Abstract
This paper suggests news coverage of a proposed prisoner exchange program (the Acuerdo Humanitario/AH) systematically affected FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) operations in the early 2000s. We propose AH news raised the value of political kidnappees through an agenda-setting-type mechanism. Our identification strategy draws on disaster deaths in countries favored by Colombian emigrants as an instrumental variable for AH news. Findings suggest AH coverage increased the number of political kidnappings, while decreasing the number of financial kidnappings. Overall, a simple back-of-the-envelope calculation implies AH news de-escalated the conflict in the short run.
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