This article posits that institutionalized mythologies can create comparative production advantages. Myths shape collective identity, mobilize actors, and fundamentally reshape production dynamics. Myths are institutionalized in market rules, regulations and structures, leading to the reification of the myth. The myth functions as if it is true, not because it is true, but because it shapes the rules of production. Yet without the initial myth, specific production incentives—and even their institutional comparative advantages—would not exist. My theory integrates approaches from modernist historians (“imagined communities”) and economic sociologists (“imagined futures”) to explain how myths (“imagined histories”) shape contemporary market outcomes, using the example of the French wine market. This argument contributes to the historical institutionalist approach, which focuses on the historical power dynamics between competing groups and the present-day social and market consequence of their institutionalized solutions.

This article looks at three Italian mafia organizations (Cosa Nostra, Camorra, and ‘Ndrangheta). It applies an organizational approach to the understanding of violence in mafia organizations by studying the relationship between their organizational orders and their criminal behavior. The article identifies two different organizational orders, vertical and horizontal, and demonstrates that Italian mafias, although operating in similar environments, can greatly differ from each other, and over time, in terms of their organizational model. Findings suggest that mafias with a vertical organizational order, due to the presence of higher levels of coordination, (1) have greater control over conflict, as proved by the lower number of “ordinary” murders; and (2) have greater capacity to fight state repression, as testified by the greater number of “high-profile” assassinations (e.g. politicians, magistrates, and other institutional members) that they carry out. Evidence is provided using a mixed-methods approach that combines a qualitative, organizational analysis of historical and judiciary sources, in order to reconstruct the organizational models and their evolution over time, with a quantitative analysis of assassination trends, in order to relate organizational orders to the use of violence.