Research

Do positive export shocks fuel or dampen criminal violence? I examine this question by analyzing the avocado industry in Mexico, a setting that allows for testing both of the competing relevant effects: the predation effect and the opportunity cost effect. Exploiting the exogenous variation in avocado production driven by climate shocks, I find that positive shocks to avocado production lower homicide rates in Mexico, supporting the opportunity cost effect. Moving from the lowest to the highest level of monthly avocado production, this positive shock reduces the homicide rate by 0.65 per hundred thousand, relative to the average monthly homicide rate of 2.02. This finding suggests that the opportunity cost effect is largely at play in the avocado-growing states of Mexico, demonstrating a new context for the application of this theory. This study highlights the necessity for careful consideration of context and mechanism testing.

This paper examines the extent to which the 2005 Clean Air Act introduced in South Korea affected air pollution and infant health. To identify the causal effect, we exploit the time and geographical variations in the adoption of the Act between 2003 and 2006. During this period, the Clean Air Act indeed significantly reduced air pollutants. For example, the PM10 level was reduced by 9 percent. However, the Act’s impact on infant mortality was not statistically significant.

The coexistence of governments and organized crime groups (OCGs) is more common than previously believed. Why do governments allow such arrangements? This study distinguishes between two types of tolerance—hands-off and collusion—defined by the level of active protection, and examines when and why each is sustained. I develop a model that traces how policies of tolerance shape civilian welfare and criminal group behavior, and how these effects feed back into government survival and subsequent policy choice. The model yields three main findings. First, policies of tolerance can persist because OCGs strategically restrain extreme violence to secure continued government protection. This restraint, in turn, enhances public approval and strengthens government incentives to maintain the status quo policy. Second, violence restraint is asymmetric across policies of tolerance: when initial violence is high, moderation emerges only under collusion, while violence remains high under a hands-off policy. Third, violence restraint emerges as the size of contested prize, which OCGs compete over, increases above a critical threshold. I apply the theory to the cases of the Shanghai Green Gang and the Japanese Yakuza.

To what extent do local housing conditions influence immigrant settlement? Housing restrictions have historically been used to exclude minority residents from majority neighborhoods. However, amid a housing affordability crisis, many local governments in Canada are easing restrictions on multifamily homes and zoning rules for single-family homes. While some argue that reducing housing restrictions can address shortages and support immigrant settlement by increasing affordable housing options, evidence remains limited. This paper examines how local housing conditions shape immigrants’ neighborhood settlement decisions. Using census-division-level panel data from Statistics Canada and a novel survey experiment, we show that potential newcomers assess housing opportunities based on both affordability and housing type. Additionally, the diversity of initial neighborhoods significantly influences their settlement choices. By highlighting the role of local housing conditions, this study offers key insights into the factors that enhance newcomer integration within neighborhoods.

Over the past two decades, India’s construction boom has driven excessive demand for sand, resulting in local over-extraction, illegal sand mining, and the rise of violent sand mafias. Yet we know little about the impacts of sand-mining booms—centered on a minor mineral and driven by domestic demand—which differ fundamentally from booms involving highly profitable, exportable minerals. Using both an observational study and an original survey experiment, this paper examines the social and violent consequences of sand mining in India. First, using district-level panel data and records of riverine sand and gravel mining occurrences, Study 1 shows that state-wide construction booms are associated with increases in violent crime rates, particularly in sand-mining districts. On the other hand, they are simultaneously associated with decreases in social mobilization and resistance against sand-mining activities. Next, to explore the mechanisms underlying the observed pattern of social mobilization, Study 2 conducts a survey experiment in two Indian states to examine the drivers and deterrents of anti-mining protests. The findings provide evidence that the presence of coercion by sand mafias, along with economic benefits from sand mining, deters intentions to participate in protests when an illegal mining site is nearby. By examining a distinctive natural resource—sand—this paper offers new insights into the natural resource curse and the dynamics of social mobilization.

Democratic backsliding rarely unfolds uniformly: public support for core democratic values diverges, with civil rights eroding quickly while electoral procedures remain comparatively robust. This phenomenon—democratic decoupling—is especially visible in contexts where governments invoke crime mitigation and security rhetoric to justify illiberal measures. Although security‐threat narratives are known to encourage citizens to trade civil liberties for order, the cognitive mechanism behind these asymmetric shifts in democratic attitudes remains unclear. We argue that moralized motivated reasoning drives this pattern. Drawing on Moral Foundations Theory, we propose that collective security threats heighten binding moral concerns (loyalty, authority, sanctity) without similarly elevating individualizing ones (harm, fairness). Democratic traits aligned with binding foundations—such as strong leadership and institutional unity—thus become more salient, whereas rights-based constraints weaken. Using a U.S. survey experiment, we provide evidence for this mechanism. We further demonstrate that framing democratic traits in binding moral terms can attenuate or even reverse the erosive effects of crime narratives, restoring democratic resilience under threat.

Crime rates are a major concern among the American public, but systematic exploration of their impact on US voting behavior remains scarce. Although there is a considerable body of literature on retrospective voting behavior, these studies predominantly focus on economic voting, namely voters’ tendency to vote based on the state of the economy. In this study, we undertake a comprehensive and systematic examination of how crime rates influence voting in the US. At the county level, we analyze presidential, US House of Representatives, US Senate, gubernatorial, and state attorney elections. At the city level, we explore mayoral elections. For both county and city level crime rates, we utilize the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) data. To address endogeneity and attenuation bias arising from measurement errors in the crime data, we employ an instrumental variable (IV) approach, leveraging the timing of grants provided to law enforcement agencies through the Community Oriented Policing Service (COPS) program. Our data spans from 1995, the inception of the COPS program, to 2014, coinciding with the release of the most recent county-level UCR data. Our preliminary findings indicate that crime rates significantly impact votes for incumbents, particularly in presidential elections.