IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/deveco/v178y2026ics0304387825000938.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A two-wave death story: fentanyl overdoses in the US, bullets in Mexico

Author

Listed:
  • Cruz, Iván López
  • Torrens, Gustavo

Abstract

We establish a link between the fentanyl crisis in the US starting in 2013 and a second wave of drug-related violence in Mexico. We argue that the demand for fentanyl from the US pushed emerging Pacific-based Mexican drug trafficking organizations to reoptimize their trafficking routes, leading to new clashes and violence, often in locations barely affected by the first wave of violence caused by the 2007 Mexican War on Drugs. Exploiting the differential impact that the Mexican War on Drugs and the demand of fentanyl had on different municipalities, we estimate that fentanyl caused about 20 additional homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

Suggested Citation

  • Cruz, Iván López & Torrens, Gustavo, 2026. "A two-wave death story: fentanyl overdoses in the US, bullets in Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:178:y:2026:i:c:s0304387825000938
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103542
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304387825000938
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103542?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

    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:eee:deveco:v:178:y:2026:i:c:s0304387825000938. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/devec .

    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.