Using administrative data, I track the path of all the secondary school graduates in Colombia from 2002 to 2012 that enter higher education and/or the formal labor market (5.4 million graduates). I compare graduates within the same secondary school and cohorts to estimate the premium of higher...

Abstract The new millennium brought with it a new challenge. Students reaching higher education were not only greater in number, they were also less prepared than their predecessors. This caused a sharp deterioration in the quality of the entire higher education system, which in turn affected...

This paper analyzes extractive industries in Colombia and their connections to other economic activities in the country. We use detailed social security data on all formal employees to create an industry-relatedness measure using labor flows between industries. Drawing on the vast network...