This paper describes private actors’ involvement in Colombia’s policy-making process. While more transparent and formal channels are used to discuss horizontal policies, they are also less effective. The adoption of targeted policies, however, follows a faster track and depends more on...

The literature has come to no agreement about the empirical validity of the so-called weak government hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, political fragmentation should lead to higher government expenditure. With the aim of reconciling the empirical evidence with theory, in this paper we...

Which projects/firms should be the target of lending by a Public Development Bank (PDB)? What is the optimal design for the PDB's loans, and the optimal structure for delivering them? We analyze these questions in the context of a model where screening is costly to banks and underprovision of...

We present a model of the Political Budget Cycle in which voters and politicians have preferences for different types of government spending. Incumbents try to influence voters by changing the composition of government spending, rather than overall spending or revenues. Rational voters may...

This paper describes private actors' involvement in Colombia's policymaking process. While more transparent and formal channels are used to discuss horizontal policies, they are also less effective. The adoption of targeted policies, however, follows a faster track and depends more on political...