Can scholarships for the poor reduce deadly violence? A sub-national exploration

• In Event: Violence, Crime, and inequalities in Latin America

Abstract

Critics of the war on drugs have turned to education as an alternative way to prevent and fight deadly violence. The most recent proposal on the subject (supported by AMLO in Mexico) is to offer scholarships to the marginalized youth to avoid their involvement in deadly violence. This strategy is likely to take-up hundreds of millions of dollars out of Mexico's budget. Can giving out scholarships to the marginalized youth help reduce deadly violence? In this paper we argue that, if intended to fight violence, scholarship programs should be designed with a strong sub-national perspective in mind. Giving that deadly violence is highly concentrated in dense urban areas, we argue that while this strategy might be effective in dense and violent urban areas, in rural areas, it may lead to a great deal of wasted resources. To evaluate this claim we use data on one of the largest experimental and pseudo-experimental evaluations ever conducted on a scholarship program, that of Mexico’s PROGRESA program. The results of our study have important implications for policymakers considering how to design and evaluate educational programs to prevent and fight the kind of deadly violence that emerges during Drug Wars.

Author

• Daniel Zizumbo Colunga, The Center for Research and Teaching in Economics - Mexico City