Ray Fisman explains how, using Google Maps and an algorithm, MIT's Melissa Dell might predict the next frontlines in Mexico's drug war:
According to Dell, the cartels have behaved like textbook economic actors, shifting their trafficking routes in predictable ways to circumvent towns where the government has cracked down and raiding towns where competing cartels have been weakened by government efforts. Drug confiscations in the communities where Dell predicts traffickers will relocate to following a crackdown increase by about 20 percent in the months following close PAN [President Calderón’s party] victories. It’s a reminder that crime fighting is a bit like Whac-A-Mole—smothering traffickers’ activities in one locale merely causes them to shift their operations elsewhere.
(Photo: Investigators examine a crime scene where the corpse of a man with a notice attributing the crime to a drug cartel lies in the touristic port city of Acapulco, on November 10, 2011. By Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images.)
The Dish 