Pub Date : 2026-04-01Epub Date: 2026-01-17DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103724
Melissa Hidrobo , Harold Alderman , Negussie Deyessa , Daniel O. Gilligan , Parthu Kalva , Jessica Leight , Michael Mulford , Heleene Tambet
The prevalence of depression remains high in low-income contexts, particularly those affected by conflict. This paper reports on a randomized controlled trial conducted in rural Ethiopia assessing the effects of a psychological (group therapy) intervention delivered by non-specialist health staff, as well as a large one-time cash transfer delivered post-therapy. The trial includes three arms comparing group therapy, cash, and both jointly to a status quo control within a sample of individuals reporting some depressive symptoms or functional impairment at baseline. The study occurred between 2022 and 2024, during a period of active armed conflict. Findings show that sixteen months post-baseline, there are no persistent positive effects of group therapy alone; cash alone improves time use and economic outcomes. Group therapy and cash jointly improve psychosocial skills, time use, and economic outcomes, and in areas not affected by conflict, the joint intervention also improves mental health.
{"title":"The effects of cash and group therapy in the context of conflict: Evidence from a randomized evaluation in Ethiopia","authors":"Melissa Hidrobo , Harold Alderman , Negussie Deyessa , Daniel O. Gilligan , Parthu Kalva , Jessica Leight , Michael Mulford , Heleene Tambet","doi":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103724","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103724","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The prevalence of depression remains high in low-income contexts, particularly those affected by conflict. This paper reports on a randomized controlled trial conducted in rural Ethiopia assessing the effects of a psychological (group therapy) intervention delivered by non-specialist health staff, as well as a large one-time cash transfer delivered post-therapy. The trial includes three arms comparing group therapy, cash, and both jointly to a status quo control within a sample of individuals reporting some depressive symptoms or functional impairment at baseline. The study occurred between 2022 and 2024, during a period of active armed conflict. Findings show that sixteen months post-baseline, there are no persistent positive effects of group therapy alone; cash alone improves time use and economic outcomes. Group therapy and cash jointly improve psychosocial skills, time use, and economic outcomes, and in areas not affected by conflict, the joint intervention also improves mental health.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Economics","volume":"181 ","pages":"Article 103724"},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146039645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-04-01Epub Date: 2026-01-17DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103721
Ruoming Zhang
This study examines how China’s 1999 expansion of university admissions reshaped rural and urban students’ academic high-school choices and, in turn, rural–urban gaps in schooling and employment. Treating the nationwide expansion of tertiary capacity as an exogenous shock, we use microdata from the 2015 1% Population Sample Survey of China to estimate difference-in-differences models with county and cohort fixed effects. Relative to comparable urban cohorts, rural students exposed to the reform were 2.9 percentage points more likely to complete the academic high school track and accumulated an additional 0.26 years of schooling. The expansion also reallocated rural workers away from low-skill employment by 5.1 percentage points. These findings indicate a strong indirect channel operating through upper-secondary choices, while underscoring the need for complementary investments in rural upper-secondary schools and local non-farm labor markets. The evidence is consistent with changes in expectations and application behavior at the upper-secondary transition: national tertiary expansion increased the perceived attainability of the academic track for rural cohorts, inducing adjustments in continuation decisions.
{"title":"Higher education expansion and the rural–urban gap in secondary schooling and labor outcomes: Evidence from China’s 1999 reform","authors":"Ruoming Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103721","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103721","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines how China’s 1999 expansion of university admissions reshaped rural and urban students’ academic high-school choices and, in turn, rural–urban gaps in schooling and employment. Treating the nationwide expansion of tertiary capacity as an exogenous shock, we use microdata from the 2015 1% Population Sample Survey of China to estimate difference-in-differences models with county and cohort fixed effects. Relative to comparable urban cohorts, rural students exposed to the reform were 2.9 percentage points more likely to complete the academic high school track and accumulated an additional 0.26 years of schooling. The expansion also reallocated rural workers away from low-skill employment by 5.1 percentage points. These findings indicate a strong indirect channel operating through upper-secondary choices, while underscoring the need for complementary investments in rural upper-secondary schools and local non-farm labor markets. The evidence is consistent with changes in expectations and application behavior at the upper-secondary transition: national tertiary expansion increased the perceived attainability of the academic track for rural cohorts, inducing adjustments in continuation decisions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Economics","volume":"181 ","pages":"Article 103721"},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145993598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-04-01Epub Date: 2026-02-12DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103749
Caíque Melo
This paper examines how reduced individual influence leads politicians to use public-sector employment as a compensatory instrument. Identification exploits a Brazilian reform imposing population-based ceilings on municipal council size, generating quasi-experimental variation in political leverage. I combine electoral records for city councilors, campaign donation data on roughly 200,000 individuals, and matched administrative labor-market records. Reduced influence raises the likelihood that campaign supporters obtain public-sector jobs by about 26%. These gains concentrate in managerial and supervisory positions, include upward reallocation of already employed insiders, and are associated with lower education and greater skill and pay mismatch. The results show that public employment operates as a personnel-based distributive instrument, through which politicians offset diminished influence, with consequences for bureaucratic quality and governance.
