Maize prices and cartel violence in Mexico

insightcrime.org: In making the connection between maize prices and cartel violence, the study asserts that when crop prices are depressed, agricultural workers become more valuable to cartels because they will accept lower prices for illicit crops, thereby providing cartels with a bigger cut of the market sale price. In this way, the report offers an alternative explanation to the common assertion that economic depression fuels violence by providing a ready pool of combatants for cartels, stating, "We posit that violence rises in our empirical scenario not from the number of fighters, but from the increased value of controlling territories adversely affected by price shocks."