Stratification and Public Utility Services in Colombia: Subsidies to Households or Distortions on Housing Prices?

Domiciliary public utility services in Colombia have a cross subsidy system which charges subsidized rates to the households who live in houses located in strata associated to low wealth levels, and taxed rates to the better off. We assesses the hypothesis that the flow of subsidies that potentially come from a particular house, are discounted by housing market agents so that most of them are transferred to the prices of the houses that generate the subsidies. By estimating a hedonic prices model applying a regression discontinuity approach, we find that the increment in house value estimated because of subsidies is similar in magnitude to the present value of the flow of subsidies. Likely effects are found on the rent amount. We conclude that subsidies to the poor population through public spending in domiciliary public utility services in Colombia is being achieved, if anything, in a very limited way. Most of the financial effort on this subject ends up distorting housing relative prices according to socioeconomic strata, with an annual cost of up to 0.7% of GDP in supposed gross subsidies to domiciliary public utility services.targeting of subsidies, Incidence, stratification, segregation, hedonic price models, regression discontinuity design. Classification JEL: C0; D31; H4; H22; H24; I3

Documentación de experiencias de una Práctica Educativa Abierta (PEA) en un curso de educación superior

La presente investigación se desarrolló en el marco del Seminario virtual para formadores en el tema del Movimiento Educativo Abierto de la Comunidad Latinoamericana Abierta Regional de Investigación Social y Educativa (CLARISE). El objetivo fue adoptar Recursos Educativos Abiertos (REA) para identificar cuáles son los beneficios en los alumnos tras la adopción de los mismos en sus prácticas educativas en un curso de nivel superior y en la modalidad a distancia. Los resultados dan cuenta de similitudes en la expresión de beneficios entre los alumnos, incremento en el interés de los alumnos por las temáticas de estudio así como una motivación percibida entre los mism

Statistical Thermodynamics of Polymer Quantum Systems

Polymer quantum systems are mechanical models quantized similarly as loop quantum gravity. It is actually in quantizing gravity that the polymer term holds proper as the quantum geometry excitations yield a reminiscent of a polymer material. In such an approach both non-singular cosmological models and a microscopic basis for the entropy of some black holes have arisen. Also important physical questions for these systems involve thermodynamics. With this motivation, in this work, we study the statistical thermodynamics of two one dimensional {\em polymer} quantum systems: an ensemble of oscillators that describe a solid and a bunch of non-interacting particles in a box, which thus form an ideal gas. We first study the spectra of these polymer systems. It turns out useful for the analysis to consider the length scale required by the quantization and which we shall refer to as polymer length. The dynamics of the polymer oscillator can be given the form of that for the standard quantum pendulum. Depending on the dominance of the polymer length we can distinguish two regimes: vibrational and rotational. The first occur for small polymer length and here the standard oscillator in Schr\"odinger quantization is recovered at leading order. The second one, for large polymer length, features dominant polymer effects. In the case of the polymer particles in the box, a bounded and oscillating spectrum that presents a band structure and a Brillouin zone is found. The thermodynamical quantities calculated with these spectra have corrections with respect to standard ones and they depend on the polymer length. For generic polymer length, thermodynamics of both systems present an anomalous peak in their heat capacity $C_V$

Is there a balloon effect? Coca crops and forced eradication in Colombia

One explanation for the increasing number of hectares with coca cultivation is that eradication strategies displace coca crops but fail to completely clear affected areas. In the drug policy literature, that dynamic shifting is commonly known as the balloon effect. This study integrates georeferenced agricultural data through spatially explicit econometric models to tests the hypothesis that forced eradication generates spillover effects. Using annual data for 1,116 contiguous municipalities in Colombia between 2001 and 2010, we estimate a spatial Durbin model (SDM) with municipal and time fixed effects. At municipal level, we find no evidence of the balloon effect. Our results suggest that aerial eradication activities in a municipality reduce the new area under coca cultivation by 8 percent inside that municipality and by 3 percent in neighboring municipalities. Therefore, and contrary to the balloon effect hypothesis aerial eradication generates negative spillover effects. Our results provide deeper insights for policy design. In our analysis, we are able to distinguish between the change in coca cultivation as a result of eradication activities inside and outside the municipality

Aprendizaje activo en ambientes enriquecidos con tecnología

Resumen, Índice de contenido, Índice de tablas, Índice de figuras, Introducción, 1)Planteamiento del problema, 2) Marco teórico, 3) Marco metodológico, 4) Análisis y discusión de resultados, 5) Conclusiones, Referencias, Apéndice

Demanda por Servicios Públicos Domiciliarios en Colombia y Subsidios: Implicaciones sobre el Bienestar

En el presente trabajo se estiman funciones de demanda por los servicios públicos domiciliarios de agua y electricidad para una muestra de las ciudades más importantes en el país. Teniendo como fuente de información la Encuesta de Calidad de Vida 2003 se utiliza una metodología no lineal que aprovecha las particularidades de la función de oferta de estos bienes (bloque de precios crecientes, IBP), para identificar la demanda. Con la estimación de la función de demanda se obtienen elasticidades ingreso y precio, y se estima el efecto que tiene un incremento en el precio del consumo básico sobre el bienestar de las familias beneficiarias a través de la variación compensada y la pérdida irrecuperable, la cual se cuantifica en aproximadamente US$35 millones por año, por concepto de los subsidios brutos en acueducto, alcantarillado y electricidad.Focalización de subsidios, Incidencia, bienestar, funciones de demanda de servicios públicos domiciliarios. Classification JEL:D6; D12; H4; H22; H24; I3.