Organized crime uses political violence to influence politics in a wide set of countries. This paper exploits a novel dataset of attacks directed towards Italian local politicians to study how (and why) criminal organizations use violence against them. We test two competing theories to predict the use of violence i) before elections, to affect the electoral outcome and ii) after elections, to influence politicians from the beginning of their term. We provide causal evidence in favor of the latter hypothesis. The probability of being a target of violence increases in the weeks right after an election in areas with a high presence of organized crime, especially when elections result in a change of local government.JEL Codes: H00, D72

Organized crime uses political violence to influence politics in a wide set of countries. This paper exploits a novel dataset of attacks directed towards Italian local politicians to study how (and why) criminal organizations use violence against them. We test two competing theories to predict the use of violence i) before elections, to affect the electoral outcome and ii) after elections, to influence politicians from the beginning of their term. We provide causal evidence in favor of the latter hypothesis. The probability of being a target of violence increases in the weeks right after an election in areas with a high presence of organized crime, especially when elections result in a change of local government.JEL Codes: H00, D72

No abstract

Does political engagement depend on government responsiveness? Identifying the drivers of political action is challenging because it requires disentangling instrumental from expressive motives for engagement and because government responsiveness is likely endogenous. We overcome the first challenge by studying citizens’ reporting of street-problems—a form of participation arguably driven by instrumental considerations. We overcome the second challenge by taking advantage of variation in local elections timing in England’s district authorities. We report three key results. First, local governments address requests faster in the months leading to elections. Second, street-problem reporting increases in (pre)electoral periods. Third, the increase in requests sent in preelection periods is driven by districts in which government responsiveness is higher. These findings show that, individuals consider expected benefits when choosing to undertake at least some instrumental forms of participation. Our results also underscore the importance of temporal factors that increase the perceived benefits of one’s political engagement.

Repressive policies to fight criminal organizations are often met with a violent response from criminal groups. Are non-repressive strategies more effective? Targeting criminal revenues can be a powerful tool if the threat of investigation is credible and if criminals are unable to displace their activity to avoid controls. We study an Italian policy designed to tackle mafia misappropriation of public funds by screening companies applying for subsidies over 150,000 Euros. Using all subsidies to firms co-financed by the European Union from 2008 to 2015, we find that a group of firms starts self-selecting below the threshold immediately after its introduction. Those firms are concentrated in mafia-affected cities, are lower performing, operate in typical mafia sectors, and have balance sheet indicators of money laundering. While avoiding violence, non-repressive strategies might have different unintended consequences: criminal organizations react with an immediate strategic displacement which reduces states’ capacity to detect them, highlighting the importance of designing policies that anticipate the sophistication of criminal organizations. (JEL H00, D72).