Research
Journal Articles
“Ideology and Riffles: On the agrarian origins of civil conflict in Colombia”, World Development, Vol. 173, 2024 (with Fabio Sanchez).
"Population displacement and Urban Conflict: Global Evidence from more than 3300 flood events", Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 168, 2022 (with David Castells-Quintana and Thomas McDermott).
"Adaptation to climate change: A review through a development economic lens", World Development, Vol. 104, 2018 (with David Castells-Quintana and Thomas McDermott).
"Geography, Institutions and Development: A Review of the long-run impacts of climate change", Climate and Development, Issue 5, Vol. 8, 2016 (with David Castells-Quintana and Thomas McDermott).
"La caja de ahorros: An approximation to the savings patterns in Bogotá, 1848-1864" Ensayos sobre Política Económica, Banco de la República, N° 67, 2012.
"Land Conflicts, Property Rights and the Rise of the Export Economy in Colombia, 1850–1925" with Fabio Sánchez and Antonella Fazio, Journal of Economic History, Vol. 70, N° 2, June, 2010.
Books
Wages, Public Policy and Living Standards in Bogotá 1900-1950, (Salarios, Vida Cotidiana y Condiciones de Vida en Bogotá 1900-1950) Uniandes Publisher, 2011.
Chapters in Books
"Participación política de las mujeres en el posconflicto" with Silvia Delgado (U.Rosario), Ángela Fonseca (U. Javeriana) y Paola Silva (MALD Fletcher School, Tufts University) in Después de acuerdo, ¿Cómo va la paz en Colombia?, Uniandes, 2023.
"The Politics of the Global Gender Agenda: A Pathway to empowerment" in Handbook of the Politics of International Development, edit. Melissa Deciancio, Diana Tusie, Pablo Demiña, E-Elgar Editors, 2022.
“Democratization and Development” in Poverty and Development: Into the 21st century, with David Potter and Alan Thomas, edit. Tim Allen and Alan Thomas, Oxford University Press, 2021.
"The role of Climate in development", The Economics of Climate-Resilient Development with David Castells and Thomas McDermott, edit. Sam Famkhauser and Thomas McDermott, Elgar Editors, 2016, pp.15-32.
"Coping with climate risk: the options", The Economics of Climate-Resilient Development with David Castells and Thomas McDermott, edit. Sam Famkhauser and Thomas McDermott, Elgar Editors, 2016, pp.53-76.
"Women Rising: Dynamics of the Education System and the Labour Market in Colombia, 1900-2000" with Diana Quintero, Gender inequalities and development in Latin America during the twentieth century, edit. Maria Camou, Rosemary Thorp and Silvana Maubrigades, Ashgate publisher, 2016, pp. 161-190.
"Tierra y Mujer: elementos para la construcción de una paz estable y duradera" with Margarita Varón, Juan Carlos Muñoz (EAFIT) y Angela Penagos (Uniandes), in A los 5 años del acuerdo, ¿Cómo va la paz en Colombia?, Uniandes, Forthcoming.
"Conflictos de tierras, Derechos de Propiedad y el surgimiento de la economía exportadora en el siglo XIX en Colombia", with Fabio Sánchez and Antonella Fazio, La Economía Colombiana en el siglo XIX, Fondo de Cultura Económica y Banco de la República, 2010.
Working Papers
“Buying off the Revolution: Evidence from the Colombian National Peasant Movement, 1957-1985”
(Awarded Best Paper on Development Economics, 9th Bolivian Conference on Development Economics).
This paper studies the relationship between democratic reforms and redistribution during periods of revolutionary threat. Far from causing an increase in broad redistribution (e.g. social spending), I show that the state organization of a social movement that extends the political rights of the threatening group can be used to identify rebel leaders and provide private goods to them, in return for preventing social unrest and demobilizing their supporters. I study the context of the organization by the state of the most important social movement in Colombian history -the National Peasant Movement (ANUC)- over a period of almost three decades (1957-1985), in which the threat of a Communist Revolution was perennial and throughout which the government gave ANUC direct political participation at the local level in the executive branch and economic support. Using three newly digitized data sets of Colombian municipalities, I find that rather than leading to broad redistribution to the benefit of the peasantry, the reform instead led to an increase in targeted redistribution in terms of public jobs and lands. In particular, by matching the names of the peasant leaders to the beneficiaries of the land reform, evidence suggests that peasant leaders disproportionately benefited from land reform, especially in municipalities where the communist threat was higher. Finally, I find suggestive evidence that buying off the rebel leaders was an effective counter-revolutionary strategy as it led to fewer revolutionary activities after the support of ANUC was terminated (1972-1985).
