Income inequality and violent crime: Evidence from Mexico's drug war

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to examine the effect of inequality on crime rates in a unique context, Mexico's drug war. The analysis exploits an original dataset containing inequality and crime statistics on more than 2,000 Mexican municipalities over a 20-year period. To uncover the causal effect of inequality on crime, we use an instrumental variable for the Gini coefficient that combines the initial income distribution at the municipality level with national trends. Our estimates indicate that a one-point increment in the Gini coefficient between 2007 and 2010 translates into an increase of more that 36 percent in the number of drug-related homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. The fact that the effect found during the drug war is substantially greater is likely caused by the rise in rents to be extracted through crime and an expansion in the employment opportunities in the illegal sector through the proliferation of drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), accompanied by a decline in legal job opportunities and a reduction in the probability of being caught given the resource constraints faced by the law enforcement system. Combined, the latter factors made the expected benefits of criminal activity shift in a socially undesirable direction after 2007.

Evaluation of two remediation techniques applied to a site impacted by petroleum production waters

“…In some of these regions, the most representative source of pollution are the derivatives and residues of the oil industry, of which, crude oil, fuels and water of formation or production called congenital water stand out, due to the composition they possess, different studies they are considered as dangerous, in some cases, below by normative limits (Khodaveisi et al, 2011;Cavazos-Arroyo et al, 2014;Ordóñez and Schroeder, 2014). The reports of the emergencies of these spills mention that most of them occur due to ruptured pipelines related to the lack of maintenance or natural disasters, but in some countries, there has recently been an increasing tendency that these are provoked, mainly during the fuel theft (Romo, 2016;Enamorado et al, 2016;Oswald, 2017). To remedy these sites, different proposals have been carried out, some have managed to re-establish the vocation of use, despite this, and there still problems after restoration such as toxicity and water repellency (Fawzy, 2008;Yongming, 2009;Arao et al, 2010).…”

Does Income Inequality Explain the Geography of Residential Burglaries? The Case of Belo Horizonte, Brazil

“…While a potential connection between income inequality and the spatial distribution of crime within a city could be conjectured by combining these different theories, this has not often been tested. Most empirical studies comparing crime rates and income inequality have been conducted at more macro-scales such as comparing cities, counties, or even whole regions or countries [1,3,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19]; contrasting with that, I found only five studies analyzing this relationship at a within-city scale [20][21][22][23][24].…”

“…The relationship between crime and income inequality is complex and controversial. While there is some consensus that a relationship exists, the nature of it is the subject of much debate, which is further intensified by its relevance to the public debate [1][2][3][4][5]. In this paper, this relation is investigated in the context of urban geography: Does income inequality explain the geography of crime within cities?…”

Internal migration and crime in Brazil

“…Evidence for Latin America comes mainly from Mexico, where homicide rates have increased severely in the past decade. Inequality significantly predicts drug-related homicides (Enamorado et al 2016). For Brazil, there is evidence that inequality, urbanization, and unemployment are determinants of federal homicide rates (Sachsida 2013;Sachsida et al 2010), but income, male population, drug use, firearm ownership, incarceration rate, and police effectiveness are also strongly correlated with crime (Cerqueira 2014b).…”