IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/col/000090/019409.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Femicide in Latin America: An economic approach

Author

Listed:
  • Carolina Álvarez-Garavito
  • Hugo Nicolás Acosta-González

Abstract

Justification: The rising cases of femicide across Latin America have pushed governments to enact specific laws criminalizing this gender-based murder to deter violence and crime against women. However, given the lack of data, the effect of these legislations is unknown. We aim to understand the causes and mechanisms of femicide across Latin American countries, as well as the possible effect of the legislation on femicide rate. We propose an economic approach that combines ideas proposed by Becker’s economics of crime and bargaining household models to understand the mechanisms behind femicide. The proposed approach suggests that legislation has a positive effect on reducing the number of murders of women by increasing the likelihood of the criminal being convicted and punished, thus changing these criminals’ incentives to commit the crime. However, government inaction and impunity towards femicide may impede the effectiveness of legislation in deterring criminal behavior. As data on femicide becomes available, the effect of the legislation on femicide rates could be estimated using a difference in difference method.

Suggested Citation

  • Carolina Álvarez-Garavito & Hugo Nicolás Acosta-González, 2021. "Femicide in Latin America: An economic approach," Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad, Universidad de los Andes,Facultad de Economía, CEDE, vol. 88(1), pages 11-42, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000090:019409
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://revistas.uniandes.edu.co/doi/pdf/10.13043/DYS.88.1
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Hidrobo, Melissa & Fernald, Lia, 2013. "Cash transfers and domestic violence," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 304-319.
    3. Amy Farmer & Jill Tiefenthaler, 1997. "An Economic Analysis of Domestic Violence," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(3), pages 337-358.
    4. Manser, Marilyn & Brown, Murray, 1980. "Marriage and Household Decision-Making: A Bargaining Analysis," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 21(1), pages 31-44, February.
    5. Gustavo J. Bobonis & Melissa González-Brenes & Roberto Castro, 2013. "Public Transfers and Domestic Violence: The Roles of Private Information and Spousal Control," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 179-205, February.
    6. Melissa Hidrobo & Amber Peterman & Lori Heise, 2016. "The Effect of Cash, Vouchers, and Food Transfers on Intimate Partner Violence: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Northern Ecuador," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 284-303, July.
    7. Becker, Gary S, 1973. "A Theory of Marriage: Part I," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(4), pages 813-846, July-Aug..
    8. Becker, Gary S, 1974. "A Theory of Marriage: Part II," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(2), pages 11-26, Part II, .
    9. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "A Theory of Marriage," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 299-351, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. McElroy, Marjorie B & Horney, Mary Jean, 1981. "Nash-Bargained Household Decisions: Toward a Generalization of the Theory of Demand," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 22(2), pages 333-349, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Sofia Amaral, 2015. "Do Improved Property Rights Decrease Violence Against Women in India?," Discussion Papers 15-10, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    2. Helen V. Tauchen & Ann Dryden Witte & Sharon K. Long, 1985. "Domestic Violence: A Non-random Affair," NBER Working Papers 1665, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Jara-Díaz, Sergio & Rosales-Salas, Jorge, 2017. "Beyond transport time: A review of time use modeling," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 209-230.
    4. Man Si, 2015. "Intrafamily bargaining and love," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 771-789, December.
    5. Matthew Gnagey & Therese Grijalva & Rong Rong, 2020. "Spousal influence and assortative mating on time preferences: a field experiment in the USA," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 461-512, June.
    6. Clark, Andrew E. & Etilé, Fabrice, 2011. "Happy house: Spousal weight and individual well-being," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1124-1136.
    7. Giulia La Mattina, 2014. "Civil Conflict, Sex Ratio and Intimate Partner Violence in Rwanda," HiCN Working Papers 175, Households in Conflict Network.
    8. Doepke, Matthias & Kindermann, Fabian, 2014. "Intrahousehold Decision Making and Fertility," IZA Discussion Papers 8726, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Rubalcava, L. & Thomas, D., 2000. "Family Bargaining and Welfare," Papers 00-10, RAND - Labor and Population Program.
    10. Banerjee, Ritwik & King, Elizabeth M. & Orazem, Peter F. & Paterno, Elizabeth M., 2012. "Student and teacher attendance: The role of shared goods in reducing absenteeism," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 563-574.
    11. Bowles, Roger & Garoupa, Nuno, 2002. "Household dissolution, child care and divorce law," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 495-510, December.
    12. Giulia La Mattina, 2014. "Civil Conflict, Sex Ratio and Intimate Partner Violence in Rwanda," Working Papers 0114, University of South Florida, Department of Economics.
    13. COOKE Lynn Prince, 2001. "Impact of Dual Careers on Average Family Size: Comparison of 11 Countries," IRISS Working Paper Series 2001-05, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.
    14. Grossbard-Shechtman, Shoshana, 2003. "A consumer theory with competitive markets for work in marriage," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 609-645.
    15. David J. G. Slusky & Donna K. Ginther, 2021. "Did Medicaid expansion reduce medical divorce?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 1139-1174, December.
    16. Du, Julan & Wang, Yongqin & Zhang, Yan, 2015. "Sex imbalance, marital matching and intra-household bargaining: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 197-218.
    17. Klein, Matthew J. & Barham, Bradford L., 2018. "Point Estimates of Household Bargaining Power Using Outside Options," Staff Paper Series 590, University of Wisconsin, Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    18. Kusago, Takayoshi & Barham, Bradford L., 2001. "Preference Heterogeneity, Power, and Intrahousehold Decision-Making in Rural Malaysia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(7), pages 1237-1256, July.
    19. Robert Kaestner, 1995. "The Effects of Cocaine and Marijuana Use on Marriage and Marital Stability," NBER Working Papers 5038, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Jacques Silber & Sasiwimon Warunsiri Paweenawat & Lusi Liao, 2022. "On the measurement of non-random mating and of its change over time," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 161-198, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Intimate Partner Violence; Legislation; Microeconomics; LatinAmerica;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K14 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Criminal Law
    • N36 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Latin America; Caribbean

    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:col:000090:019409. 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: Universidad De Los Andes-Cede (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceandco.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.