Drought in the sertão versus violence in the city: A study on the Brazilian semi-arid region

Nogueira, Lauro and Rodrigues, Fábio Lúcio and Santos de Farias Souza, Wallace Patrick and de Araújo, Jevuks Matheus (2025): Drought in the sertão versus violence in the city: A study on the Brazilian semi-arid region.

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate how water scarcity and periods of drought can affect firearm homicide rates in the Brazilian semi-arid region between 2002 and 2020. To this end, the methodology of inference in counterfactual distributions proposed by Chernozhukov, Fernández-Val and Melly (2013) was employed. The main findings indicate that periods of severe drought have a significant impact on homicide rates in the semi-arid region. These effects are more pronounced when associated with factors such as the presence of rural municipalities and the migration process. In other words, there is strong evidence that drought in the hinterlands/countryside contributes to the increase in crime rates in both urban and rural municipalities. Additionally, the decomposition of the results revealed that periods of extreme drought, coupled with other unfavorable factors, act as triggers for the increase in homicide rates in the Brazilian semi-arid region, significantly exacerbating conditions of vulnerability during these adverse climatic shocks.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Water Scarcity; Drought; Homicide Rate; Brazilian Semiarid.
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R1 - General Regional Economics

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