Papers by Fabrizio Costantino
While the enforcement of anticorruption policies has been prioritised by international institutio... more While the enforcement of anticorruption policies has been prioritised by international institutions and national governments, the tools for evaluating this enforcement have not been developed. The main reason for this underdevelopment is that corruption is measured and policies evaluated only at the societal level, while the level of actual corrupt transactions – the public institution – is rarely analysed. This paper outlines the conceptual justification for rethinking the focus of anticorruption monitoring, maps the corruption measurement and monitoring landscape and sketches a new instrument designed to serve a better targeted policy evaluation – Monitoring Anticorruption Policy Implementation (MACPI).
Organised crime poses a threat to the security and freedom of European citizens and impacts the l... more Organised crime poses a threat to the security and freedom of European citizens and impacts the lives of people worldwide. Recognising the severity of the problem and the need for coordinated action, the EU has initiated a number of measures to encourage closer cooperation between Member States and the adoption of common legal, judicial and investigative frameworks to address organised crime. The report Study on paving the way for future policy initiatives in the field of fight against organised crime: the effectiveness of specific criminal law measures targeting organised crime evaluates the practical application of legal and investigative tools stemming from Framework Decision 2008/841/JHA on the fight against organised crime, other EU and international regulations and national legislation. The study involved a review of the transposition of Framework Decision 2008/841/JHA in 28 Member States; examining how the identified legislation, relevant to the fight against organised crime, was used in practice in each Member State; a review of eight special legal and investigative tools and techniques used in the fight against organised crime and an overview of selected national specialist law enforcement and prosecution agencies involved in the fight against organised crime.
Corruption and measures to counteract it have been subject to so much research and political atte... more Corruption and measures to counteract it have been subject to so much research and political attention that it would seem that their every aspect must have been explored. Yet corruption proves bafflingly resilient, always finding new conduits for spreading; squeezed temporarily out of one public sector, it reappears in another. It could only benefit the anticorruption effort, therefore, if novel methods for analysis and prevention were found. It is in response to this need that the current report seeks to build bridges between the evaluation of anticorruption policies and the measurement of corruption. Monitoring Anticorruption Policy Implementation (MACPI) was born of the understanding that innovation in anticorruption is as important as it is in other social and economic fields. MACPI provides the anticorruption community with a precision-guided tool, which gives exhaustive feedback on the enforcement of policies.
Trends in Organized Crime, 2020
Human smuggling towards Europe has reached an unprecedented level in the last years. The past dec... more Human smuggling towards Europe has reached an unprecedented level in the last years. The past decade has seen an intensification of the demand for irregular migration services, which increased the role of smuggling rings as service providers to assist irregular migrants in evading national border controls, migration regulations and visa requirements. These criminal organizations feature an entrepreneurial, rent-seeking behaviour using methods such as corruption, deceit, violence, and threats. Literature observes a number of elements which are essential for the establishment and development of any criminal organisation (capital collection, profit maximisation, differentiation of tasks, systems to conceal criminal money flows), but their actual presence within the human smuggling rings has never been verified. Using secondary sources, this contribution aims at verifying the presence of these entrepreneurial elements in the case of human smuggling rings by using a multiple case-study a...
International Migration, 2016
This article provides evidence on irregular immigration to the US from Mexico in the years 1963–2... more This article provides evidence on irregular immigration to the US from Mexico in the years 1963–2014. It aims to answer to two questions. The first is: how much is irregular immigration responsive to changes in the US labour market? Compared with legal immigration, irregular immigration seems to be more sensitive to short-run economic cycles as it is not directly regulated by the policies of the destination country. Second, what effect does border enforcement have on irregular immigration? One of the proposals of the recent bill is the construction of a double layer fence on the Southern border. We do not know, however, to what extent a further increase in border security will prevent irregular immigration and at which economic cost. The contribution of this article is dual: first, it provides empirical evidence on irregular immigration to the US Second, it provides evidence about the effect of US border policies on irregular immigration.
