A model of rural conflict : violence and land reform policy in Brazil

In the past ten years the struggle for land in Brazil has taken the shape of invasions of private land by welI organized groups of land less squatters. It is argued in this paper that these invasions and the resulting contlicts are a direct response to the land reform program which has been adopted by the govemment since 1985. which is based on the expropriation of farms and the creation of settlement projects. The set of formal and informal institutions which compromise the land reform program are used as the background for a game-theory model of rural contlicts. T estable implications are derived trom this model with particular emphasis on the etfect of policy variables on violence. These are then tested with panel data at state levei from 1988 to 1995. - It is shown that govemment policy which has the intent of reducing the amount of violence has the opposite etfect of leading to more incentives for contlicts.

Lighting and violent crimes: evaluating the effect of an electrification policy in rural Brazil on violent crime reduction

This paper estimates the effect of lighting on violent crime reduction. We explore an electrification program (LUZ PARA TODOS or Light for All - LPT) adopted by the federal government to expand electrification to rural areas in all Brazilian municipalities in the 2000s as an exogenous source of variation in electrification expansion. Our instrumental variable results show a reduction in homicide rates (approximately five homicides per 100,000 inhabitants) on rural roads/urban streets when a municipality moved from no access to full coverage of electricity between 2000 and 2010. These findings are even more significant in the northern and northeastern regions of Brazil, where rates of electrification are lower than those of the rest of the country and, thus, where the program is concentrated. In the north (northeast), the number of violent deaths on the streets per 100,000 inhabitants decreased by 48.12 (13.43). This moved a municipality at the 99th percentile (75th) to the median (zero) of the crime distribution of municipalities. Finally, we do not find effects on violent deaths in households and at other locations. Because we use an IV strategy by exploring the LPT program eligibility criteria, we can interpret the results as the estimated impact of the program on those experiencing an increase in electricity coverage due to their program eligibility. Thus, the results represent local average treatment effects of lighting on homicides.

Analysis of the ABC Program resources

This is the executive summary of the second of four reports that compose, among others, the activities of the second working year of the ABC Plan Observatory1 . It aims to quantitatively and qualitatively analyze the ABC Program's performance – the main line of credit for the financing of low-carbon agriculture in Brazil. In addition to presenting high points of the results of the 2013/14 crop year, it also reveals a regional and state overview of the distribution of resources and a focus on the Legal Amazon situation regarding the adoption of low carbon agriculture methods in the region. The main theme for the analysis is the spatial distribution of the ABC Program's credit in the country and the reasons, bottlenecks and opportunities for the expansion of more sustainable production methods, especially regarding the conditions of Brazilian technical support and its activities among rural producers.