Published Papers
Calamunci, F. M., Lonsky, J. (2025). The road to crime: An unintended consequence of the interstate highway system. The Economic Journal, 135(667), 748-772. Link
Calamunci, F. M., Frattini, F. F. (2025). The civic side of tax compliance: Evidence from Italy. Economics Letters, 112346. Link
Calamunci, F. M., Ferrante, L., Scebba, R., and Torrisi, G. (2023). Mafia doesn't live here anymore: Antimafia policies and housing prices. Journal of Regional Science. Link
Calamunci, F. M., Ferrante, L., and Scebba, R. (2022). Closed for mafia: Evidence from the removal of mafia firms on commercial property values. Journal of Regional Science, 62, 1487– 1511. Link
Calamunci, F. M., De Benedetto, M. A. and Silipo, D. B. (2021). "Anti-Mafia Law Enforcement and Lending in Mafia Lands. Evidence from Judicial Administration in Italy" . The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 21(3), 1067-1106. Link
Calamunci, F.M. (2022). What happens in criminal firms after godfather management removal? Judicial administration and firms’ performance. Small Business Economics 58, 565–591. Link (GLO Discussion Paper No. 698 (PDF))
Calamunci, F., Drago, F. (2020). The Economic Impact of Organized Crime Infiltration in the Legal Economy: Evidence from the Judicial Administration of Organized Crime Firms. Italian Economic Journal 6, 275–297. (special issue on the Economics of Crime. Guest Editor: Paolo Pinotti). Link
IZA Discussion Paper No. 13028 (PDF) CEPR Discussion Paper No.14326 (PDF) CSEF Working Paper No.556 (PDF)
Working Papers
Eroding Civic Capital: How Persistent Organised Crime Diminishes Tax Compliance with Federico F. Frattini Working Paper (under previous title: "When Crime Tears Communities Apart: Social Capital and Organised Crime") Feem Working Paper (accepted at Journal of Law, Economics and Organization)
What is the long-term effect of organised crime presence on civic capital? By leveraging novel tax compliance and organised crime data, this study investigates this question within the Italian landscape from the 1950s to the 2000s. We exploit the forced resettlement law that compelled organised crime members living in the South of Italy to resettle in the Centre-North area of the country. Employing a difference-in-differences estimation strategy, estimates reveal that sustained exposure to mafia presence reduces TV tax compliance. Exploring possible mechanisms, we find that municipalities exposed to the forced resettlement law show more firms in strategic sectors for organised crime infiltration, and more episodes of extortion and labour racketeering.
Women Behind Bars: Do Single-Gender Prisons Reduce Recidivism?, with Gianmarco Daniele , Giovanni Mastrobuoni and Daniele Terlizzese EIEF WP CEPR Discussion Paper
In 143 countries incarcerated women serve their sentence in a typically small separate section within prisons that mainly house male inmates, while 79 countries have prisons exclusively dedicated to women. Exploiting data from Italy, where both prison types coexist, and a quasi-random institutional assignment rule, we find that women-only prisons lower three-year recidivism by up to 16 percentage points. We use policy-relevant treatment effects to identify the optimal location of an additional women-only prison. As for the mechanisms, a driver is the presence of a large enough number of women for a given facility.
Media: La Stampa Sistema Penale
Identity Rhetoric and Tax Evasion, with Francesco Barilari , Federico Frattini and Diego Zambiasi Working Paper
This paper studies how identity-based political rhetoric can erode tax compliance. We focus on Italy’s Northern League (NL), a regionalist party that framed national taxes as an illegitimate imposition by a distant and exploitative central government. Exploiting the staggered local entry of NL into municipal elections between 1990 and 2015, we implement a difference-in-differences design to estimate the causal effect of exposure to NL's rhetoric on tax compliance. We find that NL participation leads to a significant decline in payment of the national TV license fee, a symbolically charged and centrally collected tax. The effect is absent for local taxes and unrelated parties like Forza Italia, and is not driven by NL's control of local government. The decline is amplified in municipalities with higher initial support for NL, greater exposure to its television channel, and more intense local campaign activity. The effect is also stronger in economically vulnerable communities. Taken together, the evidence points to a rhetorical mechanism: repeated exposure to a narrative that casts national taxation as cultural exploitation weakens compliance with central fiscal obligations.
Municipalities Under Siege: Organized Crime Infiltration and the Misuse of Public Resources, with Diego Ciccia, Francesco Drago and Roberto Galbiati
Organized crime, firms, and politics, with Diego Ciccia, Francesco Drago and Roberto Galbiati
"A Review of Methods in Research on Organized Crime Infiltration of Legitimate Businesses" in The Private Sector and Organized Crime: Criminal Entrepreneurship, Illicit Profits, and Private Sector Security Governance edited by Zabyelina, Y., and Thachuk, K., Routledge DOI: 10.4324/9781003198635-3.
Calamunci, Francesca. Contribution: Camorra. In P. Reichel (ed.). Global Crime; An Encyclopedia of Cyber Theft, Drug Smuggling, Human Trafficking, Weapon Sales, and Other Illicit International Activities. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.