What is the impact of collusion between members of criminal organizations and politicians on local public finances, in contexts in which organized crime is well-rooted? This article addresses this question by focusing on local governments of Southern Italy, over the period 1998–2016. In order to capture the presence of organized crime, we exploit the enforcement of a national law allowing the dissolution of a municipal government upon evidence of collusion between elected officials and the mafia. We measure the consequences of this infiltration of mafia groups within local governments by using data on local public finances at the municipality level. Difference-in-differences estimates reveal that captured municipalities commit on average more resources for investments in construction and waste management and are less effective in collecting taxes for waste and garbage. This indicates that organized crime groups exploit the collusion with local politicians in order to distort the allocation of public resources toward key sectors of strategic interest for the criminal business (JEL K42, H72, D72).

中文翻译：

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有组织犯罪、被捕政客和公共资源分配

在有组织犯罪根深蒂固的情况下，犯罪组织成员与政客勾结对当地公共财政有何影响？本文通过关注 1998 年至 2016 年期间意大利南部的地方政府来解决这个问题。为了捕捉有组织犯罪的存在，我们利用了一项允许在民选官员与黑手党勾结证据的情况下解散市政府的国家法律的执行。我们通过使用市级地方公共财政数据来衡量黑手党集团在地方政府内部渗透的后果。差异估计表明，被捕获的城市平均投入更多资源用于建设和废物管理投资，并且在征收废物和垃圾税方面效率较低。这表明有组织的犯罪集团利用与当地政客的勾结来扭曲公共资源对犯罪业务具有战略意义的关键部门的分配（JEL K42、H72、D72）。