The Economics of Organised Crime [Paperback]

Gianluca Fiorentini (Editor), Sam Peltzman (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 1997

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book begins with an excellent introduction....the book is a good source for references on organized crime and related area. Overall it is worth reading and many of the ideas merit further thought and inquiry." William P. Jennings, Journal of Economic Literature

Book Description

This book provides an economic analysis of the most relevant activities of the organised crime sector: its origins, its internal organisation, its market behaviour and the policies which can be employed against it. It also offers a formal analysis of the circumstances under which organised crime is more likely to become a threat to civil society.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (September 28, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521629551
• ISBN-13: 978-0521629553
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,688,464 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential for understanding the organised crime phenomenon, January 13, 2002

By 

Dr S J Davies (Manchester united kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Economics of Organised Crime (Paperback)

Organised crime in its many forms is one of the most important features of the late20th/early21st century world. Its extent, power, and impact increase year by year. In several parts of the world the distinction between organised criminals and the state means almost nothing. There is also an intimate connection between organised criminality on the one hand and both state intelligence services and terrorist organisations on the other. What is seldom realised is how new this is. The criminal gang is probably as old as civilisation but before the twentieth century that was as far as criminal organisation went. Now it has moved up several levels and crime is now organised as a business, on a transnational scale. It has, to adapt Peter Drucker, been "institutionalised". This book explains why this has happened. It is because of a change in the incentives facing criminals. To simplify the argument, historically the transactions costs of ensuring and enforcing cooperation among criminals have been too high to make it worthwhile. Criminals have also faced the problem that the short term incentive to betray their fellows has trumped the longer term incentive to cooperate with other criminals. This has been changed by a number of factors - communications and transport technology being significant - but as the book shows by far the most significant is government policy. Specifically, the policy of prohibiting the sale and manufacture of a number of "products" for which there is high demand such as arms, pornography, prostitution, gambling, and, above all, drugs. This changes the incentives and makes the pay off for cooperating so great that organised crime is the inevitable outcome. The essays make other points as well, notably the close similarities between organised criminal groups and governments/ruling classes (as St Augustine said, "All governments are in origin bands of robbers"). Some of the essays are quite technical and would be most useful to someone with an economics background but there is enough to make this book very informative for the layman as well. Truly an eye-opener. Now why do I think no one in Congress has read this book?

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and Fascinating, July 25, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Economics of Organised Crime (Paperback)

I first encountered this book in a class called -- wait for it ---the Economics of Organized crime. I was fascinated. The book explains the workings of the Sicilian and New York Mafia as well as Asian Tongs and the drug trade. The chapter by Gambetta is especially interesting. The book does get a bit technical in places with formulas and such, but one can skip over that for the more general view of how organized crime and government are similar in their operations. This work gave me a lot of insight into the role that crime plays in our social and economic structures. This is also a nice introduction to Transaction Cost Economics, which is rather new in the field of Econ. I would only add that some background in Macroeconomics is useful for a fuller understanding of the book.

5.0 out of 5 stars Academis use of "The economics use of organised crime", June 27, 2011

By 

VictorGomez - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Economics of Organised Crime (Paperback)

As an undegraduate student, it was useful to use approach presented by Florentini and Peltzman, since they use economical techniques to explain this phaenomenon. It uses some sort of industrial organization and game theory, moreover its results provide ideas to implement econometrics in the study of organised crime.