The “São Paulo Mystery”: The role of the criminal organization PCC in reducing the homicide in 2000s

We move forward in identifying the causes of the marked and systematic reduction in the homicide rate in São Paulo state in the 2000s. Its main objective was that of investigating the role of the criminal organization PCC in this process. We constructed a first-difference fixed effects model with a spatial structure where we controlled for various socioeconomic and demographic measures and for the presence of firearms and law-enforcement, among other measures. Our results do not support the PCC hypothesis at the level of the state of São Paulo.