THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF LABOR REFORM IN COLOMBIA

This paper analyzes the entire reformist effort that spans from 1990 until 2002, emphasizing the second wave that ended with the issuing of a new labor code in 2002. A successful reform has to surpass a set of deals" along the streamline of design, consensus building within civil society, submission to Congress and parliamentary debate, before it gets approved. The paper presents the story of two failed attempts for producing these "deals" within the government, along with labor unions and private sector firm confederations, before the 2002 labor reform was finally enacted. It shows what economic and social considerations created the need for reform, describes the actual policy changes implemented and evaluates their impact. The paper delves deep into the political aspects of the reform effort. Public officials of two governments pursued different lines of reform, discussion strategies and mechanisms for creating consensus, before the initiative gained momentum and circumvented key obstacles. The text of the 2002 reform proposal changed little during five years, but received important additions in the floor of Congress, with little technical support. Finally, an interesting dispute between lawyers and economists is presented regarding the role of the labor code for job creation and its function in the economic cycle. In the case of this reform, economists believed more on the computed elasticities, while lawyers believed more in the stability of established rules and in the limited role of norms. Economists should pay more attention to the workings of the political economy of reform and to the "life cycle of government", both of them critical for success."labor reform

On the Enforcement of Territorial Use Rights Regulations: A Game Theoretic Approach

Territorial Use Rights (commonly known as TURFs in the literature) consists in the allocation of fishing rights to individuals and/or groups to fish in certain geographical locations. A requisite for these communities to be granted fishing rights is the formulation of a management and exploitation plan (MEP). While thus far the literature on TURFs has been centred on the biological and technical aspects of it, to our knowledge there is no work squarely dealing with the issue of enforcement of the MEP that the community, once granted the fishing use rights, have to comply with. We formally explore this issue from an economic perspective by formulating a static game of norm compliance in a regime of common property resource exploitation. The key characteristic of this game is a monitoring and sanctioning mechanism, where fishermen monitor and sanction one another. We found that in the absence of any endogenous regulation from the part of the fishing community, TURFs can not avoid the economic overexploitation of the fishery. We discuss the importance of economic incentives (and disincentives) in the formulation of endogenous regulations aimed at ensuring compliance of the MEP. Our results on the relevance of economic incentives in the context of a TURF regulation can also be used to highlight the importance of less conventional enforcement tools.Territorial Use Rights, Enforcement, Game Theory, Chile

Measuring Economic and Social Impacts of Migration in Colombia: New evidence

This paper analyses a comprehensive dataset on migration using robust econometric methodologies to assess a range of economic and social impacts of migration on individuals and households left behind. Our findings indicate that there is no significant impact on labour force participation in households with migrants, but remittances do appear to have a negative effect on labour force participation. Migration (either absent or returned) increases total per capita expenditure by nearly US$35 per month while households that receive remittances increase per capita expenditures by US$49 per month on average. Expenditures in health and education also increase. However, there is no effect on school attendance, while individuals living in a household with an absent migrant are almost 4 per cent less likely to state that their health is good. Households with migration experience are around 8 per cent less likely to keep their immediate families together, with this effect particularly pronounced in the sub-group of households with return migrants. Our policy recommendations emphasize the importance of family reunification, and issue that deserves more decisive policy actions on the part of the Colombian government.International Migration, Remittances, Program Evaluation.