Eventos

Seminario CEDE - Oskar Nupia

Oskar Nupia. The literature has highlighted that the socioeconomic characteristics of rulers shape their preferences for redistributive policies and that gaps between citizens and politicians can affect how well public policies address citizens' needs. Yet in many countries, including Colombia, basic information on legislators' economic position remains unavailable. Using a unique dataset built from mandatory disclosure filings, we document the income, wealth, and conflicts of interest (CI) of Colombian legislators during the 2018-2022 and 2022-2026 Congresses. Legislators belong to the top 3% of the income and wealth distribution, earning roughly seven times the median tax filer and holding five times their wealth. On average, 70% of legislators report CI, which span all economic sectors. The largest concentrations of these conflicts are found in Agriculture, Livestock, Real Estate, Commerce, Public Administration, and Personal Services. While reported private economic activities have declined between Congresses, conflicts involving relatives increased by a similar magnitude. Left-wing legislators report lower income and wealth but are not less likely to have CI. Right-wing legislators tend to concentrate their conflicts in Agriculture and Livestock, whereas left-wing legislators focus on Information and Administrative Services. Wealthier legislators report more CI across more sectors, and each additional term in Congress is associated with approximately 15% more wealth. These patterns document a substantial representational distance between legislators and citizens that extends beyond income levels to the nature of economic ties that may shape legislative behavior.

12:30 pm

Salón W-101

Activo

Seminario CEDE - Fabio Sánchez

Fabio Sánchez. La investigación revela que las desigualdades regionales actuales en Colombia —en ingreso, pobreza, desigualdad y capital humano— se explican en gran medida por la intensidad de las jerarquías coloniales de castas establecidas entre los siglos XVI y XVIII. Estas jerarquías surgieron de la interacción entre las condiciones iniciales, las dotaciones de factores precoloniales y la elección de instituciones de coerción laboral por parte de los colonizadores, como la encomienda, la mita, el concertaje y la esclavitud, respaldadas por instituciones políticas coloniales como los Cabildos y las Audiencias. Las instituciones de jerarquía basadas en castas instauradas durante el período colonial generaron desigualdades persistentes en el acceso a la tierra, al capital humano, al poder político y a la capacidad estatal, que las reformas posteriores a la Independencia, que no lograron revertirlas. Utilizando un Índice de Jerarquía Colonial elaborado a partir del censo de 1780–1790, el artículo muestra que una mayor jerarquía colonial se correlaciona -en las primeras décadas del siglo XXI- con un menor PIB per cápita municipal, peores resultados educativos, mayor pobreza, menor acceso a la propiedad y mayor desigualdad de la tierra.

12:30 pm

Salón W-101

Activo

Seminario CEDE - Camila Galindo

Camila Galindo. Transport connectivity can expand opportunities for young people. We study a large-scale expansion of domestic air links in Colombia, where small-capacity aircraft connected poorly accessible municipalities to new destinations. We leverage the staggered opening of air links and rich administrative records on the universe of 2000-2019 high-school graduates. In a matched difference-in-differences, new air links increase higher education enrollment and graduation, reduce early fertility, and increase formal employment and earnings. We benchmark air links against the staggered opening of local campuses: preliminary results show that new campuses affect education but not fertility or employment. Air links might yield broader benefits by improving student-program matches and the quality of local services.

12:30 pm

Salón W-101

Activo

Seminario CEDE - Juan Escobar

This paper explores how to allocate an indivisible good to agents who are privately informed about their valuations and wealth. Wealth is distributed in the population of agents and restricts the purchasing ability. The optimal mechanism sells the good at a price below the marginal cost of production with strictly positive probability. Some rich agents are rationed. We discuss how inequality shapes the optimal mechanism.

