Unearthing the nexus: latifundia, earthquakes, and the emergence of the Sicilian Mafia

Michele Battisti, Giovanni Bernardo, Andros Kourtellos () and Andrea Mario Lavezzi ()
Additional contact information
Michele Battisti: University of Palermo
Giovanni Bernardo: University of Naples “Federico II”
Andros Kourtellos: University of Cyprus
Andrea Mario Lavezzi: University of Palermo

Economics of Governance, 2025, vol. 26, issue 1, No 3, 57-91

Abstract: Abstract This paper explores the historical origins of the Mafia and its roots in the Sicilian latifundia. By employing earthquake intensity as an instrumental variable to tackle endogeneity concerns, our study reveals a significant relationship between the presence of the Mafia during its initial historical appearances in the second half of the 19th century and the characteristics of latifundia. Latifundia, distinguished by large landowners and extensive agriculture, including the rotation of single-crop, pasture, and fallow lands, is found to be closely linked to this heightened Mafia presence. Moreover, our analysis rules out contemporary socio-economic factors by considering a set of control variables such as agricultural proxies. These findings highlight a persistent historical pattern of inequality, proxied by the spread of latifundia, underscoring the enduring influence of the medieval feudal system, transformed into latifundia, on social dynamics. Our findings suggest that policies aimed at reducing the concentration of land ownership and promoting land reform could effectively have curbed the emergence of organized crime in areas with a history of comparatively higher land ownership inequality.

Keywords: Organized crime; Mafia; Land inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H11 H75 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10101-024-00323-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:ecogov:v:26:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s10101-024-00323-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10101/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10101-024-00323-x

Access Statistics for this article

Economics of Governance is currently edited by Amihai Glazer and Marko Koethenbuerger

More articles in Economics of Governance from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().