IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/128603.html

Mafia Economics: How Southern California Became an Economic Syndicate

Author

Listed:
  • Branch, N. Robert

Abstract

Mafia Economics: How Southern California Became an Economic Syndicate examines how regulation, networks, and compliance costs have transformed the region’s markets from open arenas of competition into controlled ecosystems. Drawing on case studies across housing, business, and creative industries, this report identifies the mechanisms, legal, procedural, and social, that selectively grant access and advantage incumbents. By framing these dynamics as a “syndicate economy,” the work highlights the erosion of classical liberal principles and proposes targeted reforms to restore openness, transparency, and opportunity. This analysis positions Southern California not as a failure of markets, but as a cautionary tale of how oversight, when combined with entrenched networks, can quietly become a gatekeeper.

Suggested Citation

  • Branch, N. Robert, 2026. "Mafia Economics: How Southern California Became an Economic Syndicate," MPRA Paper 128603, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:128603
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/128603/1/MPRA_paper_128603.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George J. Stigler, 1971. "The Theory of Economic Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 2(1), pages 3-21, Spring.
    2. Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "The Regulation of Entry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(1), pages 1-37.
    3. Klapper, Leora & Laeven, Luc & Rajan, Raghuram, 2006. "Entry regulation as a barrier to entrepreneurship," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 591-629, December.
    4. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko & Raven E. Saks, 2006. "Urban growth and housing supply," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 71-89, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Deerfield, Amanda & Elert, Niklas, 2022. "Entrepreneurship and Regulatory Voids: The Case of Ridesharing," Working Paper Series 1426, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    2. Zhang, Siyu & Huang, Yuexin & Luo, Danglun, 2026. "Industry regulation and firm innovation: Evidence from national centralized drug procurement policy in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 421-441.
    3. Mitton, Todd, 2008. "Institutions and concentration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 367-394, June.
    4. Sameeksha Desai & Johan E. Eklund & Emma Lappi, 2020. "Entry Regulation and Persistence of Profits in Incumbent Firms," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 57(3), pages 537-558, November.
    5. Kristina Nyström, 2014. "Business regulation and red tape in the entrepreneurial economy," Chapters, in: Charlie Karlsson & Börje Johansson & Roger R. Stough (ed.), Agglomeration, Clusters and Entrepreneurship, chapter 13, pages 283-300, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Susanne Prantl & Alexandra Spitz‐Oener, 2009. "How does entry regulation influence entry into self‐employment and occupational mobility?1," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 17(4), pages 769-802, October.
    7. Farzana Chowdhury & David B. Audretsch, 2021. "Do corruption and regulations matter for home country nascent international entrepreneurship?," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 720-759, June.
    8. Breen, Michael & Gillanders, Robert, 2017. "Does Corruption Ease the Burden of Regulation? National and Subnational Evidence," MPRA Paper 82088, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Michael Breen & Robert Gillanders, 2012. "Corruption, institutions and regulation," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 263-285, September.
    10. Lucas, David & Boudreaux, Christopher, 2018. "Federal Regulation, Job Creation, and the Moderating Effect of State Economic Freedom," MPRA Paper 92593, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina & Yakovlev, Evgeny, 2007. "Deregulation of Business," CEPR Discussion Papers 6610, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    12. Peter J. Stauvermann & Ronald R. Kumar, 2022. "Does more market competition lead to higher income and utility in the long run?," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(3), pages 761-782, July.
    13. Ronald R. Kumar & Peter J. Stauvermann, 2020. "Economic and Social Sustainability: The Influence of Oligopolies on Inequality and Growth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-23, November.
    14. Belitski, Maksim & Desai, Sameeksha, 2024. "Filtering or facilitating productive entrepreneurship?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    15. Philipp Lergetporer & Jens Ruhose & Lisa Simon, 2018. "Entry Barriers and the Labor Market Outcomes of Incumbent Workers: Evidence from a Deregulation Reform in the German Crafts Sector," CESifo Working Paper Series 7274, CESifo.
    16. Pourya Darnihamedani & Joern Hendrich Block & Jolanda Hessels & Aram Simonyan, 2015. "Start-up Costs, Taxes and Innovative Entrepreneurship," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 15-013/VII, Tinbergen Institute.
    17. Amanda Deerfield & Niklas Elert, 2023. "Entrepreneurship and Regulatory Voids: The Case of Ridesharing," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(5), pages 1568-1593, September.
    18. Weymouth Stephen, 2013. "Firm lobbying and influence in developing countries: a multilevel approach," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(4), pages 1-26, January.
    19. Pontus Braunerhjelm & Sameeksha Desai & Johan Eklund, 2015. "Regulation, firm dynamics and entrepreneurship," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 1-11, August.
    20. Herrera-Echeverri, Hernán & Haar, Jerry & Estévez-Bretón, Juan Benavides, 2014. "Foreign direct investment, institutional quality, economic freedom and entrepreneurship in emerging markets," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(9), pages 1921-1932.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:128603. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.