{"title":"The distribution game: Evidence from 200,000 campaign donors","authors":"Caíque Melo","doi":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103749","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103749","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines how reduced individual influence leads politicians to use public-sector employment as a compensatory instrument. Identification exploits a Brazilian reform imposing population-based ceilings on municipal council size, generating quasi-experimental variation in political leverage. I combine electoral records for city councilors, campaign donation data on roughly 200,000 individuals, and matched administrative labor-market records. Reduced influence raises the likelihood that campaign supporters obtain public-sector jobs by about 26%. These gains concentrate in managerial and supervisory positions, include upward reallocation of already employed insiders, and are associated with lower education and greater skill and pay mismatch. The results show that public employment operates as a personnel-based distributive instrument, through which politicians offset diminished influence, with consequences for bureaucratic quality and governance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Economics","volume":"181 ","pages":"Article 103749"},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146189296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-04-01Epub Date: 2026-02-07DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103747
Magnus Neubert , Stefan Nikolić
Are railways always a harbinger of prosperity? We examine the economic effects of railways in Bosnia–Herzegovina under Habsburg colonial rule. Our novel dataset consistently tracks the non-agricultural population share of over 4500 settlements in Habsburg Bosnia in 1885, 1895, and 1910, based on census records. Applying the inconsequential units approach, with least-cost paths as our instrumental variable, we estimate the effect of railway access on occupational change. In settlements directly connected to imperial railways and competition, non-agricultural activity declined as craftsmen returned to agriculture. By contrast, the new railway network temporarily accelerated non-agricultural activity, primarily by attracting factories and foreign labor. Railway access generated more sustained non-agricultural employment growth in settlements with higher human capital and stronger law enforcement. Overall, our findings suggest that colonial railways did not uniformly promote economic development: while railway access reshaped local occupational structures, lasting positive effects depended on local development preconditions.
{"title":"Why railways fail: Colonial railways and economic development in Habsburg Bosnia–Herzegovina","authors":"Magnus Neubert , Stefan Nikolić","doi":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103747","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103747","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Are railways always a harbinger of prosperity? We examine the economic effects of railways in Bosnia–Herzegovina under Habsburg colonial rule. Our novel dataset consistently tracks the non-agricultural population share of over 4500 settlements in Habsburg Bosnia in 1885, 1895, and 1910, based on census records. Applying the inconsequential units approach, with least-cost paths as our instrumental variable, we estimate the effect of railway access on occupational change. In settlements directly connected to imperial railways and competition, non-agricultural activity declined as craftsmen returned to agriculture. By contrast, the new railway network temporarily accelerated non-agricultural activity, primarily by attracting factories and foreign labor. Railway access generated more sustained non-agricultural employment growth in settlements with higher human capital and stronger law enforcement. Overall, our findings suggest that colonial railways did not uniformly promote economic development: while railway access reshaped local occupational structures, lasting positive effects depended on local development preconditions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Economics","volume":"181 ","pages":"Article 103747"},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146189302","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-04-01Epub Date: 2026-01-29DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103730
Salomon Garcia-Villegas , Rodrigo Heresi
We study the welfare and macroeconomic implications of simple and implementable fiscal policy rules in commodity-dependent economies, where a large share of output, exports, and government revenues depends on exogenous and volatile commodity prices. Using a multi-sector New Keynesian model estimated for the Chilean economy, we find that the welfare-maximizing fiscal policy involves an actively countercyclical response to the tax revenue cycle and an acyclical response to the commodity revenue cycle. Compared to a benchmark acyclical policy, the optimized rule reduces macroeconomic (GDP growth) volatility while delivering welfare gains of 0.6% of lifetime consumption for the average household (1.2% for hand-to-mouth households). Government consumption and especially public investment are particularly helpful in stabilizing GDP, while targeted social transfers are essential to smooth the consumption of financially constrained households. Implementing the optimized rule requires moderate additional volatility (fiscal activism) in government spending and public debt.
