While worldwide crime is declining overall, criminality in Latin America has reached
unprecedented levels that have ushered in social unrest and political turmoil. Despite major …

This paper asks whether scarcity increases violence in markets that lack a centralized
authority. We construct a model in which, by raising prices, scarcity fosters violence. Guided …

This paper exploits variations in aerial spraying across time and space in Colombia and
employs a panel of individual health records in order to study the causal effects of the aerial …

This paper provides evidence that exposure to illegal labor markets during childhood leads
to the formation of industry‐specific human capital at an early age, putting children on a …

Humankind has used and abused psychoactive drugs for millennia. Formally, a
psychoactive drug is any agent that alters cognition and mood. The term “psychotropic drug” …

Illicit supply networks (ISNs) are composed of coordinated human actors that source, transit,
and distribute illicitly traded goods to consumers, while also creating widespread social and …

Counterdrug interdiction efforts designed to seize or disrupt cocaine shipments between
South American source zones and US markets remain a core US “supply side” drug policy …

Policies based on prohibition and repression to fight the war on drugs have largely failed in
a variety of contexts. However, incentive-based policies may also fail and have unintended …

Abstract Background In 2016 the Colombian government and the country's most important
guerrilla group-the FARC-signed a peace agreement that included the “definitive solution to …

This paper studies the effects of enforcement on illegal behavior in the context of a large
aerial spraying program designed to curb coca cultivation in Colombia. In 2006, the …