IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/sbusec/v51y2018i2d10.1007_s11187-018-0003-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tough on criminal wealth? Exploring the link between organized crime’s asset confiscation and regional entrepreneurship

Author

Listed:
  • Elisa Operti

    (ESSEC Business School Paris)

Abstract

This paper addresses the question “How does the fight against organized crime affect regional entrepreneurship?” We focus on asset confiscation in relation to alleged connections of their owners with organized crime, a highly debated policy measure against organized crime. Extending work on institutions and regional entrepreneurship, we propose that confiscation has contrasting effects on regional entries. On the one hand, confiscation of economic assets associated with criminal organizations’ legitimate activities in a region reduces competition and triggers renewal, fostering new entries. On the other hand, seizure of criminal organizations’ operational assets weakens their ability to exercise sovereignty, creating an institutional vacuum that lowers founding rates. Our results, based on a longitudinal study of Italian provinces between 2009 and 2013, provide support for both hypotheses. We also find that the negative effect associated with the confiscation of operational assets is mitigated when local governments have policies facilitating asset redeployment.

Suggested Citation

  • Elisa Operti, 2018. "Tough on criminal wealth? Exploring the link between organized crime’s asset confiscation and regional entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 321-335, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:51:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s11187-018-0003-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s11187-018-0003-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11187-018-0003-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11187-018-0003-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Fritsch & David J. Storey, 2014. "Entrepreneurship in a Regional Context: Historical Roots, Recent Developments and Future Challenges," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(6), pages 939-954, June.
    2. Ivan Turok & David Bailey & Jennifer Clark & Jun Du & Ugo Fratesi & Michael Fritsch & John Harrison & Tom Kemeny & Dieter Kogler & Arnoud Lagendijk & Tomasz Mickiewicz & Ernest Miguelez & Stefano Usai, 2017. "Global reversal, regional revival?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(1), pages 1-8, January.
    3. Christopher J. Boudreaux & Boris N. Nikolaev & Randall G. Holcombe, 2018. "Corruption and destructive entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 181-202, June.
    4. Harry P Bowen & Dirk De Clercq, 2008. "Institutional context and the allocation of entrepreneurial effort," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 39(4), pages 768-768, June.
    5. Davidsson, Per & Henrekson, Magnus, 2002. "Determinants of the Prevalence of Start-Ups and High-Growth Firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 81-104, September.
    6. Christopher F Baum, 2006. "An Introduction to Modern Econometrics using Stata," Stata Press books, StataCorp LP, number imeus, March.
    7. R. E. Caves & M. E. Porter, 1977. "From Entry Barriers to Mobility Barriers: Conjectural Decisions and Contrived Deterrence to New Competition," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 91(2), pages 241-261.
    8. Elert, Niklas & Henrekson, Magnus, 2017. "Entrepreneurship and Institutions: A Bidirectional Relationship," Working Paper Series 1153, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 05 May 2017.
    9. Sobel, Russell S., 2008. "Testing Baumol: Institutional quality and the productivity of entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 641-655, November.
    10. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Ewald Kibler & Teemu Kautonen & Matthias Fink, 2014. "Regional Social Legitimacy of Entrepreneurship: Implications for Entrepreneurial Intention and Start-up Behaviour," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(6), pages 995-1015, June.
    12. Marvin B. Lieberman & Gwendolyn K. Lee & Timothy B. Folta, 2017. "Entry, exit, and the potential for resource redeployment," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 526-544, March.
    13. Baumol, William J., 1996. "Entrepreneurship: Productive, unproductive, and destructive," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 3-22, January.
    14. Emilia Bonaccorsi di Patti, 2009. "Weak institutions and credit availability: the impact of crime on bank loans," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 52, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    15. Zoltan Acs & David Storey, 2004. "Introduction: Entrepreneurship and Economic Development," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(8), pages 871-877.
    16. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    17. Nabamita Dutta & Russell Sobel, 2016. "Does corruption ever help entrepreneurship?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 179-199, June.
