The authors will present a combination of both published and work in progress research on organized crime.
- The Mafia's Economic Grip: Firm Efficiency and a Composite Indicator of Organized Crime, 2025, Journal of Regional Science, https://doi.org/10.1111/jors.12761
- “Crime and Credit: Analyzing the Impact of Organized Crime Perceptions on Loan Restrictions”
ABSTRACT: “This study examines the impact of perceived organized crime on firms' access to bank loans. The analysis relies on an original survey conducted by the Bank of Italy, involving a representative sample of approximately 1,100 Italian firms across all sectors, which investigates firms' perceptions of organized crime risk and their experiences with credit rationing by banks. The analysis uses three items of perceived crime stand-alone and aggregates them in a composite indicator to reconduct bank credit rationing. Our findings indicate that firms operating in areas and sectors in which organized crime risk is strong and with higher risks of extortion, threat, and intimidation are significantly more likely to experience credit rationing. The presence of organized crime distorts the credit market by raising financing costs, exacerbating adverse selection, and driving banks to adopt risk-averse lending practices. Banks operating in high-crime areas face elevated credit risks due to both the direct and indirect distortions exerted by criminal syndicates on borrowers. These findings suggest that policymakers and financial institutions should integrate these risks into their assessment models and implement targeted financial measures to mitigate the negative effects of organized crime on credit markets.”
3. “Organized crime perception: Analyzing the effect of a composite indicator on Italian firms' efficiency and R&D”
ABSTRACT: This study examines the impact of perceived organized crime on firms' technical efficiency and research and development. The analysis is based on an original survey conducted by the Bank of Italy, which involved a representative sample of over 2,600 Italian firms spanning in industrial and service sectors. The survey collects the firms' perceptions of organized crime presence that we aggregate in a synthetic measure of perceived risk of mafia syndicate, which may impair the firm operativity.
We have estimated the impact of this bad environmental effect on the firm's technical efficiency, estimated via either parametric and non-parametric techniques. Our empirical findings reveal that firms operating in areas and sectors characterized by high levels of organized crime risk are significantly more likely to experience a reduction in their technical efficiency and their propensity to invest in R&D. The presence of organized crime appears to distort market dynamics by raising operational costs and diminishing firms' capacity to effectively deploy production factors, thereby undermining entrepreneurial dynamism. These insights underscore the importance for policymakers and financial institutions to integrate organized crime risk into their assessment models and to implement targeted financial measures aimed at mitigating its negative economic effects.