Documentos CEDE
Accede a las publicaciones que reúnen trabajos de profesores/as e investigadores/as de la Facultad de Economía, basados en información del Centro de Datos CEDE. Presentan análisis económicos y resultados preliminares que aportan evidencia y abren discusiones académicas sobre temas relevantes para el país.
Documento CEDE 2024-39
JEL: P00, D7, D9, H42
Political leaders make policy choices which are often hard to explain via institutions. We use the behavior of Colombian paramilitary groups as an environment to study non-institutional sources of variation in how public good provision and violence are combined to control populations. We hypothesize that a significant source of variation stems from the social preferences of the paramilitary commanders. Reciprocators adopt a strategy of offering public goods in exchange for support, but also use violence to punish those who do not reciprocate back. Reciprocity, developed via childhood socialization, is a characteristic of rural “peasants”. We develop a model which generates these hypotheses and test them using a unique dataset compiled from transitional justice documents.
19-09-2024
Documento CEDE 2024-38
JEL: I38, H53, O16, G21
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Colombian government established the use of Digital Cash Transfers as a way to mitigate the impact of the economic crisis on the most poor and vulnerable of the Colombian population. Using data from Daviplata, one of the channels the government used to deliver the Digital Cash Transfers, I examine the effect that receiving these transfers had on financial deepening. My findings suggest that receiving a cash transfer via Daviplata increased financial deepening, through an increase in savings and an increase in the average number of transactions made by the user. However, this financial deepening did not translate into the access to a broader portfolio of financial products and services. Following an Difference-in-Differences Event Studies approach, I find that receiving a Digital Cash Transfer (DCT) had an effect on increasing savings in $24,309, a quite large effect compared to average monthly savings for the targeted population. In terms of transactions, receiving a DCT via Daviplata had an effect of 0.1362, which represents an increase of about 20% compared to the number of average transactions made by the users.
18-09-2024
Documento CEDE 2024-37
JEL: D91, K14, I38
This study analyzes variations in nighttime lighting captured by satellite images to estimate the conditions that explain the effect of public space lighting on crime incidence. To this end, a fixed-effects monthly panel model is estimated using grids of 463 square meters from the 6 major cities in Colombia between 2014 and 2018. For each grid, an increase of one standard deviation in lighting changes during the analysis period results in an increase in crimes against life (+3.2% to +9.6%) in outdoor spaces due to increased opportunities for crime from higher economic and social activity; as well as a deterrence of property crimes (-1.9% to -4.4%) and life crimes (-3.3% to -4.5%) in indoor spaces due to greater opportunities for legal, rather than criminal, activities. Although it is not the dominant factor, evidence suggests that the natural surveillance deterrence mechanism is at work, mitigating the effect of the crime opportunity mechanism.”
17-09-2024
Documento CEDE 2024-36
JEL: I15, H43, J13, O15, D61, F52
Parenting programs have proven to be an effective and cost-efficient way to close inequality gaps between vulnerable and non-vulnerable populations (UNICEF, 2021; WHO, 2018; Heckman, 2017). This study contributes by evaluating the cost-effectiveness of Semillas de Apego, a community-based psychosocial program that focuses on the mental health of caregivers of children aged 0-5 affected by armed conflict and forced displacement in Colombia. Through this focus, the program aims to improve infant mental health and early child development. By linking the program's impact evaluation with monetization in five dimensions—avoided medical costs, absenteeism, criminality, income, and education—this study assesses its value. Since only short-term impacts are available, three scenarios project long-term benefits: increasing benefits, decreasing benefits, and short-term fading benefits. For the first two, benefits are tracked for 28 years for children and 7 years for adults; for the third, all benefits are assumed to fade 2-3 years post-intervention. With a discount rate of 6.4%, the benefitcost ratio ranges from $1.57 to $6.87 per dollar invested, showing that the program’s benefits substantially outweigh its costs. These findings align with international literature (Reynolds and Temple, 2008) and suggest that investments in programs like Semillas de Apego are an effective
strategy to enhance the life trajectories of children in conflict zones.
16-09-2024
Documento CEDE 2024-35
JEL: G21, Q54, Q51, O12
The vulnerability of rural households to climate change has increased due to their reliance on agricultural activities. This paper examines the implications of drought shocks on households and assesses whether formal financial services such as credit, savings, and insurance alleviate the effects of these shocks. The data are sourced from the Colombian Longitudinal Survey conducted by Universidad de los Andes (ELCA), which tracks 3,340 rural households in the years 2010, 2013, and 2016, along with precipitation data from over 1,200 meteorological stations provided by the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology, and Environmental Studies (IDEAM). The findings suggest that exogenous drought shocks adversely affect the proportion of school-age children by up to 1%, and food and non-food consumption by 1,7% and 3,8%, respectively. Moreover, financial services, enhance household well-being and allow to smooth consumption of food and other goods and services in the face of drought shocks.
15-08-2024
Documento CEDE 2024-34
JEL: D72, D73, D74, D91, K38
We explore the impact of social protests on individual attitudes toward politics, human rights, and issues related to political economy. We use a unique panel dataset to analyze the effects of significant exposure to large-scale protests in 2019 in Colombia. The primary grievances fueling these social movements included dissatisfaction with the political elite, human rights violations, income inequality, and corruption. Our findings indicate that protests significantly alter individuals’ beliefs regarding some, but not all, of their core demands. We document a significant negative effect of protests on the likelihood of sympathizing with political parties and a positive effect on the appreciation for human rights. However, less robust evidence suggests that protests may decrease the probability of individuals endorsing a political ideology or accepting clientelistic offers. Additionally, we find no significant impact of demonstrations on individuals’ overall political ideology, their support for democratic elections, or their endorsement of distributive policies.
14-08-2024
