No Country for Old State: Criminal Concentration and Human Development Outcomes in Brazil

Abstract

This article examines how criminal governance is associated with human development outcomes in Brazil. We construct a municipality–by-year panel, spanning from 2010 to 2019, that includes health, education, safety, and income indicators, in addition to a criminal concentration index based on Google Trends data, validated by previous research. The results reveal that moving toward criminal hegemony is associated with improvements in social development outcomes – even after controlling for both municipality and time fixed effects –, with a higher intensity for Brazilian municipalities that share a border with other South American countries. The findings highlight the relevance of territorial configurations of criminal governance for understanding development dynamics in contexts of constrained state authority.