A REPRESSÃO MILITAR E A MUDANÇA ESTRUTURAL NA RELAÇÃO ENTRE O DIFERENCIAL DE GANHO E AMIGRAÇÃO PARA O SETOR DO NARCOTRÁFICO: O CASO DA BOLÍVIA

Abstract

This paper analyzes the economics of narcotraffic in Bolivia, emphasizing the production of coca – essential input to obtain cocaine, and develops a theoretical model that is able to explain the migration flow of agents and resources from the legal sector of the economy to the narcotraffic and a large increase of illegal production of coca, as well as to foresee an evolution of the market structure of this industry, in response to military repression. The econometric results estrengthen the hypotheses stated in this paper and confirm that the evolution of illegal production of coca is basically explained by the differential of earnings of this activity, relatively to earnings of the legal sector of the economy. This paper shows also that the narcotraffic repression in Bolivia, imposed since the last decade by the USA government, was not effective to contain the increase of production of coca, neither to reduce the migration of agents and resources to narcotraffic activity, which developed new technologies of production, multiplying the number of small undertakings, through a drastic reduction of scale of production. These results strengthen further the point of view that new antidrug policies, to be successful, have to consider seriously the legalization ...