Why are Mexican mayors getting killed by traffickers? The dynamics ...

profits’ levels determines the baseline price of the bribe, that is to say, the origin of the fairtrade-bribe
line. The bold-dashed line represents a well-connected, politically relevant politician
in a non-crucial position. The attenuated-dashed line represents a non-connected, politically
irrelevant politician in a crucial position.
[Graph 1 about here]
The cost of corruption for politicians is larger as bribes increase in size because hiding a
large amount of illegal profits is increasingly difficult. This explains why some politicians get
moderate bribes even if they could get much more. Mr. (XX -closed source), high-level authority
at Tijuana’s office of the Attorney General (Procuraduria General de Justicia del Estado
de Baja California, PGJE) protected Arellano Felix DTO and yet, had a very modest car and
lived in a very small apartment. He was using his moderately priced bribes only to take their
daughters to private universities (XX -closed source). For politicians thus, the marginal costs
of corruption are increasing which means their fair trade bribe is a convex function.
Contrary, the cost of corruption for traffickers is smaller as bribes increase. Bribing one
politician reduces the cost of bribing others because it shows the last ones that the probability
of prosecution is low. If others do it, it should not be that dangerous. Corruption is contagious.
Furthermore, corrupt authorities may pressure new authorities to be corrupt. As (XX
-closed source), ex-member of Tijuana police acknowledge, “it is impossible not to [be corrupt],
if you do not get [bribes] your boss will be pissed off because he won’t get his share of it.” In
very a very well structured corruption market, as is Tijuana local police department, bribes
are commonly distributed along the hierarchy by chunks. Each member gets a share of what
their subordinate got, and gives a share of his profits to his supervisor. Supervisors ask for a
“required quota” to each subordinate. As long as the quote is fulfilled, subordinates can keep
the rest for themselves. Failures to get the quota are punished. Non-corrupt officials thus may
become liabilities in corrupted institutions. Because for bribers the marginal costs of corruption
is decreasing, the fair trade bribe for traffickers is a concave function.
Result 1: The concavity of fair trade bribes (b ′ ) is undetermined; “Sometimes bribing more
is less, not more expensive, and sometimes politicians want small bribes”
Uncertainty plays an important role when determining whether actual bribes will be above
or below fair trade bribes. If the briber is paying a higher bribe than the benefits he gets from
no enforcement, is because the bribee is more powerful than the briber (i.e. the state extorts
traffickers and takes part of their profits). The opposite is not true. We can imagine a situation
in which the briber is paying less than the benefits he gets from no enforcement (i.e. traffickers
are extorting the state) without the briber being necessarily more powerful than the bribee.
Because of information issues (Axiom 5), and the randomness of violence (Axiom 4), politicians
are never certain about the real power of traffickers, and traffickers may get lucky in a political
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