Forced Displacement: Legal Versus Illegal Crops
Anecdotal evidence suggests that, in stateless regions in Colombia, the establishment of oil palm 1 plantations generates more forced migration than the introduction of coca crops. We provide a theoretical model to study this phenomenon where an agent, allied with the illegal armed group that controls a region, chooses between buying an agricultural good from peasants or producing it himself by evicting farmers from their lands. We compare two crops that differ in their labor intensity.