Nuclear Power and the Mob: Extortion in Japan

John Ramseyer

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 2016, vol. 13, issue 3, 487-515

Abstract: Nuclear reactors entail massive nontransferrable site‐specific investments. The resulting appropriable quasi‐rents offer the mob a lucrative target. In exchange for large fees, it can either promise to “protect” the utility (and silence the reactor's local opponents) or “extort” from it (and desist from inciting those opponents). Using prefecture‐level Japanese panel data covering the years 1980 to 2010, I find that extortion rates rise when a utility announces plans to build a reactor. The evidence is consistent with a straightforward account: once news about a utility's plans to build a new reactor leaks, the mob moves in to appropriate the large quasi‐rents from the utility, and stays to do what it does everywhere else—extort regular payments from local businesses.

Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12122

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:wly:empleg:v:13:y:2016:i:3:p:487-515

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Empirical Legal Studies from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().