Evidence from Latin America: governments increase human capital investment in response to social violence

Mauricio Rivera and Bárbara Zárate-Tenorio argue that democratic governments have incentives to advance human capital since the youth population is overrepresented in acts of social violence. Drawing on data from eighteen Latin American countries, they show that governments increase spending on education in response to increasing levels of social violence. They also find that political ideology plays a role in shaping the government’s strategies to combat violence, with left-wing executives investing more in education than right-wing ones. These and other soft strategies can outperform heavy-handed security policies that not only hinder human rights and the quality of democracy, but also have tended to fail in reducing crime and violence.