Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons
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Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons
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Re: Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons
#2interesting
Re: Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons
#3For anyone else interested in the subject, here is another paper you might like:
Economic Origins of the Mafia and Patronage System in Sicily (2009)
https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-03160...
Re: Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons
#4I really don't like the authors shoehorning a linear model into this work. I perceive it as an attempt to give the article an undeserved veneer of statistical/mathematical rigor.[1]
I think their hypothesis would be much better supported by typical social science approaches, such as citation and quotation of primary sources and comparative study.
For example, how does the Sicilian Mafia compare with the Camorra (Naples) and 'Ndrangheta (Calabria)? Did these organizations undergo a similar expansion during the same time period? Were their origins and expansions rooted in similar phenomena?
[1] https://aeon.co/essays/how-economists-rode-maths-to-become-o...
Re: Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons
#5> According to the detailed description of lemon production in Harold G.
Powell (1908), the production of lemons in nineteenth century Sicily
started with the sowing of bitter orange seeds in spring in small seed
beds under the bearing lemon trees. After one year from the seeding, the
small trees were transplanted in small clumps at a distance of about 60
cm from each other. When the plant reached a height of almost a meter,
the tree was transplanted to the groves at 3–4 meters of distance from
each other.
Curious. Wouldn't those still have been bitter orange trees? Perhaps the authors left out a step where the bitter orange trees were cut down and their rootstocks used for grafting on shoots from the lemon trees? If so, I wonder why they were planted near a lemon tree to begin with — to acclimate them to lemon wood or something?
Re: Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons
#6I am confused. Wasn't this part of the statement in the Godfather with what happens at a fruit stand on the street?
Re: Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons
#7I was kind of expecting something to do with the classic economics paper "The Market for Lemons", but in this case it seems to be actual literal lemons, for what it's worth!
Re: Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons
#8"hampered economic development in Italy for more than a century"
Hamper compared to what? A magical utopia without crime, or a realistic counterfactual with another set of criminals?
Speaking of which: is organized crime worse or better than disorganized crime?
Re: Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons
#9"hampered economic development in Italy for more than a century" Hamper compared to what? A magical utopia without crime, or a realistic counterfactual with another set of criminals? Speaking of which: is organized crime worse or better than disorganized crime?
I would use northern Italy as a conterfactual. True, it was more industrialised at the moment of unification, and political power was much closer to Turin than to Palermo, but billions of economic aid were sent to the South over the past 70 years to try to reverse that imbalance with little effect.
While it's true that Mafia is somewhat present in the north too, it is much less pervasive in penetration.
Re: Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons
#10I was kind of expecting something to do with the classic economics paper "The Market for Lemons", but in this case it seems to be actual literal lemons, for what it's worth!
An academic clickbait, amazing! I was also expecting to read about information asymmetries as per Akerlof.