{"title":"Rethinking fiscal rules in resource-rich economies","authors":"Salomon Garcia-Villegas , Rodrigo Heresi","doi":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103730","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103730","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study the welfare and macroeconomic implications of simple and implementable fiscal policy rules in commodity-dependent economies, where a large share of output, exports, and government revenues depends on exogenous and volatile commodity prices. Using a multi-sector New Keynesian model estimated for the Chilean economy, we find that the welfare-maximizing fiscal policy involves an actively countercyclical response to the tax revenue cycle and an acyclical response to the commodity revenue cycle. Compared to a benchmark acyclical policy, the optimized rule reduces macroeconomic (GDP growth) volatility while delivering welfare gains of 0.6% of lifetime consumption for the average household (1.2% for hand-to-mouth households). Government consumption and especially public investment are particularly helpful in stabilizing GDP, while targeted social transfers are essential to smooth the consumption of financially constrained households. Implementing the optimized rule requires moderate additional volatility (fiscal activism) in government spending and public debt.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Economics","volume":"181 ","pages":"Article 103730"},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146189295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-04-01Epub Date: 2026-02-11DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103728
Julio Acuna
I use shocks to the world supply of weapons to identify the causal effect of violence as a driver of the U.S. migrant border crisis. The main finding is that weapon supply shocks increase violence, and violence increases migration. Migration is not monotonic after violence shocks, implying changes in migration timing that have neutral impacts over sixteen quarters. Critically, children and unaccompanied children react the least rapidly to violence.
{"title":"Weapon supply shocks, violence, and migration","authors":"Julio Acuna","doi":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103728","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103728","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>I use shocks to the world supply of weapons to identify the causal effect of violence as a driver of the U.S. migrant border crisis. The main finding is that weapon supply shocks increase violence, and violence increases migration. Migration is not monotonic after violence shocks, implying changes in migration timing that have neutral impacts over sixteen quarters. Critically, children and unaccompanied children react the least rapidly to violence.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Economics","volume":"181 ","pages":"Article 103728"},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146189300","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-04-01Epub Date: 2026-01-24DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103722
Lisa Cameron , Diana Contreras Suárez , Diahhadi Setyonaluri
How to influence gendered attitudes that limit women’s participation in employment is not well understood. We provide randomly selected participants in Indonesia with information on the extent of (i) wives’ support for women with children working; (ii) husbands’ support for sharing day-to-day childcare; and (iii) mothers’ and mothers-in-law’s support for working women. As a result, the probability of participants choosing an online career mentoring course for women over a shopping voucher of equal value increased by 26%. Results appear to be driven by the demonstration of women’s support for women working. Additional information on men’s support for husbands sharing childcare and support among mothers and mothers-in-law for women working has limited additional impact.
{"title":"Leveraging women’s views to influence gendered attitudes to women working: Evidence from an online intervention in Indonesia","authors":"Lisa Cameron , Diana Contreras Suárez , Diahhadi Setyonaluri","doi":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103722","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103722","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How to influence gendered attitudes that limit women’s participation in employment is not well understood. We provide randomly selected participants in Indonesia with information on the extent of (i) wives’ support for women with children working; (ii) husbands’ support for sharing day-to-day childcare; and (iii) mothers’ and mothers-in-law’s support for working women. As a result, the probability of participants choosing an online career mentoring course for women over a shopping voucher of equal value increased by 26%. Results appear to be driven by the demonstration of women’s support for women working. Additional information on men’s support for husbands sharing childcare and support among mothers and mothers-in-law for women working has limited additional impact.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Economics","volume":"181 ","pages":"Article 103722"},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146189303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-04-01Epub Date: 2026-01-23DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103731
Runhao Zhao, Ye Yuan
Firms strategically locate and time their emissions to evade environmental regulations. We uncover a novel form of temporal evasion: firms discharge wastewater into waterways during periods of heavy rains. By employing a difference-in-differences approach and analyzing high-frequency water quality monitoring and rainfall data, we find that water pollution concentrations rise more significantly in catchment areas densely populated by polluting firms relative to low-density areas. Our empirical findings align with a stylized model that predicts polluters exploit the dilution effects of rainfall to strategically increase wastewater discharge under a threshold-based monitoring system. We estimate that this covert “polluting-in-the-rain” behavior can offset 43% of China’s annual emission reduction targets.
