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The Rise and Persistence of Illegal Crops: Evidence from a Naive Policy Announcement

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  • Prem, Mounu
  • Vargas, Juan F.
  • Mejía, Daniel

Abstract

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 negative consequences if policymakers do not properly anticipate the behavioral reactions of people. This is particularly problematic in the case of policies that are announced prior to their implementation. This paper shows that a naive an untimely policy announcement generated an unprecedented escalation in the production of cocaine in Colombia, offsetting almost 20 years of US-backed efforts to fight the war on drugs in that country and billions of dollars invested.

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  • Prem, Mounu & Vargas, Juan F. & Mejía, Daniel, 2020. "The Rise and Persistence of Illegal Crops: Evidence from a Naive Policy Announcement," SocArXiv 6gmpd, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:6gmpd
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/6gmpd
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    Cited by:

    1. Giacomo Battiston & Gianmarco Daniele & Marco Le Moglie & Paolo Pinotti, 2022. "Fueling Organized Crime: The Mexican War on Drugs and Oil Thefts," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0286, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    2. Nino, Gustavo & Baylis, Kathy & Crost, Benjamin, 2022. "Conflict and Small-scale Investment: Evidence from Colombia Peace Agreement," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322323, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. German Orbegozo, 2021. "Consequences of violence against social leaders in Colombia," Documentos CEDE 19320, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    4. Guerra-Cújar, María Elvira & Prem, Mounu & Rodriguez-Lesmes, Paul & Vargas, Juan F., 2020. "The Peace Baby Boom: Evidence from Colombia’s peace agreement with FARC," SocArXiv c2ypd, Center for Open Science.
    5. 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.
    6. Ivan D. Lobo & Maria Alejandra Vélez, 2020. "From strong leadership to active community engagement: effective resistance to illicit economies in Afro Colombian collective territories," Documentos CEDE 17908, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation

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