The Effect of Drug-related Violence on Local State Capacity

• In Event: Crime and Organized Crime

Abstract

Does intra-state conflict promote or hinder state building? On one hand conflict could incentivize investments in state capacity such as the security forces. On the other hand conflict is disruptive and could crowd out resources from other state-building activities. We test the effect of conflict on state building in the context of the Mexican war on drugs by leveraging an original panel data set of state capacity investments across Mexican municipalities. We use a regression discontinuity design to compare municipalities where the president's party barely won to where it barely lost which previous research has shown corresponds strongly with the implementation of the war on drugs.

Authors

• Soeren Jannik Henn, IPA & University of Chicago

• Horacio Alejandro Larreguy, Harvard University

• John Marshall, Columbia University