TY - JOUR
T1 - THE RISE AND PERSISTENCE OF ILLEGAL CROPS
T2 - EVIDENCE FROM A NAIVE POLICY ANNOUNCEMENT
AU - Prem, Mounu
AU - Vargas, Juan F.
AU - Mejía, Daniel
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
PY - 2023/3
Y1 - 2023/3
N2 - Policies based on prohibition and repression to fight the war on drugs have largely failed in a variety of contexts. However, incentive-based policies may also fail and have unintended negative consequences if policymakers do not properly anticipate behavioral reactions. This is an particularly important concern in the case of policies announced prior to their implementation. In this paper, we show that a naive and untimely policy announcement generated an unprecedented escalation in cocaine production in Colombia, offsetting almost 20 years and billions of dollars of U.S.-backed efforts to stop drug production and cartel action.
AB - Policies based on prohibition and repression to fight the war on drugs have largely failed in a variety of contexts. However, incentive-based policies may also fail and have unintended negative consequences if policymakers do not properly anticipate behavioral reactions. This is an particularly important concern in the case of policies announced prior to their implementation. In this paper, we show that a naive and untimely policy announcement generated an unprecedented escalation in cocaine production in Colombia, offsetting almost 20 years and billions of dollars of U.S.-backed efforts to stop drug production and cartel action.
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U2 - 10.1162/rest_a_01059
DO - 10.1162/rest_a_01059
M3 - Research Article
AN - SCOPUS:85149950307
SN - 0034-6535
VL - 105
SP - 344
EP - 358
JO - Review of Economics and Statistics
JF - Review of Economics and Statistics
IS - 2
ER -