[Published at Economic Development and Cultural Change 72.2 (2024): 563-602.]

Co-author(s): Alberto Chong

Abstract: We exploit unexpected and drastic tariffs reductions in Peru during the 2000s. We find that in districts where male employment was more vulnerable to these reductions, we observe a statistically significant increase in intimate partner violence with respect to less vulnerable districts. Our results are robust to falsification, placebo, and permutation tests, initial conditions, conflation of past and current shocks, migration, and intermediate inputs considerations. Our findings are consistent with the theory of male backlash, by which a decline in relative earnings of males with respect to females will foster violence as the former may feel threatened and may be triggered by alcohol consumption, among others.