We study the nature of regional inequality in Colombia over the past 200 years. The main empirical fact is that regional inequality has been highly persistent despite the large changes that have taken place and the modernization of the society. We show that regional inequality is highly...

We consider school choice problems (Abdulkadiroglu and Sönmez, 2003) where students are assigned to public schools through a centralized assignment mechanism. We study the family of so-called rank-priority mechanisms, each of which is induced by an order of rank-priority pairs. Following the...

Spanish Abstract: Desde 2002, el cuerpo de aspirantes y docentes del sistema público nacional de educación básica y secundaria se rige por el Decreto 1278 del mismo año. Esto puede ser modelado como un mercado de emparejamiento de muchos-a-uno, donde el decreto es una regla de asignación...

We consider school choice problems. We are interested in solutions that satisfy consistency. Consider a problem and a recommendation made by the solution for the problem. Suppose some students are removed with their positions in schools. Consider the “reduced” problem consisting of the...

Spanish Abstract: En este artículo examino el efecto del Acuerdo de Paz entre el gobierno de Colombia y la guerrilla de las FARC sobre los homicidios en el país. Utilizando un modelo de diferencias en diferencias, muestro que después de la firma del Acuerdo de Paz en septiembre de 2016, los...

Well-intended policies often have negative unintended consequences if they fail to foresee the different ways in which individuals may respond to the new set of incentives. When widespread and persistent, these may lead to a net reduction of social welfare. Focusing on the case of anti-drug...

We examine the long-term impact of violence on educational attainment, with evidence from Colombia's La Violencia. Individuals exposed to violence during, and especially before, their schooling years experience a significant and economically meaningful decrease in years of schooling. This impact...

This study analyzes the institutions that shape public private collaboration for the design and implementation of productive development policies in Colombia. Colombia is an interesting case because productive development policies are increasingly designed, in principle, in the context of formal...

While force eradication through aerial spraying has large social costs, there is no evidence of the unexpected consequences of alternative development programs. This paper suggests an unintended effect of the largest crop substitution program in the world on political violence exploiting data on...

Spanish Abstract: La transparencia y la competencia se han enmarcado como las herramientas fundamentales para combatir la corrupción en la contratación estatal. Por consiguiente, se han implementado diferentes políticas públicas encaminadas a fortalecer las mismas. Un ejemplo claro de esto...