The economic analysis of organized crime suggests that some economic activities are particularly vulnerable to penetration by criminal organizations. This paper provides an analysis of the structure of the Sicilian economy and shows that, when compared to other Italian regions, it is characterized by a disproportionate presence of such activities. In particular, the economy of Sicily appears characterized by: (i) a large dimension of traditional sectors, such as the Construction sector, which also has a strong territorial specificity; (ii) a large presence of small firms; (iii) a low level of technology; (iii) a large public sector. The joint presence of these features creates fertile soil for the typical activities of organized crime, such as extortion and cartel enforcement. Hence, we propose an alternative explanation of the persistence of organized crime with respect to explanations based on cultural and social factors.

No abstract

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of European Cohesion Policy in the regions of 12 EU countries in the period 1991–2008, on the basis of a spatial growth model, which allows for the identification of both direct and indirect effects of EU funds on GDP per worker growth. We find that “Objective 1” funds are characterized by strong spatial externalities and a positive and concave effect on the growth of GDP per worker, which reaches a peak at the ratio funds/GDP of approximately 3 percent and becomes non-significant after 4 percent. “Objective 2” and “Cohesion” funds have nonsignificant effects, while all the other funds exert a positive and significant effect, but their size is very limited. EU Cohesion Policy, moreover, appears to have increased its effectiveness over time. In the period 2000–2006 Objective 1 funds are estimated to have a median multiplier equal to 1.52, and to have added 0.37 percent to the GDP per worker growth. Overall, in the period 1991–2008, funds are estimated to have added 1.4 percent to the median annual growth, and to have reduced regional disparities of 8 basis points in terms of the Gini index

We show that the distribution dynamics of productivity in European regions displays polarization with a nonlinear growth path. We investigate the factors explaining this behavior focusing in particular on sectoral composition. The b-convegence analysis reveals that initial shares of Manufacturing and Other Market Services have a nonlinear impact on growth, while spatial effects are not statistically significant. By decomposing the dynamics of aggregate productivity in terms of sectoral dynamics, we show that productivity in Manufacturing, Non Market Services, and Other Market Services does not converge, for the complex interaction of technological spillovers and specialization effects.

No abstract

This paper studies the deep and proximate determinants of the evolution of the crosscountry distribution of GDP per worker in the period 1960-2008 by a novel methodology based on information criterion. We find that countries of our sample follow three distinctive growth regimes identified by two deep determinants, the life expectancy at birth in 1960 and the share of Catholics in 1965, and that each regime is characterized by nonlinearities. Growth regimes appear as the major cause of the increased inequality and polarization, while technological catching-up, proxied by the initial level of GDP per worker, acts in the opposite direction. Finally, human capital marginally reduces polarization, while investment rates and employment growth has not any distributional effect.The literature on growth empirics has not reached a consensus on the determinants of world income inequality (Johnson and Papageorgious, 2017). We believe that this failure is mainly due to the lack of consideration of a hierarchy among the set of candidate determinants which was, on the contrary, a key characteristic of the seminal paper by Durlauf and Johnson (1995). Therefore, in this paper we propose a new methodology based on information criterion which allows to identify deep and proximate determinants in the spirit of Rodrik (2003), and to deal with other critical issues discussed in the literature such as model uncertainty, nonlinearities and endogeneity. We then apply this methodology to the investigation of the determinants of inequality and polarization in the world distribution of income, measured by GDP per worker, in the period 1960-2008.

In this paper we perform a statistical evaluation of whether it is worthwhile, in economic terms, to resist to extortion demands by the mafia, from the point of view of firms operating in an area dominated by criminal organizations. We use a unique collected and matched database on firm characteristics on the city of Palermo, highly controlled by the mafia racket. The underlined idea is that the claimed resistance has (direct and indirect) costs and benefits, so that a rational firm should take this decision according its economic expectations on the future profits (in addition to potential ethic considerations). It means that the economic policy messages of this experience can be linked to make more profitable the racket resistance (as a signal sent to the market). Our evidences based on multilevel discrete choice models show that this decision is strongly influenced by socio-economic characteristics of the district, type of activity involved and other factors.

The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the theory of division of labour and economic growth proposed by Adam Smith and developed by Alfred Marshall and Allyn Young. In their approach division of labour is the main engine of growth and plays a central role in capital accumulation and technological progress. We suggest that, according to their theory: 1) economic growth is endogenous; 2) it has the nature of a cumulative, path-dependent process; and 3) it can be described as a disequilibrium process, supported by competitive forces. We argue that these aspects make the contributions of Smith, Marshall and Young still insightful for the development of growth theory, even in the light of the modern approach of endogenous growth theory.Adam Smith, Alfred Marshall, Allyn Young, Division Of Labour, Economic Growth, New Growth Theory,