The Kefauver Committee and Organized crime
13 Nov 2020 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: law and order, organised crime
R.I.C.O. & the Decline of the Mafia
15 Oct 2018 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics Tags: organised crime
Japan’s Yakuza: Inside the syndicate | The Economist
08 Oct 2018 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, industrial organisation, law and economics Tags: Japan, organised crime
Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel (Tom Wainwright)
29 May 2018 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economics of crime, industrial organisation, law and economics, organisational economics, personnel economics Tags: drug cartels, drug trafficking, organised crime
When people complain about the black market or organised crime
02 May 2017 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, economics of crime, economics of regulation, health economics, law and economics Tags: black markets, offsetting behaviour, organised crime, unintended consequences
Worldwide map of organized crime
18 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics Tags: organised crime
Milton Friedman predicted this police calling card to competing drug gangs
15 Aug 2015 2 Comments
in applied price theory, economics of bureaucracy, economics of crime, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, liberalism, Milton Friedman, Public Choice Tags: cartel theory, crime and punishment, criminal deterrence, organised crime, war on drugs
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Do monopoly concessions increase or decrease gambling?
17 Apr 2014 1 Comment
in economics of regulation, industrial organisation, James Buchanan, law and economics, market efficiency Tags: monopoly and competition, organised crime
Do monopoly concessions such as for casinos and the TAB increase or decrease gambling? Is the under-supply of output by a monopoly a good or a bad thing when the good itself is seen as a bad.
James Buchanan started his 1973 paper ‘A defence of organised crime?’ quoting Samuel Butler:
… we should try to make the self-interest of cads a little more coincident with that of decent people
Buchanan’s simple idea is that if a monopoly restricts the output of goods, a standard analytical result, then it must also restrict the output of bads! Buchanan end’s his paper with:
It is not from the public-spiritedness of the leaders of the Cosa Nostra that we should expect to get a reduction in the crime rate but from their regard for their own self-interests
The Cosa Nostra did have a reputation for running honest casinos and keeping crime down nearby.
If an illegal monopoly or cartel becomes competitive and barriers to entry are eliminated, in the long run, more illegal goods will be traded at the new equilibrium.
Should gambling outlets be public monopolies because they would be smaller, badly run and slow to innovate? The monopolisation of bads may shift us in the direction of social optimality. Buchanan, of course, adds that:
The analysis does nothing toward suggesting that enforcement agencies should not take maximum advantage of all technological developments in crime prevention, detection and control.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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