IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/col/000124/002387.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Dynamics and causes of crime in Colombia

Author

Listed:
  • Felipe Barrera Osorio

Abstract

This paper adds to previous research on the causes of crime in Colombia by using a new dataset and better econometric estimations. The paper is a "meta" study on the past empirical research on crime. Based on microeconomic foundations, it tests several hypotheses on crime in Colombia. In concrete, the first finding is that drug crimes are highly correlated with other crimes. As some theories suggest, drug activities affect the judiciary system and as a by-product, are correlated with other crimes. Also, the dynamics of drug trade suggest the use of criminal activities to enforce their own operations (e.g. homicides to enforce the law of silence). Second, guerrilla activity is correlated with several types of crimes, including drug crimes, homicides, kidnappings and bank robberies; paramilitary activity is correlated with kidnappings and drug crimes. The article explores in a systematic way the relationship between the penal code and crime. In order to do this, an important effort is done in quantifying the legal code. The paper finds that the legal codes respond to criminal activity, but that laws have an impact on only few crime rates, such as kidnappings and terrorist attacks.

Suggested Citation

  • Felipe Barrera Osorio, 2004. "Dynamics and causes of crime in Colombia," Informes de Investigación 2387, Fedesarrollo.
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000124:002387
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/11445/1030
    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. Isaac Ehrlich, 1996. "Crime, Punishment, and the Market for Offenses," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 43-67, Winter.
    3. Freeman, Richard B., 1999. "The economics of crime," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 52, pages 3529-3571, Elsevier.
    4. Armando Montenegro & Carlos Esteban Posada, 1995. "Criminalidad en Colombia," Coyuntura Económica, Fedesarrollo, March.
    5. Gaviria, Alejandro, 2000. "Increasing returns and the evolution of violent crime: the case of Colombia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 1-25, February.
    6. Levitt Steven & Mauricio Rubio, 2002. "Crimen en Colombia: análisis y sugerencias de política," Informes de Investigación 2238, Fedesarrollo.
    7. Juan Luis Londoño & Rodrigo Guerrero & Bernard Couttolene & Ignácio Cano & Leandro Piquet Carneiro & Luciana Phebo & Mauricio Rubio & José Miguel Cruz & Luis Armando González & Luis Ernesto Romano & E, 2000. "Asalto al desarrollo: Violencia en América Latina," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 43498 edited by Juan Luis Londoño & Alejandro Gaviria & Rodrigo Guerrero, February.
    8. Jairo Núnez & Fabio Sánchez & François Bourguignon, 2003. "What Part Of The Income Distribution Matters For Explaining Property Crime? The Case Of Colombia," Documentos CEDE 3775, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    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. Milo Bianchi & Paolo Buonanno & Paolo Pinotti, 2012. "Do Immigrants Cause Crime?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(6), pages 1318-1347, December.
    2. Fábio Augusto Reis Gomes & Lourenço Senne Paz, 2004. "The Determinants Of Criminal Victimization In São Paulo State," Anais do XXXII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 32nd Brazilian Economics Meeting] 147, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    3. Stephen Machin & Olivier Marie, 2006. "Crime and benefit sanctions," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 5(2), pages 149-165, August.
    4. Lin, Ming-Jen, 2009. "More police, less crime: Evidence from US state data," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 73-80, June.
    5. Piopiunik, Marc & Ruhose, Jens, 2017. "Immigration, regional conditions, and crime: Evidence from an allocation policy in Germany," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 258-282.
    6. Denis Fougère & Francis Kramarz & Julien Pouget, 2009. "Youth Unemployment and Crime in France," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(5), pages 909-938, September.
    7. Paolo Buonanno, 2003. "The Socioeconomic Determinants of Crime. A Review of the Literature," Working Papers 63, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2003.
    8. Thomas A. Garrett & Lesli S. Ott, 2008. "City business cycles and crime," Working Papers 2008-026, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    9. Jens Ruhose, 2015. "Microeconometric Analyses on Economic Consequences of Selective Migration," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 61, May.
    10. Mirko Draca & Theodore Koutmeridis & Stephen Machin, 2019. "The Changing Returns to Crime: Do Criminals Respond to Prices?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(3), pages 1228-1257.
    11. Gerson Javier Perez, 2012. "Primera versión de la política de seguridad democrática: se cumplieron los objetivos?," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, December.
    12. Garett Jones & Ali Kutan, 2004. "Volatile Interest Rates, Volatile Crime Rates: A new argument for interest-rate smoothing," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2004-694, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    13. Santiago Montenegro & Álvaro Pedraza, 2009. "Falling Kidnapping Rates and the Expansion of Mobile Phones in Colombia," Documentos CEDE 6652, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    14. Diogo G. C. Britto & Paolo Pinotti & Breno Sampaio, 2022. "The Effect of Job Loss and Unemployment Insurance on Crime in Brazil," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(4), pages 1393-1423, July.
    15. Mejía, Leonardo Bonilla, 2010. "Demografía, juventud y homicidios en Colombia, 1979-2006," Revista Lecturas de Economía, Universidad de Antioquia, CIE, August.
    16. Sergio Beraldo & Raul Caruso & Gilberto Turati, 2012. "Life is Now! Time Discounting and Crime: Aggregate Evidence from the Italian Regions (2002-2007)," Working papers 013, Department of Economics, Social Studies, Applied Mathematics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino.
    17. repec:uab:wprdea:wpdea1409 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Angela K. Dills & Jeffrey A. Miron & Garrett Summers, 2010. "What Do Economists Know about Crime?," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Crime: Lessons For and From Latin America, pages 269-302, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Beraldo, Sergio & Caruso, Raul & Turati, Gilberto, 2013. "Life is now! Time preferences and crime: Aggregate evidence from the Italian regions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 73-81.
    20. Aoki, Yu & Koutmeridis, Theodore, 2019. "Shaking Criminal Incentives," IZA Discussion Papers 12781, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. Persson, Mats & Siven, Claes-Henric, 2006. "Incentive and incarceration effects in a general equilibrium model of crime," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 214-229, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Conflictos; Violencia; Causas de la Violencia; Economía Colombiana;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • O54 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - 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:000124:002387. 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: Patricia Monroy (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fedesco.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.