The Economics of Organised Crime [Paperback]

The first book to apply economic theory to the analysis of all aspects of organised crime.This book provides an economic analysis of the most relevant activities of the organised crime sector: its origins, its internal organisation, its market behaviour and the policies which can be employed against it. It also offers a formal analysis of the circumstances under which organised crime is more likely to become a threat to civil society.This book provides an economic analysis of the most relevant activities of the organised crime sector: its origins, its internal organisation, its market behaviour and the policies which can be employed against it. It also offers a formal analysis of the circumstances under which organised crime is more likely to become a threat to civil society.This book uses economic theory to analyze the different aspects of organized crime. The theory of rent-seeking is adopted to help understand the origin of criminal organizations, while modern industrial organization theory is used to explain the design of internal rules. The market behavior of organized crime is analyzed, the crime and economics approach being applied to the analysis of corruption that occurs when the organized crime sector and the government collude to exploit their monopoly on rule-making. Each chapter outlines the normative results of the analysis in order to design more sophisticated deterrence policies.Foreword; 1. Introduction Gianluca Fiorentini and Sam Peltzman; Part I. Theories of the State and the Origin of Criminal Organisations: 2. Organised crime, Mafia and governments Annelise Anderson; Discussion Maurizio Franzini; 3. Gangs as primitive states Stergios Skaperdas, and Constantinos Syropoulos; Discussion William J. Baumol; Part II. The Criminal Organisation as a Firm: 4. Internal cohesion and competition among criminal organisations Michele Polo; Discussion Pier Luigi Sacco; 5. Conspiracy among the many: the Mafia in legitimate industries Diego Gambetta and Peter ló…