Violence and Development: The Cost Countries Pay for High Rates of Homicide

Abstract

Violence is one of the largest and most persistent humanitarian crises across the globe. Understanding violence’s role in economic costs and losses is crucial to informing and guiding decision makers. This study uses international panel data to conduct a log-linear regression with time and country fixed effects. It focuses on studying the causal effects of violent crime on GDP at an aggregate, international level. The results find that the homicide rate has a statistically significant, negative effect on GDP per capita. Acts of violence come not just at a humanitarian cost, but also at the cost of economic progress and growth. From these results, recommendations of further investigation into this relationship as well as spending allocation at a country-level are made.