Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/336032 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 12330
Publisher: 
Munich Society for the Promotion of Economic Research - CESifo GmbH, Munich
Abstract: 
Organised crime groups often deliver electoral support to politicians, yet how they are rewarded remains unclear. Using data from Sicilian municipalities (1992–2022), we show that narrowly won races by Forza Italia, Silvio Berlusconi's party, coincide with sharp declines in the reallocation of confiscated mafia assets—but only in mafia-controlled areas. Exploiting historical variation in the mafia's vote-buying capacity, we find that municipalities with stronger historical ties experience larger post-election declines, exclusively under Berlusconi's governments. Instrumenting modern support with this proxy further reinforces the plausibly causal evidence that national authorities reward organised crime through policy inaction.
Subjects: 
organised crime
mafia
vote buying
corruption
misallocation of confiscated assets
political economy
JEL: 
D72
D73
H11
K42
P16
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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