Gun violence and the political economy of forced labor investigations in Brazil

This paper examines how gun violence affects the efficiency of Brazil’s specialized government team that investigates forced labor. We develop a rational-choice model in which violence distorts informational signals: gun-related incidents generate more third-party complaints, creating misleading leads and reducing investigative accuracy. This signal-distortion mechanism increases the number of investigations but lowers their precision if the level of slavery remains constant, thereby expanding opportunities for forced labor in equilibrium. Empirically, we employ a shift–share design that combines small-arms trade data with local exposure to violence. The results show that greater gun availability raises both forced labor investigations and confirmed cases, consistent with the model’s predictions. Heterogeneous treatment effect analyses indicate that this mechanism operates mainly under conditions of high state capacity or intense violence, when enforcement depends most on reliable information.