In this paper I explore Tocqueville´s views on poverty and pauperism in democratictimes. Tocqueville´s explanation of economic and social phenomena linked to the raiseof equality, show the difficult dilemmas he foresaw with the consolidation of democracy and increasing industrialization. New...

Se hace una breve historia del crédito hipotecario en Colombia. La cuantificación se puede hacer a partir del año 1923, una vez creados el Banco de la República y la Superintendencia Bancaria a raíz de las recomendaciones de la Misión Kemmerer. En los años treinta y cuarenta la principal...

This paper uses historic data from Cundinamarca, Colombia to empirically assess the impact of land inequality persistence, inherited from the colonial rule, on economic development in the long run. Based on the Engerman & Sokoloff hypothesis and the use of GIS, I use plausible exogenous...

Over the last quarter of a century, inflation targeting has become a popular monetary regime. Nevertheless, empirical evaluations of IT have shown contradictory results. Part of the reason is that IT in and of itself constitutes an endogenous decision and thus needs to be properly instrumented....

La creación de instituciones de ahorro y crédito en Colombia fue indispensable paragenerar un hábito de ahorro en la población y consolidar un sistema bancario estable durante el siglo XIX. La caja de ahorros de Bogotá fue el primer intento por consolidar una mentalidad previsiva en los...

There is abundant empirical evidence testing models where comparative advantage arises from firm heterogeneity. As of today it is relatively clear who exports and why a firm decides to export. But, what determines the survival of a firm in the export market? This paper exploits a detailed...

In this paper I discuss the major approaches to happiness in the economics of happiness: hedonism and life-satisfaction approaches. It is possible to identify a tension between two important principles in this literature: 1) individuals are the best judges of their own happiness, and 2) the...

Desde hace muchos años los modelos (S, s) han sido una herramienta importante de la teoría económica aplicada. Estos son modelos de propósito general de toma de decisiones económicas en situaciones donde se tienen dos características definidas: una variable de estado que afecta los pagos...

Hedonic pricing models use property value differentials to value changes in environmental quality. If unmeasured quality attributes of residential properties are correlated with an environmental quality measure of interest, conventional methods for estimating implicit prices will be biased....

This paper uses historic data from Cundinamarca, Colombia to empirically assess the impact of land inequality persistence, inherited from the colonial rule, on economic development in the long run. Based on the Engerman & Sokoloff hypothesis and the use of GIS, I use plausible exogenous...