Eventos

Seminario CEDE - Carmen Villa

Youth clubs are community-based after-school programmes, typically offeredfree of charge to teenagers in underprivileged neighbourhoods. I provide the firstcausal estimates of their effects on education and crime, leveragingquasi-experimental variation from austerity-related cuts, which led to the closureof 30% of youth clubs in London between 2010 and 2019. I usedifference-in-differences research designs and novel data to compareneighbourhoods affected by closures with those unaffected. Teenagers in areasaffected performed nearly 4% worse in national high-school exams. Youths aged10 to 17 became 14% more likely to commit crimes. Youth clubs provide keysupport in a lasting manner, particularly to teenagers from low-incomebackgrounds. The effects are due to youth clubs offering unique amenities thatsupport positive behaviours rather than mere incapacitation. Closing youth clubswas not cost-effective; for every£1 saved from closures, there are associated lossesof nearly£3 due to forgone returns to education and crime costs.

Seminario CEDE - Sebastián Montaño

Public sector jobs have regulated pay structures that commonly tie wage growth to promotions. This paper leverages novel data and quasi-experimental variation in the allocation of promotions to examine how credit utilization and household labor supply respond to wage increases. We exploit the sharp discontinuity from an exambased promotion policy to compare the outcomes of nearly identical police officers in Colombia before and after they receive a 25 percent pay raise. Four years after promotion, officers accumulate debt for about 160 percent of their annual pay increase. This response is driven by mortgages and personal loans, two types of installment credit. As a result, officers need only one-third of the raise to repay their quarterly financial obligations. Using household data, we show a significant reduction in wives’ employment after their police husbands are promoted. This effect is more pronounced among couples with school-age children, but cannot be explained by changes in fertility decisions. Our findings suggest that households rely on credit instruments to adjust their time and consumption allocation in response to a pay increase.

Seminario CEDE - Nicolás Rodríguez

This paper investigates communication with multiple, identically informed Senders with a single, uninformed Receiver. Players have common interests, the state space is infinite, and Senders’ message spaces are finite. Thus, while players prefer full information revelation, their language does not allow for it. Efficient communication requires Senders to use language heterogeneously, assigning non-convex meanings to individual messages, while ensuring that message profiles convey convex information. Achieving efficiency, hence, hinges on solving a delicate coordination problem among the players.

Seminario CEDE - Pedro Pichetti

The instrumental variables (IV) method has been widely studied in cross-sectional settings. However, many practical applications involve panel data, in settings where a unit’s treatment status may turn on or off over time. I show that in the presence of dynamic treatment effects, i.e., if past treatments affect current potential outcomes, standard methods are no longer valid if the instruments are serially correlated. This paper shows the nonparametric identification of dynamic causal effects in a potential outcomes framework in which potential outcomes depend on the treatment path taken by a unit through time but the first stage is static, in the sense that at each period the IV only instruments its contemporary treatment. I provide a nonparametric estimator that is consistent over the randomization distribution and derive its finite-population limiting distribution as the sample size increases. Monte Carlo Simulations illustrate the desirable finite-sample properties of the estimators. An application of the estimator show that law enforcement curbs illegal deforestation until two years after the actual detection of illegal practice, but effects fade out afterwards.  

Seminario CEDE - Daniel Jaramillo

Do released offenders influence the criminal behavior of individuals in the neighborhoods they rejoin? Using a unique dataset on arrests, prison releases, and places of residence for the universe of men in Ecuador and exploiting a mass pardon in a difference-indifference design, I find evidence that released offenders contribute to increased criminal activity among their neighbors. On average, one additional release leads to an increase of 0.85 arrests, excluding the released offenders themselves. First-time offenders account for 42% of this effect, with the primary mechanism being the spread of criminal behavior through peer and family networks. These peer effects are larger for defendants who served longer portions of their sentences, suggesting that time spent in prison may intensify criminal behavior. Finally, I show that access to job training programs during incarceration can help mitigate these effects.  

4th International Conference on the Economics of Informality 2024

Seminario CEDE - Jorge Bonilla

Short-term exposure to air pollution increases the risk of respiratory diseases. This risk is higher during critical air quality events when episodes last for several days and are harmful to the most vulnerable groups. A common strategy in Latin America is temporarily adjusting transport policies to reduce emissions and the impact on people's health. Medellín, Colombia's second-largest city, and the Aburrá Valley Metropolitan Area have been implementing driving restrictions since 2017, which, unlike other cities, not only banned cars but also restricted the circulation of motorcycles and trucks. Restrictions that quickly became stricter for old vehicles. Using a two-way-fixed effects model, we empirically evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented plan between 2017 and 2019 on pollutant concentrations and examine the impact on vehicle trips, noise, and possible changes in regular on-road tests of vehicle environmental performance. Our results show that the implemented plan has reduced air pollution by 2%-24% for several pollutants. The red alerts, introduced with the strictest bans, showed the largest reduction. Particulate matter showed the most significant improvement in air quality. In general, reductions in air pollutant concentrations tend to be greater when restrictions apply to trucks or older vehicles and when bans cover more license plates. Vehicle trips and noise also declined, and there is some evidence of an increase in on-road vehicle testing. These findings suggest that introducing differentiated restrictions focalizing the most stringent bans on the most polluting vehicles is an effective policy to reduce air pollution during short-term episodes of poor air quality.  

Seminario PePe - Sandra Vilardy

Se presenta un análisis basado en el contexto de la institucionalidad ambiental, los nuevos desafíos que se abordan desde la poli-crisis, las apuestas del actual gobierno, las lecciones aprendidas y especialmente las reflexiones pendientes. Sandra Vilardy Quiroga es profesora del Área de Sostenibilidad de la Facultad de Administración de la Universidad de Los Andes. Es bióloga marina de formación profesional y doctora en ecología y medio ambiente. Su trabajo académico ha sido diverso pero se ha basado principalmente en el análisis de los sistemas socioecológicos y la resiliencia con énfasis en miradas territoriales, con especial interés en ecosistemas costeros y humedales, identificando las relaciones entre el flujos de servicios ecosistémicos y el bienestar humano, los conflictos ecológico-distributivos asociados a estas relaciones y de manera reciente los relacionados con la crisis de biodiversidad y climática desde el enfoque de la ecología política. Se ha desempeñado como profesora y decana de la Facultad de Ciencias Básicas de la Universidad del Magdalena; fue coordinadora científica y administrativa del proceso Colombia Anfibia en el Instituto Alexander von Humboldt y ha sido también Directora ejecutiva de la iniciativa Parques Nacionales Como Vamos. Se desempeñó como Viceministra de políticas y normalización ambiental del Ministerio de Ambiente y Desarrollo sostenible. Ha sido miembro de varias juntas y comités directivos , así como también miembro del comité científico del Foro Nacional Ambiental. Actualmente es columnista de El Espectador.

Seminario CEDE - Hoover Quitian

El artículo explora el efecto del consumo de tecnologías sanitarias sobre la probabilidad de morir, a diferentes niveles de deterioro del estado de salud de los individuos. Se emplearon registros de la base de datos de suficiencia, de la Unidad de Pago por Capitación, que cuenta con información de atenciones de aproximadamente 28 millones de colombianos, entre los años 2013 y 2019. Como estrategia de identificación, se utilizó el cuasi experimento generado por el cambio de los individuos de Entidad Aseguradora, realizado por el Sistema de Salud cuando decreta el cierre de la entidad por insolvencia. Los resultados sugieren que el efecto del consumo de tecnologías se reduce cuando los individuos no tienen afectaciones muy graves sobre su estado de salud y cuando su riesgo de morir es considerable.