The harshness of punishment society chooses to impose on crime offenders is mandated by law. However, the quality of life in prison can make this punishment harsher. This creates a variation in the severity of punishment which is not legislated and may differ from society's taste for penalties....

Using census data for Argentine prisons for the period 2002-2005, this paperpresents evidence of the positive e¤ect that prisoner education programs (pri-mary and some part of secondary schooling) have on in prison conflictivitymeasured as sanctions or violent behavior of the prisoner. In order...

This article uses two unique panel data sets to study the causal effect that armed conflict has over firm exit in Colombia. Using a fixed-effect estimation methodology at the plant level and controlling for the possible endogeneity of armed conflict through the use of instrumental variables, we...

This paper estimates the effect that exposure to armed conflict has on school drop-out and labor decisions of Colombian children between the ages of six and seventeen. We use a duration analysis methodology, complemented by biprobit estimations. Both approaches take into account the possible...

This paper uses two unique panel data sets to study the causal effect that armed conflict has over entrepreneurial activity in Colombia. Using a fixed effect estimation methodology at the plant level and controlling for the possible endogeneity of armed conflict through the use of instrumental...

This paper separately evaluates how devolution and accountability, two distinct aspects of the decentralization reforms implemented in Indonesia in the year 2001, influenced the public provision of water services. Using household level data it is found that the devolution of responsibility does...

This paper uses a natural policy experiment to estimate how changes in the costs of engaging in criminal activity may influence adolescents' decisions in crime participation and school attendance. The study finds that, after an exogenous decrease in the severity of judicial punishment imposed on...