and crime, provide additional evidence on such relationship across countries, and study more in detail the interactions between immigrants and natives in crime. The results suggest that, contrary to widely held perceptions, immigration does not significantly increase crime in destination countries. All these papers have been presented by the PI in several seminars and conferences, including keynote lectures at the annual events of economists' associations.
CLEAN significantly broadens the reach of economic analysis of crime to new themes and to different countries. The expected result by the end of the project will be a better understanding of the operation modes of criminal groups and the vulnerability of different countries and areas to the infiltration of such groups in the political and economic sphere.