IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/wbecrv/v31y2017i2p570-594..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the Effects of Enforcement on Illegal Markets: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment in Colombia

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Mejía
  • Pascual Restrepo
  • Sandra V. Rozo

Abstract

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 Colombian government pledged not to spray a 10 km band around the frontier with Ecuador due to diplomatic frictions arising from the possibly negative collateral effects of this policy on the Ecuadorian side of the border. We exploit this variation to estimate the effect of spraying on coca cultivation by regression discontinuity around the 10 km threshold and by conditional differences in differences. Our results suggest that spraying one additional hectare reduces coca cultivation by 0.022 to 0.03 hectares; these effects are too small to make aerial spraying a cost-effective policy for reducing cocaine production in Colombia.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Mejía & Pascual Restrepo & Sandra V. Rozo, 2017. "On the Effects of Enforcement on Illegal Markets: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment in Colombia," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 31(2), pages 570-594.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:wbecrv:v:31:y:2017:i:2:p:570-594.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/wber/lhv051
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mirko Draca & Stephen Machin & Robert Witt, 2011. "Panic on the Streets of London: Police, Crime, and the July 2005 Terror Attacks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2157-2181, August.
    2. Adriana Camacho and Daniel Mejia, 2015. "The Health Consequences of Aerial Spraying of Illicit Crops: The Case of Colombia - Working Paper 408," Working Papers 408, Center for Global Development.
    3. Ibanez, Marcela & Carlsson, Fredrik, 2010. "A survey-based choice experiment on coca cultivation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 249-263, November.
    4. Reyes, Luis Carlos, 2014. "Estimating the Causal Effect of Forced Eradication on Coca Cultivation in Colombian Municipalities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 70-84.
    5. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2009. "Regression Discontinuity Designs In Economics," Working Papers 1118, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    6. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Alberto Abadie & Joshua Angrist & Guido Imbens, 2002. "Instrumental Variables Estimates of the Effect of Subsidized Training on the Quantiles of Trainee Earnings," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 91-117, January.
    8. Camacho, Adriana & Mejía, Daniel, 2017. "The health consequences of aerial spraying illicit crops: The case of Colombia," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 147-160.
    9. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 281-355, June.
    10. Imbens, Guido W. & Lemieux, Thomas, 2008. "Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 615-635, February.
    11. George J. Stigler, 1974. "The Optimum Enforcement of Laws," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 55-67, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Avner Bar-Ilan & Bruce Sacerdote, 2001. "The Response to Fines and Probability of Detection in a Series of Experiments," NBER Working Papers 8638, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Andrew Gelman & Guido Imbens, 2019. "Why High-Order Polynomials Should Not Be Used in Regression Discontinuity Designs," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 447-456, July.
    14. Buonanno, Paolo & Mastrobuoni, Giovanni, 2012. "Police and Crime: Evidence from Dictated Delays in Centralized Police Hiring," IZA Discussion Papers 6477, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Mejia, Daniel & Restrepo, Pascual, 2016. "The economics of the war on illegal drug production and trafficking," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 126(PA), pages 255-275.
    16. Levitt, Steven D, 1997. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 270-290, June.
    17. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    18. Keisuke Hirano & Guido W. Imbens & Geert Ridder, 2003. "Efficient Estimation of Average Treatment Effects Using the Estimated Propensity Score," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(4), pages 1161-1189, July.
    19. Moreno-Sanchez, Rocio & Kraybill, David S. & Thompson, Stanley R., 2003. "An Econometric Analysis of Coca Eradication Policy in Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 375-383, February.
    20. Daniel Mejía & Carlos E. Posada, 2007. "Cocaine Production and Trafficking: What do we know?," Borradores de Economia 3955, Banco de la Republica.
    21. Cameron, Samuel, 1988. "The Economics of Crime Deterrence: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 301-323.
    22. Bruno S. Frey, 1997. "Not Just for the Money," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1183.
    23. James Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Jeffrey Smith & Petra Todd, 1998. "Characterizing Selection Bias Using Experimental Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(5), pages 1017-1098, September.
    24. Guido Imbens & Karthik Kalyanaraman, 2012. "Optimal Bandwidth Choice for the Regression Discontinuity Estimator," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(3), pages 933-959.
    25. Joshua D. Angrist, 1998. "Estimating the Labor Market Impact of Voluntary Military Service Using Social Security Data on Military Applicants," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(2), pages 249-288, March.
