Formal Employment and Organised Crime: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from Colombia

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Khanna, Gaurav; Medina, Carlos; Nyshadham, Anant; Tamayo, Jorge; Torres, Nicolas
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California San Diego; Banco de la Republica Colombia; University of Michigan System; University of Michigan; National Bureau of Economic Research; Harvard University
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1093/ej/uead025
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 2427-2448
• 关键词: Payroll taxes; unemployment-insurance; bolsa-familia; job loss; VIOLENCE; LABOR; youth; CONSEQUENCES; informality; MARKETS

摘要

Safety net programs, common in settings with high informality like Latin America, often use a means test to establish eligibility. We ask: in settings in which organised crime provides lucrative opportunities in the informal market, will discouraging formal employment via benefits eligibility criteria increase criminal enterprise activity? We link administrative socioeconomic microdata with the universe of arrests in Medellin over a decade, and exploit exogenous variation in formal-sector employment around a socioeconomic-score cutoff, below which individuals receive generous benefits if not formally employed. Regression discontinuity estimates confirm this policy reduced formal-sector employment and generated a corresponding increase in arrests associated with organised crime. We do not find increases for crimes unlikely to be associated with organised entities, such as crimes of impulse or opportunity. Effects on arrests are strongest in neighbourhoods where organised crime is most prevalent.