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Crime and Development

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 6, 2019 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Atlanta Marriott Marquis, L506
Hosted By: Econometric Society
  • Chair: Nicola Limodio, Bocconi University

Gender, Crime and Punishment: Evidence from Women Police Stations in India

Nishith Prakash
,
University of Connecticut

Abstract

We study the impact of an innovative policy intervention in India that led to a rapid expansion in ''all women police stations'' across cities in India on reported crime against women and deterrence. Using an identification strategy that exploits the staggered implementation of women police stations across cities and nationally representative data on various measures of crime and deterrence, we find that the opening of police stations increased reported crime against women by 22 percent. This is due to increases in reports of female kidnappings and domestic violence. In contrast, reports of gender-specific mortality and other non-gender specific crimes remain unchanged. Our findings suggest that the reported crime against women is driven by an increase in women's willingness to report crime due to greater exposure to female police officers. We also find that the implementation of women police stations also led to improvements in measures of police deterrence such as arrest rates.

Firms and Labor in Times of Violence: Evidence from the Mexican Drug War

Hale Utar
,
Bielefeld University and CESIfo

Abstract

Violence in Mexico has reached unprecedented levels in recent times. After the government crackdown on drug cartels, nation-wide homicides almost tripled between 2006 and 2010, reaching more than three times as many killings as Iraq and Afghanistan combined by 2010. Using longitudinal plant-level data and information on plants' detailed product portfolios and technology, this paper studies the impact of violent conflict on firms, exploiting this period of heightened violence in Mexico – commonly referred to as the Mexican Drug War. The empirical strategy uses time and spatial variation in violence across Mexican cities and an instrumental variable strategy relying on the triggers of the Drug War against potential endogeneity of violence surge. It controls for observable and unobservable differences across cities and firms as well as for product-specific aggregate shocks using fixed effects. The results show significant negative impact of the surge in
violence on plants’ output, product scope, employment and capacity utilization. Violence generates a negative blue-collar labor supply shock, leading to significant increase in skill-intensity within firms.
It also deters domestic, but not international, trade. The effect of the violence shock on firms is very heterogeneous, the output effect of violence increases with reliance on local demand, local sourcing and the employment effect of violence is stronger on plants with higher share of female and lower wage workers. The results reveal significant distortive effects of the Mexican Drug War on domestic
industrial development in Mexico and suggest that the Drug War accounted for the majority of the aggregate decline in manufacturing employment over 2007-2010.

Afraid to Go to School? Estimating the Effect of Violence on Schooling Outcomes

Martin F. Koppensteiner
,
University of Leicester
Livia Menezes
,
University of Leicester

Abstract

Homicides are undoubtedly the crudest outcome of violence and crime. They may instill fear with observers and may lead to behavioral adjustments. We use a number of large administrative Brazilian datasets to estimate the causal effect of exposure to homicides in the public way on schooling outcomes. Within-school estimates show that violence in the surroundings of schools, at the residence of students, and on the walking path from residence to school has a negative effect on a number of measures of school achievement such as test scores, repetition, dropout and school progression. We also
find that school attendance suffers following a homicide in the school surroundings. Exceptionally rich data allow us to investigate heterogeneous effects and
explore the channels underlying these effects.
JEL Classifications
  • O1 - Economic Development
  • J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor