Do National Violent Cultural Traits Explain Elevated Homicide Rates in Latin America?

Prior studies often used a Latin American dummy variable as a proxy for violent culture. To overcome this limitation, the current research used two direct measures of attitudes toward justifying violence in general and wife-beating in particular from the World Values Survey (2017-2022) and the United Nations' homicide rate (2020-2023) across 52 countries. OLS regression analyses found no clear evidence that violent cultural attitudes predicted homicide rates. Instead, income inequality had a Latin American-specific effect, while affluence and government effectiveness maintained a global effect on the homicide rate. The Latin American dummy variable was consistently and strongly related to a high-level of homicide rate.