{"title":"Strategic emissions in the rain","authors":"Runhao Zhao, Ye Yuan","doi":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103731","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103731","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Firms strategically locate and time their emissions to evade environmental regulations. We uncover a novel form of temporal evasion: firms discharge wastewater into waterways during periods of heavy rains. By employing a difference-in-differences approach and analyzing high-frequency water quality monitoring and rainfall data, we find that water pollution concentrations rise more significantly in catchment areas densely populated by polluting firms relative to low-density areas. Our empirical findings align with a stylized model that predicts polluters exploit the dilution effects of rainfall to strategically increase wastewater discharge under a threshold-based monitoring system. We estimate that this covert “polluting-in-the-rain” behavior can offset 43% of China’s annual emission reduction targets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Economics","volume":"181 ","pages":"Article 103731"},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146039648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-04-01Epub Date: 2026-01-17DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103725
Rafael Parfitt , Nicolas Goulart
This paper examines how extreme heat affects healthcare delivery, using data on around 25 million births in Brazilian public hospitals between 2008 and 2019. Combining satellite-based temperature records with a high-dimensional fixed-effects design, we study how delivery practices and provider allocation vary with short-run temperature fluctuations in maternity wards. We find that extreme heat is associated with a lower probability that deliveries are led by physicians and a corresponding increase in nurse-led births, alongside a decline in cesarean section rates. Among physician-attended deliveries, extremely hot days are associated with a higher likelihood of pre-labor cesarean sections, consistent with shifts toward faster procedures under thermal stress. We find no detectable effects on immediate neonatal health as measured by Apgar scores. Together, these results suggest that temperature shocks reshape clinical decision-making and task allocation in maternity wards, revealing an operational channel through which climate stress affects healthcare delivery.
{"title":"Heatwaves and delivery practices: The effects of extreme temperature in Brazilian maternity wards","authors":"Rafael Parfitt , Nicolas Goulart","doi":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103725","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103725","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines how extreme heat affects healthcare delivery, using data on around 25 million births in Brazilian public hospitals between 2008 and 2019. Combining satellite-based temperature records with a high-dimensional fixed-effects design, we study how delivery practices and provider allocation vary with short-run temperature fluctuations in maternity wards. We find that extreme heat is associated with a lower probability that deliveries are led by physicians and a corresponding increase in nurse-led births, alongside a decline in cesarean section rates. Among physician-attended deliveries, extremely hot days are associated with a higher likelihood of pre-labor cesarean sections, consistent with shifts toward faster procedures under thermal stress. We find no detectable effects on immediate neonatal health as measured by Apgar scores. Together, these results suggest that temperature shocks reshape clinical decision-making and task allocation in maternity wards, revealing an operational channel through which climate stress affects healthcare delivery.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Economics","volume":"181 ","pages":"Article 103725"},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146080127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-04-01Epub Date: 2026-01-12DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103719
Eduardo Hidalgo , Erik Hornung , Pablo Selaya
We study how NAFTA changed the geography of violence in Mexico. We propose that this open border policy increased trafficking profits of Mexican cartels, resulting in violent competition among them. We test this hypothesis by comparing changes in drug-related homicides after NAFTA’s introduction in 1994 across municipalities with and without drug-trafficking routes. Routes are predicted least cost paths connecting municipalities with a recent history of detected drug trafficking with U.S. land ports of entry. On these routes, homicides increase by 2.1 per 100,000 inhabitants, which is equivalent to 26% of the pre-NAFTA mean. These results cannot be explained by changes in worker’s opportunity costs of using violence resulting from the trade shock.
{"title":"NAFTA and drug-related violence in Mexico","authors":"Eduardo Hidalgo , Erik Hornung , Pablo Selaya","doi":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103719","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103719","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study how NAFTA changed the geography of violence in Mexico. We propose that this open border policy increased trafficking profits of Mexican cartels, resulting in violent competition among them. We test this hypothesis by comparing changes in drug-related homicides after NAFTA’s introduction in 1994 across municipalities with and without drug-trafficking routes. Routes are predicted least cost paths connecting municipalities with a recent history of detected drug trafficking with U.S. land ports of entry. On these routes, homicides increase by 2.1 per 100,000 inhabitants, which is equivalent to 26% of the pre-NAFTA mean. These results cannot be explained by changes in worker’s opportunity costs of using violence resulting from the trade shock.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Economics","volume":"181 ","pages":"Article 103719"},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146039647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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