The 3 x 1 Programme and Criminal Violence in Mexico

Are levels of criminal violence lower where emigrants collaborate with the state authorities in the funding and provision of public goods and services? In this article, I examine the causal effect on violence levels in the municipalities participating in Mexico's Three-for-One (3×1) Programme for Migrants. Using municipal-level data for the period between 2001 and 2010, the analysis shows that the implementation of this programme led to an increase in violence in the municipalities in question, and that this effect is driven by the ‘war on drugs’ initiated by the Mexican government in 2006. Because cartels splinter when kingpins are captured, they look for sources of revenue other than drug smuggling. The budgetary gains obtained via the 3×1 Programme inadvertently increased the returns of extortion and directed the attention of organized criminals to the participant municipalities. The evidence highlights some of the unintended effects that the leveraging of emigrants' money may have in home countries where governments make the so-called ‘kingpin strategy’ a centrepiece of their security strategy.