CONFLICT, DECENTRALISATION AND LOCAL GOVERNANCE IN COLOMBIA, 1974-2004

The objective of this paper is to determine the variables that explain the geographical expansion and armed activity of Colombian irregular groups since the mid seventies, taking into account the role of the political, fiscal and budgetary decentralization and its effects over local governance. This period of Colombian history (1974-2004) has been graved by strong economic, social and institutional changes that have deepened particularly since the decentralization process of the mid eighties. In fact, this paper states that decentralization process transformed the conflict into a dispute over the local power, intensifying the use of violence in order to appropriate part of the public goods and resources, interfere the political process and consolidate the group´s territorial control. The analysis of the illegal group´s early activity (1974-1982) shows that the use of violence is explained by grievances such as poverty or inequality. However, subsequent years reveal deep changes in the illegal group´s strategic procedures in which the decentralization process have given them incentives to control the local governments by using violence (greed). The results demonstrate a strong and significant relationship between the intensification of the armed conflict and the greater political, budgetary and fiscal autonomy of local governments. In fact, the presence of local resources such as royalties and taxes triggers violence against politicians being more intense in the municipalities where the actions of the illegal groups are higher.Armed conflict, Violence, Decentralization, Local governance, Spatial Econometrics

The educational effects of 19th century disentailment of catholic church land in Colombia.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effects of land concentration prompted by the distribution of disentailed Church land during the second half of the 19th century on the accumulation of human capital, in early 20th century Colombia1. Utilizing existing primary sources on the process of land disentailment and the 1912 National Census, descriptive statistics and econometric evidence show a significant and negative relationship between the amount of disentailed land during the 1870s at municipal level with literacy and school enrollment rates of males in 1912.Disentailment policy, land concentration, institutions, human capital, Colombian history

Manipulation of Social Program Eligibility: Detection, Explanations and Consequences for Empirical Research

We document manipulation of a targeting system which used a poverty index score to determine eligibility for social welfare programs in Colombia, including health insurance. We show strategic behavior in the timing of the household interviews around local elections, and direct manipulation when some households had their eligibility scores lowered. Initially the number of interviews increased around local elections. After the algorithm was made public to local officials, the score density exhibited a sharp discontinuity exactly at the eligibility threshold. The discontinuity at the threshold is larger where mayoral elections are more competitive; and smaller in municipalities with less competitive elections, more community organizations and higher newspaper circulation.Manipulation, Targeting, Local elections, Colombia

Decentralization and Access to Social Services in Colombia

A central claim in favor of decentralization is that it will improve access to public services, but few studies examine this question empirically. This paper explores the effects of decentralization on access to health and education in Colombia. We benefit from an original database that includes over 95% of Colombian municipalities. Our results show that decentralization improved enrollment rates in public schools and access of the poor to public health services. In both sectors, improving access was driven by the financial contributions of local governments. Our theoretical findings imply that local governments with better information about local preferences will concentrate their resources in the areas their voters care about most. The combination of empirical and theoretical results implies that decentralization provides local officials with the information and incentives they need to allocate resources in a manner responsive to voters´ needs, and improve the quality of expenditures so as to maximize their impact. The end result is greater usage of local services by citizens.decentralization, education, health, public investment, Colombia, localgovernment.

Are All Resources Cursed? Coffee, Oil and Armed Confict in Colombia

The Resource Curse" posits a positive association between the value of natural commodities and civil conflict. In this paper, we suggest that the value-to-violence relationship differs across commodities, and that the factor intensity of production determines whether a rise in the price of a legally traded good will exacerbate conflict. We exploit exogenous price shocks for coffee and oil to test this hypothesis, using data on politically-motivated violence in Colombia over 1988 to 2004. We find that a drop in coffee prices during the 1990s led to a disproportionate rise in conflict in the coffee areas. Poverty dynamics follow a similar pattern, while substitution into drug crops do not, which suggests that it is the fall in income rather than the drug trade that fuelled this effect. In contrast, we find that oil prices are positively related to clashes with government forces, and that state revenue is used to strengthen military presence in oil areas. Our results suggest that the income channel is critical in determining how price shocks to labor-intensive commodities affect insurgency. However, for capital-intensive goods, the revenue effect predominates in mediating how the value of the commodity affects violence."Colombia, Civil War, Resource Curse, Difference in Differences