Trends in Organized Crime
Human smuggling towards Europe has reached an unprecedented level in the last years. The past dec... more Human smuggling towards Europe has reached an unprecedented level in the last years. The past decade has seen an intensification of the demand for irregular migration services, which increased the role of smuggling rings as service providers to assist irregular migrants in evading national border controls, migration regulations and visa requirements. These criminal organizations feature an entrepreneurial, rent-seeking behaviour using methods such as corruption, deceit, violence, and threats. Literature observes a number of elements which are essential for the establishment and development of any criminal organisation (capital collection, profit maximisation, differentiation of tasks, systems to conceal criminal money flows), but their actual presence within the human smuggling rings has never been verified. Using secondary sources, this contribution aims at verifying the presence of these entrepreneurial elements in the case of human smuggling rings by using a multiple case-study analysis.
Higher education is a sensitive sector for corruption as it involves a substantial amount of reso... more Higher education is a sensitive sector for corruption as it involves a substantial amount of resources and high degrees of discretion. In particular, Bolivia dedicates around 17% of its annual budget, more than most Latin American Countries, to this sub-sector. The specific areas of corruption risks in higher education are: i) accreditation and quality control; ii) administration; iii) recruitment and admission; iv) academic integrity. Bribery, embezzlement, misappropriation/fraud, trading in influence, abuse of power/influence, collusion, patronage, nepotism, clientelism, and conflict of interest are the most common types of corruption occurring in the higher education sector. The following specific measures are proposed to decrease the risk of corruption in the higher education sector: control and sanctions; whistle-blower protection; ranking and accreditation; ethical code / code of conduct; promotion of academic integrity; monitoring of universities expenditure.
Chr. Michelsen Institute, 2020
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
This article provides evidence on irregular immigration to the US from Mexico in the years 1963–2... more This article provides evidence on irregular immigration to the US from Mexico in the years 1963–2014. It aims to answer to two questions. The first is: how much is irregular immigration responsive to changes in the US labour market? Compared with legal immigration, irregular immigration seems to be more sensitive to short-run economic cycles as it is not directly regulated by the policies of the destination country. Second, what effect does border enforcement have on irregular immigration? One of the proposals of the recent bill is the construction of a double layer fence on the Southern border. We do not know, however, to what extent a further increase in border security will prevent irregular immigration and at which economic cost. The contribution of this article is dual: first, it provides empirical evidence on irregular immigration to the US Second, it provides evidence about the effect of US border policies on irregular immigration.
Corruption and measures to counteract it have been subject to so much research and political atte... more Corruption and measures to counteract it have been subject to so much research and political attention that it would seem that their every aspect must have been explored. Yet corruption proves bafflingly resilient, always finding new conduits for spreading; squeezed temporarily out of one public sector, it reappears in another. It could only benefit the anticorruption effort, therefore, if novel methods for analysis and prevention were found.
It is in response to this need that the current report seeks to build bridges between the evaluation of anticorruption policies and the measurement of corruption. Monitoring Anticorruption Policy Implementation (MACPI) was born of the understanding that innovation in anticorruption is as important as it is in other social and economic fields. MACPI provides the anticorruption community with a precision-guided tool, which gives exhaustive feedback on the enforcement of policies.
Organised crime poses a threat to the security and freedom of European citizens and impacts the l... more Organised crime poses a threat to the security and freedom of European citizens and impacts the lives of people worldwide. Recognising the severity of the problem and the need for coordinated action, the EU has initiated a number of measures to encourage closer cooperation between Member States and the adoption of common legal, judicial and investigative frameworks to address organised crime.
The report Study on paving the way for future policy initiatives in the field of fight against organised crime: the effectiveness of specific criminal law measures targeting organised crime evaluates the practical application of legal and investigative tools stemming from Framework Decision 2008/841/JHA on the fight against organised crime, other EU and international regulations and national legislation. The study involved a review of the transposition of Framework Decision 2008/841/JHA in 28 Member States; examining how the identified legislation, relevant to the fight against organised crime, was used in practice in each Member State; a review of eight special legal and investigative tools and techniques used in the fight against organised crime and an overview of selected national specialist law enforcement and prosecution agencies involved in the fight against organised crime.
While the enforcement of anticorruption policies has been prioritised by international institutio... more While the enforcement of anticorruption policies has been prioritised by international institutions and national governments, the tools for evaluating this enforcement have not been developed. The main reason for this underdevelopment is that corruption is measured and policies evaluated only at the societal level, while the level of actual corrupt transactions – the public institution – is rarely analysed.
