"Drugs, violence, mafias, death squads, guerrilla armies, authoritarianism, corruption, crisis, death. These are the images conjured up when I tell people about my research on labor regime dynamics in rural Colombia. Sensationalized in popular films and mass media, Colombian society is often...

Few expect illegal drug markets to completely disappear in a world of legally regulated psychoactive substances, but it is likely that the regulation of currently illicit drugs would significantly challenge the business model of today’s drug trafficking organizations. This article examines if...

What are the calculations of states in the international system when it comes to cooperation in the area of prohibition? By shifting the focus from normative policy outcomes to the importance of relationship-specific negotiation incentives, this work helps to explain the emergence and stability...

Large and rapid upswings in illicit drug use display similar properties to infectious disease epidemics. In this chapter, we review research to understand what causes drug epidemics and how they end. Drug market actors are subject to both positive and negative reinforcement that lead to rapid,...

"Interest in LEGAL Marijuana or Cannabis is growing everywhere. It's in the news. It's a big topic among politicians. CBD is entering everyday products and CBD stores are popping up everywhere. It's legalization is supported by a majority of Americans and people around the world. But with laws...

A recent surge in child migration to the U.S. from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala has occurred in the context of high rates of regional violence. But little quantitative evidence exists on the causal relationship between violence and international emigration in this or any other region....

The creation of a system -- The functioning of a system -- A local-level analysis of an opium district : Saran -- The costs and benefits of poppy cultivation -- The mechanics of a system : incentives, coercion and dependence.

This paper studies the effects of enforcement on illegal behavior in the context of a large aerial spraying program designed to curb coca cultivation in Colombia. In 2006, the Colombian government pledged not to spray a 10 km band around the frontier with Ecuador due to diplomatic frictions...

This paper studies the sharp increase in violence experienced in Mexico after 2006, known as "The War on Drugs," and its effects on human capital accumulation. The upsurge in violence is expected to have direct effects on individuals' schooling decisions, but not indirect effects, because there...

This study considers the effects of the kingpin strategy, an approach to fighting organized crime in which law-enforcement efforts focus on capturing the leaders of the criminal organization, on community violence in the context of Mexico's drug war. Newly available historical data on...