Pretending to be the Law: Violence to Reduce the COVID-19 Outbreak

Diego A. Martin and Dario Romero
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Diego A. Martin: Harvard's Growth Lab

No 220, Growth Lab Working Papers from Harvard's Growth Lab

Abstract: Did the COVID-19 pandemic create an opportunity to earn population control through illegal violence? We argue that criminal groups in Colombia portray as de facto police by using mass killings to reduce the COVID-19 outbreak. They used massacres as a threat to enforce social distance measures in places they considered worth decreasing mobility. Our results from an Augmented Synthetic Control Method model estimated that commuting to parks fell 20% more in areas with massacres than in places without mass killings. In addition, we do not find a decline in mobility to workplaces and COVID-19 deaths after the first mass killing. These findings are congruent with the hypothesis that illegal armed groups used fear to enforce mobility restrictions without hurting economic activities and their sources of revenue. However, violence slightly impacted the virus’ spread. Treated areas had a decline of 35 cases per 100,000 inhabitants four months after the first massacre.

Keywords: COVID-19; Social Distance; Lockdowns; Massacres; Governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 H75 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law and nep-ure
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Working Paper: Pretending to be the Law: Violence to Reduce the COVID-19 Outbreak (2023)
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