SPECIAL INTERESTS AND THE GAINS FROM POLITICAL INTEGRATION

This paper presents a formal study of economic influence by special-interest groups under political integration and separation. We first show that countries where more groups are organized to lobby gain from political integration on economic grounds. The reason is that a more organized country, under a political union, can affect policies in the other country to its advantage, something that a less organized country can do to a lesser extent. We then study the interaction of political integration and endogenous lobbying structure. We show that political integration affects the formation of interest groups. Moreover, if a country is more organized before political integration, this will continue to be the case afterward.     

The Correlates of Accommodations for Permanently Disabled Workers

This article examines the determinants of the job accommodations made by employers using data from the Survey of Ontario Workers with Permanent Impairments. I use a censored bivariate probit model, which allows for the selection of return-to-work decisions to obtain my estimates. The most important findings of this article suggest that workers who received vocational training prior to their accident and returned to work with the time-of-accident employer are more likely to receive an accommodation.     

Anti-Mafia Police Actions,Criminal Firms,and Peer Firm Tax Avoidance

Mafia firms introduce distortions in the markets in which they operate, increasing the cost of doing business for peer firms. We investigate whether peers respond by increasing their tax avoidance and thus increasing funds available to compete with the Mafia firms. Using a sample of Italian anti-Mafia police actions that resulted in the removal of Mafia firms and a difference-in-differences approach, we find that peers reduce their tax avoidance following these actions. We further show that, following anti-Mafia police actions, peer firms improve their performance and increase capital investment while enjoying a reduction in the cost of raw materials. Overall, our results highlight the microlevel channels through which Mafia can affect firm outcomes and local economies.