This paper investigates the relationship between mafia and politics by focusing on the market for votes. It exploits the fact that in the early 1990s the Italian party system collapsed, new parties emerged and mafia families had to look for new political allies. It presents evidence, based on...

"A Modern Guide to the Economics of Crime discusses the evolution of a field, whose growing relevance among scholars and policymakers is partly related to the persistence of crime and violence around the world and partly to the remarkable progress made in recent years in the economic analysis of...

Behind my reciprocation of a friend's gift may lie both instrumental reasons (I expect further future gifts) and communicative reasons (I want to establish or confirm a friendship per se ). In a theory of rational individual action, such communicative reasons can be incorporated as an argument...