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This book uses economic theory to analyze the different aspects of organized crime. The theory of rent-seeking is adopted to help understand the origin of criminal organizations, while modern industrial organization theory is used to explain the design of internal rules. The market behavior of organized crime is analyzed, the "crime and economics" approach being applied to the analysis of corruption that occurs when the organized crime sector and the government collude to exploit their monopoly on rule-making. Each chapter outlines the normative results of the analysis in order to design more sophisticated deterrence policies.

• This is the first book on the economics of organised crime, written entirely by economists, and dealing with all its most relevant activities
• Authors from countries with different types of organised crime give a broad international perspective
• Focuses on the design of more sophisticated deterrence policies against organised crime.

Gianluca Fiorentini

Gianluca Fiorentini (D.Phil. Oxford) is Professor of Public Economics at Bologna since 2000. Currently, he serves as Dean of the School of Economics, Director of the Master in Law and Economics in Bologna, and co-ordinator of the European Doctorate in Law and Economics. He is Director of the School of Health Policies and member of the Steering Committee of the Research Hospital at the University of Bologna and of the Editorial Board of the review of the National Agency of Health Services. He has been appointed in various Advisory Groups set up by Ministries and Regulatory Agencies on health and social policies and by the Italian Antitrust Authority. 

BOCLE’s themes of research: Industrial organization and competition policy, Regulation, public economics, and health economics

Sam Peltzman

Sam Peltzman is the Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is an expert on regulation and voting behavior and author of Political Participation and Government Regulation (University of Chicago Press, 1998).

Sam Peltzman is one of the few economists, and probably the only regulatory economist, to have an effect named after him — the “Peltzman effect.” The Peltzman effect arises when people adjust their behavior to a regulation in ways that counteract the intended effect of the regulation. So, for example, when the government passes a seatbelt law, some drivers may respond by driving less safely. It turns out that the Peltzman effect has widespread application and has spawned, like much of Professor Peltzman’s other work, a veritable cottage industry for economists.

The Peltzman effect is the hypothesized tendency of people to react to a safety regulation by increasing other risky behavior, offsetting some or all of the benefit of the regulation.