    26. Marco Caliendo & Sabine Kopeinig, 2008. "Some Practical Guidance For The Implementation Of Propensity Score Matching," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 31-72, February.
    27. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    28. Evans, William N. & Owens, Emily G., 2007. "COPS and crime," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1-2), pages 181-201, February.
    29. Francesco Bogliacino & Alberto J. Naranjo, 2012. "Coca Leaves Production and Eradication: A General Equilibrium Analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(1), pages 382-397.
    30. García, Juan Felipe & Mejía, Daniel & Ortega, Daniel, 2013. "Police reform, training and crime: experimental evidence from colombia's plan cuadrantes," Research Department working papers 245, CAF Development Bank Of Latinamerica.
    31. Conley, T. G., 1999. "GMM estimation with cross sectional dependence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 1-45, September.
    32. MacCoun,Robert J. & Reuter,Peter, 2001. "Drug War Heresies," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521799973.
    33. Juan Felipe García & Daniel Mejia & Daniel Ortega, 2013. "Police Reform, Training and Crime: Experimental evidence from Colombia´s Plan Cuadrantes," Documentos CEDE 10497, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    34. Justin McCrary, 2002. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1236-1243, September.
    35. Dubin, Jeffrey A & Graetz, Michael J & Wilde, Louis L, 1987. "Are We a Nation of Tax Cheaters? New Econometric Evidence on Tax Compliance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(2), pages 240-245, May.
    36. Rafael Di Tella & Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2004. "Do Police Reduce Crime? Estimates Using the Allocation of Police Forces After a Terrorist Attack," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 115-133, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Prohibición de las fumigaciones de glifosato y principio de precaución: ¡Una relación compleja!
      by David Bardey in Foco Económico on 2019-10-29 20:51:20

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Leonardo Bonilla Mejía & Iván Higuera Mendieta, 2016. "¿Parques de papel? Áreas protegidas y deforestación en Colombia," Documentos de trabajo sobre Economía Regional y Urbana 248, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    2. Jose Fernandez & M Pazzona, 2015. "Evaluating the Spillover Effects of the Plan Colombia in Ecuador," Department of Economics Working Papers 41/15, University of Bath, Department of Economics.
    3. Mounu Prem & Juan F. Vargas & Daniel Mejía, 2023. "The Rise and Persistence of Illegal Crops: Evidence from a Naive Policy Announcement," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(2), pages 344-358, March.
    4. Hernando Zuleta González, 2017. "Coca, cocaína y narcotráfico," Documentos CEDE 15634, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    5. Eleonora Dávalos & Leonardo Fabio Morales, 2023. "Diffusion of crime control benefits: forced eradication and coca crops in Colombia," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 292-317, July.
    6. Eleonora Dávalos & Leonardo Fabio Morales, 2019. "Is there a balloon effect? Coca crops and forced eradication in Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo de Valor Público 17350, Universidad EAFIT.
    7. Mejia, Daniel & Restrepo, Pascual, 2016. "The economics of the war on illegal drug production and trafficking," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 126(PA), pages 255-275.
    8. Maria Micaela Sviatschi, 2018. "Making a Narco: Childhood Exposure to Illegal Labor Markets and Criminal Life Paths," Working Papers sviatschi_making-a-narco_, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Research Program in Development Studies..
    9. Pinedo, Wilman J. Iglesias, 2022. "The Effect of Plan Colombia on the Value of Legal Agricultural Production," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322605, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    10. Juan Pablo Cote, 2019. "The Effect of Interdiction on Coca Cultivation in Colombia," Documentos CEDE 17316, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    11. Carvajal, Hernán, 2023. "Efectos de la suspensión de las aspersiones aéreas con glifosato sobre la deserción escolar en Colombia," Documentos CEDE 20307, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    12. Lucas Marín Llanes, 2020. "Unintended Consequences of Alternative Development Programs: Evidence From Colombia's Illegal Crop Substitution," Documentos CEDE 18468, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    13. McCully, Brett, 2021. "Immigrants, Legal Status, and Illegal Trade," MPRA Paper 109610, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Freylejer, Leandro & Orr, Scott, 2023. "Import substitution in illicit methamphetamine markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    15. Muñoz-Mora, Juan Carlos & Tobón, Santiago & d’Anjou, Jesse Willem, 2018. "The role of land property rights in the war on illicit crops: Evidence from Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 268-283.
