Long run and shorter run Criminal cycles in the Public Economics of public bads . Shorter run criminal cycles of counterfeiting”

The aim of this chapter is to show long-run and shorter-run criminal-business cycles exist which cannot be merely explained with the long-run business cycles and to explore the possible causes of fluctuations and trends. We focus on the Italian case, considering – as for the long run – the yearly cycles of the two categories of crimes: those of corruption in the public economy and those of frauds and the like in the market economy from 1930 to 2010, with particular regard to the last 30 years. As for the short run, we examine the monthly fluctuations of the crimes of counterfeiting of brands and denominations of origin and those of safety and health requisites. The role of the memory of actions of deterrence with respect to previous crimes is also examined.