Poor Institutions, Rich Mines
Resource Curse in the Origins of the Sicilian Mafia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9705250 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paolo Buonanno (0000-0001-8838-3904, University of Bergamo), Ruben Durante (0000-0003-2833-0063, Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris), Giovanni Prarolo (0000-0003-3151-3733, University of Bologna), Paolo Vanin (0000-0001-8767-8567, University of Bologna) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 125 |
| Issue | 586 |
| Pages | F175-F202 |
| Publication date | 2015-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Economic Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0133 • E-ISSN: 1468-0297 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1111/ecoj.12236 |
| OpenAlex | W1837699578 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 52 |
| References cited | 44 |
With weak law-enforcement institutions, a positive shock to the value of natural resources may increase demand for private protection and opportunities for rent appropriation through extortion, favouring the emergence of mafia-type organisations. We test this hypothesis by investigating the emergence of the mafia in twentieth century Sicily, where a severe lack of state property-rights enforcement coincided with a steep rise in international demand for sulphur, Sicily’s most valuable export commodity. Using historical data on the early incidence of mafia activity and on the distribution of sulphur reserves, we document that the mafia was more present in municipalities with greater sulphur availability
Curse · Economic history · Library science · Political science · Politics · Resource curse · Sicilian · Sociology · Anthropology · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · History · Law · Natural Resources and Economic Development · Philosophy
Terrorism and education
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Organized crime as a link between inequality and corruption
The Role of Land and Natural Resources in Negotiating Peace Agreements
Religion and women
Earthquake hazard and civic capital
Are wind turbines a mafia windfall? The unintended consequences of green incentives
Organized thuggery
Freedom Types and Life Satisfaction
Mafia doesn't live here anymore
Sicilian sulphur and mafia
The mafia of a Sicilian village, 1860–1960; a study of violent peasant entrepreneurs, by Anton Blok
The Institutional and Psychological Foundations of Natural Resource Policies
The Puzzle of Prison Order
Trafficking Networks and the Mexican Drug War
Scarcity without Leviathan
Revealing “Mafia Inc.”? Financial Crisis, Organized Crime, and the Birth of New Enterprises
Perceived organized crime risk, R&D investment, and Technical efficiency
When Rapacity Pacifies
This Mine is Mine! How Minerals Fuel Conflicts in Africa
Chemical fertilizer in transformations in world agriculture and the state system, 1870 to interwar period
Organized crime and business subsidies
What happens in criminal firms after godfather management removal? Judicial administration and firms’ performance
The Frontier of Hell
Regulatory framework and natural gas activities
Economic and Political Factors in Infrastructure Investment
Resources, conflict, and economic development in Africa
Following the poppy trail
A beam of light
Law enforcement, municipal budgets and spillover effects
The political economy of criminal governance
Productive specialization, peaceful cooperation and the problem of the predatory state
Weak States
Hosting to skim
The Origin of the State
Civicness Drain
How are professionals recruited by external agents in misconduct projects? The infiltration of organized crime in a university
Peace Dividends
The Economic Costs of Organised Crime
Globalization and Conflicts
The Causes and Consequences of Organised Crime
Organised Crime, Institutions and Political Quality
The Value of Connections
A Security Paradox. The Influence Of Governance-Type Organized Crime Over the Surrounding Criminal Environment
Introduction to Special Issue Production, Trade and Governance
Digging deep
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The extra‐legal governance of corruption
Blood Avocados? Trade Liberalization and Cartel Violence in Mexico
Origins of the Sicilian Mafia
When Elections Empower Crime
The New Geography of Mafia Activity. The Case of a Northern Italian Region
Spatial Econometrics
Natural Resource Abundance and Economic Growth
The Natural Resource Curse
The Origins of Ethnolinguistic Diversity
Cursed by Resources or Institutions?
Crime and Social Interactions
A Generalized Spatial Two-Stage Least Squares Procedure for Estimating a Spatial Autoregressive Model with Autoregressive Disturbances
An Introduction to Spatial Econometrics
Workers, Warriors, and Criminals
The economic and social burden of malaria
Population, Technology, and Growth
Do Oil Windfalls Improve Living Standards? Evidence from Brazil
The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development
The curse of natural resources
Trade and Geography in the Origins and Spread of Islam
Institutions and the Resource Curse in Early Modern Spain
The Economics of Organised Crime
Commodity Price Shocks and Civil Conflict
The Russian Mafia
Institutions and Economic Performance
Ruggedness
Crime and social sanction
Private enforcement and social efficiency
Why is There More Crime in Cities
Institutions and the Resource Curse
The Quality of Political Institutions and the Curse of Natural Resources
The Sicilian Mafia
On the Incidence of Civil War in Africa
Tropics, germs, and crops
Institutional Development and Colonial Heritage within Brazil
The Potato's Contribution to Population and Urbanization
Land Reform, the Market for Protection, and the Origins of the Sicilian Mafia
Origins of the Sicilian Mafia
History Lessons
Warlord Competition
Do Natural Resources Fuel Authoritarianism? A Reappraisal of the Resource Curse
Land Reform in a West Sicilian Latifondo Village
Peasants, Patrons, and Brokers in Western Sicily
| Unique citing works | 52 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,73 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2026 (12) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 52 |