Working Paper: NBER ID: w24897
Authors: Ceren Baysan; Marshall Burke; Felipe González; Solomon Hsiang; Edward Miguel
Abstract: Organized intergroup violence is almost universally modeled as a calculated act motivated by economic factors. In contrast, it is generally assumed that non-economic factors, such as an individual's emotional state, play a role in many types of interpersonal violence, such as "crimes of passion." We ask whether economic or non-economic factors better explain the well-established relationship between temperature and violence in a unique context where intergroup killings by drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs) and "normal" interpersonal homicides are separately documented. A constellation of evidence, including the limited influence of a cash transfer program as well as comparison with both non-violent DTO crime and suicides, indicate that economic factors only partially explain the observed relationship between temperature and violence. We argue that non-economic psychological and physiological factors that are affected by temperature, modeled here as a "taste for violence," likely play an important role in causing both interpersonal and intergroup violence.
Keywords: violence; temperature; psychological factors; economic factors; Mexico
JEL Codes: O1; Q51; Q54
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Higher monthly temperatures (Q54) | Increase in DTO killings (O00) |
| Higher monthly temperatures (Q54) | Increase in regular homicides (K42) |
| Higher monthly temperatures (Q54) | Increase in interpersonal violence (J12) |
| Higher monthly temperatures (Q54) | Increase in intergroup violence (D74) |
| Temperature changes (E39) | Violence (D74) |
| Temperature changes (E39) | Psychological influences on violence (D91) |
| Economic factors (P42) | Limited influence on violence (D74) |
| Economic interventions (E65) | Ineffective in mitigating violence from climate change (Q54) |