This paper outlines the conceptual justification for rethinking the focus of anticorruption monitoring, maps the corruption measurement and monitoring landscape and sketches a new instrument designed to serve a better targeted policy evaluation – Monitoring Anticorruption Policy Implementation (MACPI).
United Nations, New York, Jul 2010
in The Globalization of Crime. A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment, Jun 2010
This thesis aims to provide quantitative evidence on the flows of illegal immigrants in the U.S. ... more This thesis aims to provide quantitative evidence on the flows of illegal immigrants in the U.S. and the E.U. After describing the flows in space and time (years 2000-2011), the actors involved, and the role of criminal organizations as facilitator of illegal immigration, I test the correlation between the variables (GDP Growth Rate, Unemployment Rate, Gini Coefficient and Minimum Wage) recognized by the litereature as drivers of illegal immigration in the U.S. and the E.U. and the number of illegal immigrants apprehended at the border of these areas.
Books by Fabrizio Costantino
l recente cambio di prospettiva introdotto dal legislatore in materia di corruzione ha spostato i... more l recente cambio di prospettiva introdotto dal legislatore in materia di corruzione ha spostato il focus del contrasto alla corruzione da un approccio punitivo a uno di tipo preventivo. Il percorso preventivo necessita però di una solida base empirica che permetta ai policy maker di elaborare misure efficaci ed efficienti, massimizzando in questo modo l’azione di contrasto. Questo volume intende compiere un primo passo in tale direzione.
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Papers by Fabrizio Costantino
It is in response to this need that the current report seeks to build bridges between the evaluation of anticorruption policies and the measurement of corruption. Monitoring Anticorruption Policy Implementation (MACPI) was born of the understanding that innovation in anticorruption is as important as it is in other social and economic fields. MACPI provides the anticorruption community with a precision-guided tool, which gives exhaustive feedback on the enforcement of policies.
The report Study on paving the way for future policy initiatives in the field of fight against organised crime: the effectiveness of specific criminal law measures targeting organised crime evaluates the practical application of legal and investigative tools stemming from Framework Decision 2008/841/JHA on the fight against organised crime, other EU and international regulations and national legislation. The study involved a review of the transposition of Framework Decision 2008/841/JHA in 28 Member States; examining how the identified legislation, relevant to the fight against organised crime, was used in practice in each Member State; a review of eight special legal and investigative tools and techniques used in the fight against organised crime and an overview of selected national specialist law enforcement and prosecution agencies involved in the fight against organised crime.
This paper outlines the conceptual justification for rethinking the focus of anticorruption monitoring, maps the corruption measurement and monitoring landscape and sketches a new instrument designed to serve a better targeted policy evaluation – Monitoring Anticorruption Policy Implementation (MACPI).
Books by Fabrizio Costantino
It is in response to this need that the current report seeks to build bridges between the evaluation of anticorruption policies and the measurement of corruption. Monitoring Anticorruption Policy Implementation (MACPI) was born of the understanding that innovation in anticorruption is as important as it is in other social and economic fields. MACPI provides the anticorruption community with a precision-guided tool, which gives exhaustive feedback on the enforcement of policies.
The report Study on paving the way for future policy initiatives in the field of fight against organised crime: the effectiveness of specific criminal law measures targeting organised crime evaluates the practical application of legal and investigative tools stemming from Framework Decision 2008/841/JHA on the fight against organised crime, other EU and international regulations and national legislation. The study involved a review of the transposition of Framework Decision 2008/841/JHA in 28 Member States; examining how the identified legislation, relevant to the fight against organised crime, was used in practice in each Member State; a review of eight special legal and investigative tools and techniques used in the fight against organised crime and an overview of selected national specialist law enforcement and prosecution agencies involved in the fight against organised crime.
This paper outlines the conceptual justification for rethinking the focus of anticorruption monitoring, maps the corruption measurement and monitoring landscape and sketches a new instrument designed to serve a better targeted policy evaluation – Monitoring Anticorruption Policy Implementation (MACPI).