Three essays on the economics of crime and gender

This thesis focuses on intimate partner violence (IPV) and homicides in Mexico. The first chapter examines the effect of a woman’s relative income on IPV. My results show a U-shaped relationship between a woman’s relative income and the prevalence of physical, emotional and economic IPV. In contrast, sexual IPV linearly increases with a woman’s relative income. In the second chapter, I investigate the impact of easier access to divorce—as a consequence of the introduction of unilateral and no-fault divorce—on IPV and a woman’s contribution to decision-making. The results show that emotional and economic IPV decrease, while physicaland sexual IPV increase when they are not associated with the two other types of violence. Moreover, a woman’s contribution to decision-making improves as divorce becomes easier. In the third chapter I examine the role of the electoral cycle in explaining turf wars between Drug Trafficking Organisations (DTOs). Using homicides between DTOs as a proxy for turf wars, my findings show an increase in homicides during the lame duck period