12:30 pm

Universidad de los Andes

Activo

Seminario CEDE - Jonathan Weigel

Progressive taxation is a defining feature of high-income countries' tax systems, but developing countries typically rely on less progressive instruments. We study the introduction of progressive property taxation in a large Congolese city through a citywide field experiment conducted in partnership with the provincial government. Neighborhoods were randomly assigned to either a progressive or a proportional schedule with equal revenue potential. The progressive system increased total revenue by 55\% relative to the proportional one. Revenue gains occurred across the property value distribution: at the top, higher statutory rates mechanically outweighed modest compliance losses, while at the bottom, lower rates induced large compliance gains that more than offset the mechanical revenue loss. Cross-randomized information treatments show that taxpayers' responses were driven by their own rates rather than by others' rates or by the perceived fairness of the overall system. Finally, we examine how statutory progressivity maps into \textit{effective} tax rates (ETRs). Across all systems, ETRs decline with property value --- implying that the rich pay less as a share of wealth --- and this gradient is steepest under the progressive schedule. However, enforcement interventions focused on higher-value properties reverse this relationship, suggesting that investments in targeted enforcement can help align effective with statutory progressivity.

12:30 pm

Universidad de los Andes

Activo

Seminario CEDE - Nicolás González

This paper examines the impact of productivity signals in academia on posgraduate education and labor market trajectories. I exploit discontinuities in the assignment of Latin honors—magna cum laude, summa cum laude, and cum laude—to compare graduates who receive honors with similarly high-achieving graduates who narrowly miss the distinction. Using a regression discontinuity design, I identify the causal effect of academic signaling on postgraduate investments and subsequent labor market outcomes. Evidence shows that while Latin Honors do not significantly increase the likelihood or intensity of postgraduate education, they lead to substantial improvements in the quality of institutions attended. In the labor market, the effects are concentrated on leadership outcomes and, to a lesser extent, international exposure, with little impact on job stability, firm characteristics, or mobility. These findings highlight that academic distinctions primarily operate by shifting individuals toward higher-quality educational and professional opportunities, supporting a signaling interpretation of academic achievement.

12:30 pm

Universidad de los Andes

Activo

Seminario CEDE - José Guerra

What drives prosocial behavior and how it can be shaped through education interventions? This paper examines whether reading literary fiction can causally influence prosociality. In a pre-registered field experiment, university students were randomly assigned to one of two four-week extracurricular courses: a fiction-reading curriculum or a placebo course focused on behavioral science, with equivalent intensity and reading content. After the intervention, participants took part in experimental sessions featuring incentivized economic games and psychological scales. We find evidence that the fiction course increases prosocial behavior, primarily through higher altruism and greater trustworthiness. The effects appear to reflect shifts in individual preferences rather than updates in social norms. While empathy does not change, we find suggestive evidence that fiction increases transportation and attention to what makes others unique—consistent with a social cognition mechanism centered on valuing individuation rather than self–other overlap or empathy. These findings contribute to the growing literature on how narrative experiences shape social behavior and offer paths for future interventions to increase prosociality without social norms change.

12:30 pm

Universidad de los Andes

Activo

Seminario CEDE - Oscar Becerra

In this paper, we analyze the effect of natural disasters on municipal fiscal outcomes. Unlike national governments, municipalities operate under distinct fiscal frameworks with limited local revenues and dependency on earmarked transfers. By analyzing the universe of Colombian municipalities, we identify a systemic pattern in which institutional rigidities inhibit fiscal adjustments. Using an event-study approach with data from 2000 to 2023, we find no statistically significant effect of disasters on fiscal outcomes, even in municipalities with high levels of preventive investment. These results, robust to alternative severity measures, suggest that rigid institutional setups prevent municipalities from adjusting their finances in response to disasters.

12:30 pm

Universidad de los Andes

Activo

Seminario CEDE - Sebastián Montaño

This paper studies how delays in diploma receipt affect the school-to-work transition and long-term labor market outcomes. In Colombia, graduating seniors can wait up to six months to receive their college diplomas after completing all degree requirements. Waiting times are largely determined by administrative procedures and vary considerably across and within programs. Exploiting within-program variation, we show that students experiencing longer delays are less likely to be employed one year after graduation and have significantly lower earnings ten years later. Our findings suggest that delays in diploma receipt disrupt initial firm–worker matching, helping explain the persistence of these effects.

12:30 pm

Universidad de los Andes