During the 1990s, Latin America experienced a criminal procedural revolution (LACPR) when approximately 70% of its countries abandoned their inquisitorial system and adopted the U.S. adversarial model. Followed the LACPR, the region experienced a dramatic increase in crime, consolidating it as...

This paper studies the effects of enforcement on illegal behavior in the context of a large aerial spraying program designed to curb coca cultivation in Colombia. In 2006, the Colombian government pledged not to spray a 10 km band around the frontier with Ecuador due to diplomatic frictions...

Well-intended policies often have negative unintended consequences if they fail to foresee the different ways in which individuals may respond to the new set of incentives. When widespread and persistent, these may lead to a net reduction of social welfare. Focusing on the case of anti-drug...

A recurring debate in the literature on crime control is whether an increase in the probability of punishment is a more effective deterrent than an increase in the severity of the sanction. This paper further explores this issue in the context of crime in Colombia. We use a natural policy...

This paper attempts to evaluate the impact on crime of the restriction of late-night alcohol sales in Bogota and quantify the causal effect of problematic alcohol consumption on different crime categories. It is found that the restriction reduced deaths and injuries in car accidents and...

This paper evaluates the impacts of increased coordination, accountability, and leadership among teams of responsible public officials, with evidence from homicide investigations in Colombia. We randomly assigned the investigations of 66% of the 1,683 homicides occurring in Bogotá, Colombia,...

The main purpose of this paper is to summarize the information currently available on cocaine production and trafficking. The paper starts by describing the available data on cocaine production and trade, the collection methodologies (if available) used by different sources, the main biases in...

This paper develops a model of the war against illegal drugs in both producer and consumer countries. The paper studies the trade-off faced by the government of the drug consumer country between prevention policies (aimed at reducing the demand for drugs) and enforcement policies (aimed at...

This paper develops a model of a war against the producers of illegal hard drugs. This war occurs on two fronts. First, to prevent the cultivation of crops that are the raw material for producing drugs the state engages the drug producers in conflict over the control of arable land. Second, to...

This paper develops a tractable, heterogeneous agents general equilibrium model where individuals have different endowments of the factors that complement the schooling process. The paper explores the relationship between inequality of opportunities, inequality of outcomes, and aggregate...