Economics Research Seminar – Dr Zach Porreca

Title: The Departed: Italian Migration and the American Mafia

Date: Wednesday 23 September 2026

Time: 13:30 to 14:30

Venue: Online

https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/352731614548898?p=kl7kAoAczAijnksFgP

If you would like to attend, please register using the following link

The Departed: Italian Migration and the American Mafia

Speaker:          Dr Zach Porreca, Senior Assistant Professor (RTT) at Magna Græcia University.

https://zachporreca.github.io/

Abstract:

The paper studies the transplantation of the Sicilian Mafia to the United States in the 1920s after a large-scale repression campaign in Italy targeted Mafia strongholds and pushed many Mafiosi to migrate. Using newly linked administrative and historical data from the U.S. Census, Social Security records, and declassified Federal Bureau of Narcotics files, the paper shows that neighbourhoods hosting migrants from Sicilian Mafia strongholds targeted by the repression later became centres of Italo-American Mafia activity. These neighbourhoods experienced higher violence, incarceration, and financial exclusion in the short run, but higher income, employment, and educational attainment in the long run.