    18. Leeson, Peter T., 2007. "Better off stateless: Somalia before and after government collapse," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 689-710, December.
    19. Robin Douhan & Magnus Henrekson, 2010. "Entrepreneurship and second-best institutions: going beyond Baumol’s typology," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 629-643, August.
    20. Oriana Bandiera, 2003. "Land Reform, the Market for Protection, and the Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: Theory and Evidence," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 218-244, April.
    21. Grossman, Herschel I & Kim, Minseong, 1995. "Swords or Plowshares? A Theory of the Security of Claims to Property," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1275-1288, December.
    22. Oliver E. Williamson, 2000. "The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 595-613, September.
    23. Ted Baker & Eric Gedajlovic & Michael Lubatkin, 2005. "A Framework for Comparing Entrepreneurship Processes across Nations," Post-Print hal-02311659, HAL.
    24. Pe'er, Aviad & Vertinsky, Ilan, 2008. "Firm exits as a determinant of new entry: Is there evidence of local creative destruction?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 280-306, May.
    25. Annamaria Nifo & Domenico Scalera & Gaetano Vecchione, 2017. "The rule of law and educational choices: evidence from Italian regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(7), pages 1048-1062, July.
    26. Paolo Pinotti, 2015. "The Economic Costs of Organised Crime: Evidence from Southern Italy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(586), pages 203-232, August.
    27. Antonino Vaccaro, 2012. "To Pay or Not to Pay? Dynamic Transparency and the Fight Against the Mafia’s Extortionists," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 106(1), pages 23-35, March.
    28. Marco Caliendo & Steffen K�nn, 2014. "Regional Effect Heterogeneity of Start-up Subsidies for the Unemployed," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(6), pages 1108-1134, June.
    29. Greif, Avner & Milgrom, Paul & Weingast, Barry R, 1994. "Coordination, Commitment, and Enforcement: The Case of the Merchant Guild," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 745-776, August.
    30. Ted Baker & Eric Gedajlovic & Michael Lubatkin, 2005. "A framework for comparing entrepreneurship processes across nations," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 36(5), pages 492-504, September.
    31. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    32. Zoltan Acs & Laszlo Szerb, 2007. "Entrepreneurship, Economic Growth and Public Policy," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 109-122, March.
    33. Francesco Calderoni, 2014. "Mythical numbers and the proceeds of organised crime: estimating mafia proceeds in Italy," Global Crime, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1-2), pages 138-163, April.
    34. Varese, Federico, 2001. "The Russian Mafia: Private Protection in a New Market Economy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198297369.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Francesca M. Calamunci & Livio Ferrante & Rossana Scebba, 2022. "Closed for mafia: Evidence from the removal of mafia firms on commercial property values," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(5), pages 1487-1511, November.
    2. Boeri, Filippo & Di Cataldo, Marco & Pietrostefani, Elisabetta, 2022. "Localised effects of re-allocated real estate mafia assets," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 116682, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Cavotta, Valeria & Dalpiaz, Elena, 2022. "Good apples in spoiled barrels: A temporal model of firm formalization in a field characterized by widespread informality," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 37(2).
    4. Livio Ferrante & Stefania Fontana & Francesco Reito, 2021. "Mafia and bricks: unfair competition in local markets and policy interventions," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1461-1484, April.
    5. Ferrante, Livio & Reito, Francesco & Spagano, Salvatore & Torrisi, Gianpiero, 2021. "Shall we follow the money? Anti-mafia policies and electoral competition," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 43(5), pages 1110-1130.
    6. Francesca M. Calamunci, 2022. "What happens in criminal firms after godfather management removal? Judicial administration and firms’ performance," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 565-591, January.
    7. Claire Economidou & Luca Grilli & Magnus Henrekson & Mark Sanders, 2018. "Financial and Institutional Reforms for an Entrepreneurial Society," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 279-291, August.
    8. Williams Gilberto Jiménez-García & Wilson Arenas-Valencia & Natalia Bohorquez-Bedoya, 2023. "Violent Drug Markets: Relation between Homicide, Drug Trafficking and Socioeconomic Disadvantages: A Test of Contingent Causation in Pereira, Colombia," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-16, January.
