Using Bogota’s system of socioeconomic division, the “strata”, we show that falling ill with a serious case of COVID has been over eight times more likely for an individual in the lowest stratum, where the poorer population concentrates, compared to one in the highest. Other pieces of...

Emerging economies are characterized by an extremely high prevalence of informality, small firm employment and jobs not fit for working from home. These features factor into how the COVID-19 crisis has affected the economy. We develop a framework that, based on accounting identities and actual...

The dilemma of collective action around water use and management involves solving both the problems of provision and appropriation. Cooperation in the provision can be affected by the rival nature of the appropriation and the asymmetries in the access. We report two field experiments conducted...

Cooperation and competition are both essential elements of economic life. Here we explore how cooperativeness in a prisoner’s dilemma is correlated with competitiveness in a sample of 9-12 year old children in Colombia and Sweden. Using two different measures and four different tasks for...

Watersheds and irrigation systems have the characteristic of connecting people vertically by water flows. The location of users along these systems defines their role in the provision and appropriation of water which adds complexity to the potential for cooperation. Verticality thus imposes a...