    16. Maria Micaela Sviatschi, 2019. "Making a Narco: Childhood Exposure to Illegal Labor Markets and Criminal Life Paths," Working Papers 2019-28, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    17. Bonilla-Mejía, Leonardo & Higuera-Mendieta, Iván, 2019. "Protected Areas under Weak Institutions: Evidence from Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 585-596.
    18. Camacho, Adriana & Mejía, Daniel, 2017. "The health consequences of aerial spraying illicit crops: The case of Colombia," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 147-160.
    19. Gehring, Kai & Langlotz, Sarah & Kienberger, Stefan, 2018. "Stimulant or depressant? Resource-related income shocks and conflict," Working Papers 0652, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    20. Ladino, Juan Felipe & Saavedra, Santiago & Wiesner, Daniel, 2021. "One step ahead of the law: The net effect of anticipation and implementation of Colombia’s illegal crops substitution program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martin Huber, 2019. "An introduction to flexible methods for policy evaluation," Papers 1910.00641, arXiv.org.
    2. Buonanno, Paolo & Mastrobuoni, Giovanni, 2012. "Police and Crime: Evidence from Dictated Delays in Centralized Police Hiring," IZA Discussion Papers 6477, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Reyes, Luis Carlos, 2014. "Estimating the Causal Effect of Forced Eradication on Coca Cultivation in Colombian Municipalities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 70-84.
    4. Alexander F. McQuoid & J. Britton Haynes Jr., 2017. "The Thin (Red) Blue Line: Police Militarization and Violent Crime," Departmental Working Papers 56, United States Naval Academy Department of Economics.
    5. Egidio Farina, 2018. "The impact of political and religious leaders on socio-economic outcomes," Economics PhD Theses 0218, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    6. Gerson Javier Perez, 2012. "Primera versión de la política de seguridad democrática: se cumplieron los objetivos?," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, December.
    7. Alejandro Gaviria & Carlos Medina & Jorge Tamayo, 2010. "Assessing the Link between Adolescent Fertility and Urban Crime," Borradores de Economia 6860, Banco de la Republica.
    8. Islam,Asif Mohammed, 2016. "An exploration of the relationship between police presence, crime, and business in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7560, The World Bank.
    9. Philip A. Curry & Anindya Sen & George Orlov, 2016. "Crime, apprehension and clearance rates: Panel data evidence from Canadian provinces," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(2), pages 481-514, May.
    10. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    11. Mirko Draca & Stephen Machin & Robert Witt, 2011. "Panic on the Streets of London: Police, Crime, and the July 2005 Terror Attacks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2157-2181, August.
    12. Anna Bindler & Randi Hjalmarsson, 2021. "The Impact of the First Professional Police Forces on Crime [State Capacity and Economic Development: A Network Approach]," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(6), pages 3063-3103.
    13. Mauricio Villamizar‐Villegas & Freddy A. Pinzon‐Puerto & Maria Alejandra Ruiz‐Sanchez, 2022. "A comprehensive history of regression discontinuity designs: An empirical survey of the last 60 years," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 1130-1178, September.
    14. Jeffrey Smith & Arthur Sweetman, 2016. "Viewpoint: Estimating the causal effects of policies and programs," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 49(3), pages 871-905, August.
    15. Paul Heaton & Priscillia Hunt & John MacDonald & Jessica Saunders, 2016. "The Short- and Long-Run Effects of Private Law Enforcement: Evidence from University Police," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages 889-912.
    16. Jonathan Klick & Alexander Tabarrok, 2010. "Police, Prisons, and Punishment: The Empirical Evidence on Crime Deterrence," Chapters, in: Bruce L. Benson & Paul R. Zimmerman (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Crime, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Arvate, Paulo & Souza, André Portela, 2022. "Armed police and violence: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in Brazil," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    18. Amanda Ross & Anne Walker, 2014. "Low Priority Laws and the Allocation of Police Resources," Working Papers 14-06, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    19. Angela K. Dills & Jeffrey A. Miron & Garrett Summers, 2010. "What Do Economists Know about Crime?," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Crime: Lessons For and From Latin America, pages 269-302, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Bauernschuster, Stefan & Rekers, Ramona, 2022. "Speed limit enforcement and road safety," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H00 - Public Economics - - General - - - General
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • O21 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Planning Models; Planning Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:wbecrv:v:31:y:2017:i:2:p:570-594.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wrldbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.