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 2022-35
JEL: D71, D83, C92
In this paper, we study collective information acquisition in groups that make decisions using majority rule. We argue both theoretically and experimentally that the median voter theorem does not apply; in general, the level of information acquired by the group is not equal to the level of information a median voter would like to acquire individually, despite agents having single peaked preferences over information. We find t hat g roups o veracquire o r underacquire information relative to what would have been predicted by the median voter theorem depending on the levels of disagreemnent among the group members both before and after information is acquired. We also discuss the impact of the failure of the median voter theorem on efficiency.
25-09-2022
Documento CEDE 2022-34
JEL: I39, D74, J13
We examine the effect of the exposure (or reduction in the exposure) to conflictrelated violence on parental mental health, caregivers' parenting stress and responsive caregiving, and early childhood mental health. We use data collected from the impact evaluation of a psychosocial group intervention in Tumaco, Colombia, a community chronically affected by the armed conflict. Using an Instrumental Variables approach, we use the program's randomization into cohorts and staggered design of the data collection to exploit a natural experiment in which the armed groups in the municipality agreed to a Truce and municipal violence rates dropped between data collections. We find that the exposure to recent conflict-related violence had negative effects across the four main dimensions: increased parental mental health problems in 0.68 sd (SE=0.342 ; q-value=0.074), increased parenting stress in 0.76 sd (SE=0.389 ; q-value=0.074), reduced responsive caregiving in -1.023 sd (SE=0.434 ; q-value=0.074) and increased child mental health problems in 0.556 sd (SE=0.343 ; q-value=0.074). By providing causal evidence on the direct effect of conflict-related violence on parenting outcomes, we conduct an exploratory mediation analysis to assess whether parental mental health, parenting stress and responsive caregiving behaviors may partially account for the association between violence and child mental health. Yet, correlational links between violence and parental mental health and parenting behavior outcomes as mediators suggest important associations for understanding children's mental health vulnerability in conflict settings.
14-09-2022
Documento CEDE 2022-33
JEL: H11, H70, D72
This paper examines the effect of the election of dynastic candidates on municipal economic development outcomes in Colombia. I use a sharp regression discontinuity design that allows me to compare municipalities where dynastic candidates win or lose mayoral elections by a small margin of votes. I find that the election of dynastic candidates is associated with improvements in the provision of some public services at the municipal level. Nevertheless, I do not find differences in economic activity or quality of public services between municipalities governed and not governed by dynastic mayors. The principal mechanism is that dynastic mayors have greater links with Congress and receive a larger amount of
discretionary transfers, which they allocate mainly to infrastructure spending. However, these transfers are also associated with a higher risk of corruption in local public contracting.
13-08-2022
Documento CEDE 2022-32
JEL: H57, D73, H11
Transparency and competition have been framed as the fundamental tools to fight corruption in State contracting. Therefore, different public policies have been implemented aimed at strengthening them. A clear example of this is the adoption and implementation of standardized documents in State contracting processes by Colombian Government entities. Despite the existence of these policy initiatives, there is little evidence in Colombia about the possible effects that they have had within the State contracting processes. Therefore, this work seeks to evaluate the impact that the implementation of standardized documents had in the contracting processes for public works of road infrastructure, on the levels of competition, transparency and corruption. The foregoing, based on the number of
bidders at closing in a contracting process, and on a measure of budget performance as a proxy for
improvement in administrative processes and reduction of risk of corruption within them. It is found that the implementation of the standard documents generates greater competition within the state contracting processes. Likewise, it is not found that their implementation has had any positive or negative effect on a measure of budget performance, which reflects a presumed reduction in costs due to improvements in administrative processes within a state contracting process.
12-08-2022
Documento CEDE 2022-31
JEL: H41, I12, J16, Q54
This paper studies the role of aqueduct and sewerage public service coverage as protection mechanisms against extreme rainfall phenomena in Colombia for the period 1985-2018. Measuring these phenomena as the number of days per year in which a municipality suffered from droughts or heavy rains, I find that aqueduct and sewer coverage reduces the effect of droughts and extreme rainfall, respectively, on infant mortality rates. When differentiating mortality by sex, the effects result more considerable for boys, consistent with the medical
literature that indicates a greater strength of girls' immune system. Moreover, cause-specific mortality estimates reveal that only water origin diseases are related to these effects.
11-08-2022
Documento CEDE 2022-30
JEL: A22, G53, I22, I25
Por mandato del CONPES 4005, ICETEX desarrolló un Programa de Educación Financiera (PEFI) que provee lecciones virtuales sobre manejo del crédito y del dinero a sus beneficiarios. Esta investigación busca evaluar cómo impacta el PEFI a los conocimientos económicos y financieros, medidos a través del nivel de alfabetismo financiero, de beneficiarios con línea de crédito para estudios de pregrado. Se empleó un experimento aleatorio con un grupo de tratamiento y uno de control. El instrumento de medición, adaptado del kit de herramientas OCDE/INFE para inclusión y alfabetismo financiero, se aplicó antes y después del tratamiento. 254 beneficiarios completaron el experimento. Los resultados muestran efecto significativo del programa de 0.28 D.E., que es mayor en estudiantes de IES no acreditadas (0.51 D.E.) y menor en los demás (0.03 D.E.). El efecto se concentra en las preguntas "fáciles", aquellas con tasa de acierto mayor al 60% y que tratan sobre inflación y relación entre plazo del crédito, cuota mensual y pago total de intereses. El experimento tuvo baja tasa de culminación: 2,9% en tratamiento y 3,2% en control. No hay evidencia de atrición diferencial ni participación diferencial. Se identificó baja consistencia en escala de medición para esta población según alfa de Cronbach.
10-08-2022