The Long Trace of Inequality: Evidence from Cundinamarca, Colombia

This paper uses historic data from Cundinamarca, Colombia to empirically assess the impact of land inequality persistence, inherited from the colonial rule, on economic development in the long run. Based on the Engerman & Sokoloff hypothesis and the use of GIS, I use plausible exogenous variation in land endowments to design an instrumental variable strategy. In contrast to recent studies, I find that more unequal municipalities in the XIX and XX century are associated with better growth, human capital and public goods provision measures today. Political economy channels instead of agricultural productivity gains can explain these results. In municipalities where land was historically more concentrated, powerful landowners were more successful in solving their collective action problem of accessing political power to influence theallocation economic resources in their interests.Land inequality, growth, public goods, political economy

Armed Conflict Exposure, Human Capital Investments and Child Labor: Evidence from Colombia

Using a unique combination of household and violence data sets and a duration analysis methodology, this paper estimates the effect that exposure to armed conflict has on school drop-out decisions of Colombian children between the ages of six and seventeen. After taking into account the possible endogeneity of municipal conflict related events through the use of instrumental variables, we find that armed conflict reduces the average years of schooling in 8.78% for all Colombian children. This estimate increases to 17.03% for children between sixteen and seventeen years old. We provide evidence that such effect may be induced mainly through higher mortality risks, and to lesser extent due to negative economic shocks and lower school quality; all of which induce a trade-off between schooling and child labor.Armed con.ict, School drop-out, Duration Analysis, Colombia

Firm Exit and Armed Conflict in Colombia

This paper uses two unique panel data sets to study the causal effect that armed conflict has over entrepreneurial activity in Colombia. Using a fixed effect estimation methodology at the plant level and controlling for the possible endogeneity of armed conflict through the use of instrumental variables, we find that a one standard deviation in the number of guerrilla and paramilitary attacks in a municipality increases the probability of firm exit in 8.1 percentage points. This effect is stronger for smaller plants and has a differential impact with respect to firms’ age.conflict, firm exit, entrepreneurship, Colombia

Forced Migration, Female Labor Force Participation, and Intra-household Bargaining: Does Conflict EmpowerWomen?

Civilian displacement is a common phenomenon in developing countries confrontedwith internal conflict. While displacement directly affects forced migrants, it also contributes to deteriorating labor conditions of vulnerable groups in receiving communities. For the displaced population, the income losses are substantial, and asthey migrate to cities, they usually end up joining the informal labor force. Qualitative evidence reveals that displaced women are better suited to compete in urban labor markets, as their labor experience is more relevant with respect to certain urban low-skilled occupations. Our study uses this exogenous change in female labor force participation to test how it affects female bargaining power within the household. Our results show that female displaced women work longer hours, earn similar wages and contribute in larger proportions to household earnings relative to rural women whoremain in rural areas. However, as measured by several indicators, their greater contribution to households´ earnings does not strengthen their bargaining power. Most notably, domestic violence have increased among displaced women. The anger and frustration of displaced women also increases the level of violence directed at children. Because the children of displaced families have been the direct victims of conflict and domestic violence, the intra-generational transmission of violence is highly likely.Forced migration, female labor participation, intra-household bargaining,domestic violence.

Social Preferences Among the People of Sanquianga in Colombia

The afro-descendent people of the Sanquianga region in the Colombian Pacific Coast live under particularly extreme poverty conditions. Although highly integrated to markets through very frequent interactions, their access to basic social services and stable income generating activities are constrained, and their dependence on their local commons for food, fisheries, wood and firewood is high. Nevertheless, their pro-social preferences are rather high compared to other regions of Colombia and the world. High levels of altruism, sharing, reciprocity and hyper-fairness were observed in a series of Dictator, Ultimatum and Third-Party Punishment experiments conducted with a sample of 186 adults of two villages in the region. One of the more striking findings is that personal material wealth is associated with lower levels of generosity in the DG and UG games. Some explanations based on the historical roots of these small-scale societies may explain such pro-social behavior.poverty, generosity, pro-sociality, experimental economics, dictator,ultimatum, third-party punishment, Sanquianga, Pacific Coast, afro-descendants