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Fighting Crime with a Little Help from my Friends: Party Affiliation, Inter‐jurisdictional Cooperation and Crime in Mexico

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  • Ruben Durante

    (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPREMAP - Centre pour la recherche économique et ses applications - ECO ENS-PSL - Département d'économie de l'ENS-PSL - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres)

  • Emilio Gutierrez

    (ITAM - Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México)

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between inter-jurisdictional cooperation and law enforcement in Mexico. Exploiting a Regression Discontinuity Design in close municipal elections, we study how improved opportunities for cooperation in crime prevention among neighboring municipalities - proxied by their degree of political alignment - may result in lower rates of violent crime. We find that municipalities in which the party in power in the majority of neighboring jurisdictions barely won experience significantly lower homicide rates during the mayor's mandate than those in which it barely lost. This effect is sizeable and independent of which party is in power in the neighboring municipalities.

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  • Ruben Durante & Emilio Gutierrez, 2013. "Fighting Crime with a Little Help from my Friends: Party Affiliation, Inter‐jurisdictional Cooperation and Crime in Mexico," Working Papers hal-03460752, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03460752
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-03460752
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ken Yahagi & Susumu Cato, 2023. "Strategic crackdown on organized crime by local governments," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 237-257, June.

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