Since its first appearance in the late 1800s, the origins of the Sicilian mafia have remained a largely unresolved …, we develop an argument for a market structure-hypothesis, contending that mafia arose in towns where firms made unusually … others. We argue that the mafia arose out of the need to protect citrus production from predation by thieves. Using the …

capacity installed. Judicial inquiries have uncovered several episodes of involvement of Mafia families in the rich wind power … municipality is higher if in the local territory there is a mafia family, whereas wind speed is (surprisingly) not significant … investment. Hence the episodes unveiled by courts are paralleled by a wider correlation of mafia family entrenchment in a …