Drug trafficking and the homicide epidemic in the Caribbean Basin

Brian Marein ()
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Brian Marein: Wake Forest University, Economics Department, Postal: 1834 Wake Forest Road, Winston-Salem, NC, 27109, https://sites.google.com/site/bcmarein/

No 126, Working Papers from Wake Forest University, Economics Department

Abstract: Most of the world’s highest homicide rates are found in the Caribbean basin. Common explanations for the region’s violence—such as inequality and long-standing culture—fail to explain the explosive growth of violence in recent decades. This paper examines the role of drug trafficking, a leading explanation among law enforcement but one that is difficult to establish causally due to the illicit and covert nature of the trade. I leverage an exogenous shock to drug trafficking: the 1973 Chilean coup, which abruptly redirected trafficking routes northward to Colombia and through the Caribbean. Using Puerto Rico, the Caribbean territory with the best data coverage, and a synthetic control constructed from US states—which share federal gun laws and other policies affecting violence—I estimate that the shock caused a 50% increase in homicides. Evidence from other parts of the region supports drug trafficking as the key driver of the Caribbean’s extraordinarily high levels of violence.

Keywords: homicide; crime; Latin America; Caribbean (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K42 N96 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2025-04-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-law
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:wfuewp:0126

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