    9. Maoyong Cheng & Zhenjun Li, 2023. "Public governance and firm total factor productivity: Evidence from a quasi‐natural event in China," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(3), pages 683-719, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Roberto Ganau & Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose, 2019. "Do high‐quality local institutions shape labour productivity in Western European manufacturing firms?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 98(4), pages 1633-1666, August.
    2. Daniel L. Bennett, 2021. "Local economic freedom and creative destruction in America," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 333-353, January.
    3. Sorgner, Alina & Wyrwich, Michael, 2022. "Calling Baumol: What telephones can tell us about the allocation of entrepreneurial talent in the face of radical institutional changes," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 37(5).
    4. David Urbano & Sebastian Aparicio & David Audretsch, 2019. "Twenty-five years of research on institutions, entrepreneurship, and economic growth: what has been learned?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 21-49, June.
    5. Boudreaux, Christopher, 2019. "Do private enterprises outperform state enterprises in an emerging market? The importance of institutional context in entrepreneurship," MPRA Paper 93039, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Daniel L. Bennett & Christopher Boudreaux & Boris Nikolaev, 2023. "Populist discourse and entrepreneurship: The role of political ideology and institutions," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 54(1), pages 151-181, February.
    7. Lucas, David & Boudreaux, Christopher, 2018. "Federal Regulation, Job Creation, and the Moderating Effect of State Economic Freedom," MPRA Paper 92593, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Niklas Elert & Magnus Henrekson, 2021. "Entrepreneurship prompts institutional change in developing economies," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 34(1), pages 33-53, March.
    9. Miao, Chao & Gast, Johanna & Laouiti, Rahma & Nakara, Walid, 2022. "Institutional factors, religiosity, and entrepreneurial activity: A quantitative examination across 85 countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    10. Susan L Young & Christopher Welter & Michael Conger, 2018. "Stability vs. flexibility: The effect of regulatory institutions on opportunity type," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 49(4), pages 407-441, May.
    11. R. Sandra Schillo & Ajax Persaud & Meng Jin, 2016. "Entrepreneurial readiness in the context of national systems of entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 619-637, April.
    12. Elert, Niklas & Henrekson, Magnus, 2017. "Entrepreneurship and Institutions: A Bidirectional Relationship," Working Paper Series 1153, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 05 May 2017.
    13. Christopher J. Boudreaux & Daniel L. Bennett & David S. Lucas & Boris N. Nikolaev, 2023. "Taking mental models seriously: institutions, entrepreneurship, and the mediating role of socio-cognitive traits," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 465-493, August.
    14. De Clercq, Dirk & Meuleman, Miguel & Wright, Mike, 2012. "A cross-country investigation of micro-angel investment activity: The roles of new business opportunities and institutions," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 117-129.
    15. Elert, Niklas & Stenkula, Mikael, 2020. "Intrapreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive," Working Paper Series 1367, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    16. Dominic S.K. Lim & Eric A. Morse & Ronald K. Mitchell & Kristie K. Seawright, 2010. "Institutional Environment and Entrepreneurial Cognitions: A Comparative Business Systems Perspective," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 34(3), pages 491-516, May.
    17. Estrin, Saul & Korosteleva, Julia & Mickiewicz, Tomasz, 2013. "Which institutions encourage entrepreneurial growth aspirations?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 564-580.
    18. Afi, Hatem & Boubaker, Sabri & Omri, Anis, 2022. "Do foreign investment and economic freedom matter for behavioral entrepreneurship? Comparing opportunity versus necessity entrepreneurs," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    19. de Groot, Olaf J. & Rablen, Matthew D. & Shortland, Anja, 2011. "Gov-Aargh-Nance – “Even Criminals Need Law And Order”," NEPS Working Papers 7/2011, Network of European Peace Scientists.
    20. Boudreaux, Christopher & Caudill, Steven, 2019. "Entrepreneurship, Institutions, and Economic Growth: Does the Level of Development Matter?," MPRA Paper 94244, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:51:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s11187-018-0003-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.