Cartelized protection firms promote internally rather than through open competition.

Evidence

The predominant career path is by way of the internal labor market, not direct market competition. Thus, the inevitable tensions surrounding succession are not as severe in Sicily as in Naples or Calabria, and in many instances succession is prepared for over a long period of time by agreement among the established hierarchy. The reputation necessary to occupy the key positions is also gained not on the open market but internally, by demonstrating loyalty and determination, and ultimately by being co-opted from the top. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 270

Categorization

• XREF: Internal promotion, reputation-by-co-optation, and orderly succession directly instantiate the institutional substitutes for open-market signaling the reader is mapping onto the Corleone firm in The Godfather.