“Roads or Schools? Political Budget Cycles with different types of voters”, MPRA Paper, #50529, 2013.
Using a new Colombian data set (1830-2000), I analyse how changes in the electoral legislation about the characteristics of voters (in terms of education and income levels) have affected fiscal policy in election years. In line with economic theory, I show that after the male universal suffrage law was reformed in 1936 the composition of the expenditure shifted towards social spending (like education, health, and welfare benefits) but there was a decrease in spending on infrastructure and investment projects (like roads). Consistent with the literature, I also find: 1. The timing and the size of the political budget cycles changed after 1936 and 2. After 1936 there was a shift in the funding mechanisms from indirect tax revenues to more debt.
"Land Property Rights, Public Good Provision and Illicit Crops: Evidence from Colombia" with Juan Carlos Muñoz and Eduard Martines.
Land Property Rights have multiple benefits, particularly in areas exposed to illicit crops. This article explores the impact of a titling program -Formalizar para Sustituir (FxS)- as a strategy for households to voluntarily substitute illicit to licit crops in Colombia. Using novel information from surveys at the household level and satellite data at the village level, results suggest that, on average, the area of coca plantations in those villages that benefited from the program is reduced by 1.372 pp the next two years after the program was implemented. The mechanisms suggest that land property rights increase the income of the households and reduce multidimensional poverty by substituting licit crops. However, our findings indicate that the effect on coca plantations decreases over time. The positive effects on beneficiaries' income only hold if land titling was jointly implemented with other varieties of public goods such as roads and electricity. This article highlights the relevance of property rights as an initial and necessary step in the permanent transition to the legality of small coca farmers. Still, it is insufficient if the titling program does not include other forms of state presence.
"Financiación no Bancaria y Casas de Agroinsumos en Colombia," Documento CEDE 56, 2021 (Nicolás de Roux, Natalia Moreno, Tomás Rodriguez).
Agro-input dealers are an important actor in the agricultural value chain of Colombia but there are few studies about them. This paper aims to fill this gap and emphasises the sales with multiple payment instalments, an important source of non-financial financing these dealers provide. The analysis is based on information from surveys to agro-input dealers and to small agricultural producers. It also uses administrative and receipt data from five dealers. These are the main findings of the study: 1) sales of agro-inputs with multiple payment instalments are frequent. 2) Payments are frequently late, which implies a high financial cost. 3) The main determinant of the timing of the payments is the duration of the commercial relationship between the agro-input dealer and the client. 4) The five agro-input dealers analyzed in detail do not charge different prices depending on the timing of the payments. In other words, there is no evidence that the agro-input dealers charge higher prices when they sell with multiple payment instalments. 5) The calibration of an economic model allows for estimating the prices of the agro-inputs that the dealers would charge if they did not have to assume the cost of the late payments. Without this cost, the model implies a price reduction of between 1 % and 2 %. These results suggest that the high prices of agro-inputs are in part due to the risk that the agro-input dealers assume when they sell with multiple payment instalments.
"With a little help from my friends: Debt Renegotiation and Climate Change", Documento CEDE 54, 2021 (Juan Camilo Cárdenas, Fernando Jaramillo, Diana León, Mauricio Rodriguez y Hernando Zuleta) Media: Foco Económico
The economic crisis from the Covid-19 pandemic has generated a fall in tax revenues and an increase in the need for public spending in most economies worldwide. This situation has led to a substantial increase in sovereign debt levels and has dramatically reduced the fiscal space of governments. For upper- middle-income countries (UMICs), current access to financing is limited, and this can potentially limit the space for climate action in the short and medium run. However, delaying climate action can generate a negative signal on fiscal sustainability due to the physical and transition risks of climate change. Unsustainable production practices will result in a deterioration of the productive capacity of natural assets reducing potential tax income. Simultaneously there will be a stronger need for public spending to face the future damages associated with greenhouse gases emissions. Therefore, to address the current crisis, we need an integrated approach that considers the climate crisis a challenge with a high degree of urgency. For this approach to be feasible, sufficient international climate finance needs to be available, and it should help to steer relief and recovery efforts in a direction in which these are also compatible with climate targets. In this document, we propose a sovereign debt negotiation scheme in which the conditions of the debt depending on the climate policies undertaken by the debtor countries. Likewise, we point out that the feasibility of beneficial agreements for debtors and the implementation of good climate policies depend positively on the size of the debt and each country's potential to affect the current trend of climate change. For these reasons, the formation of coalitions of debtor countries can be a key factor for debt relief and the implementation of climate policies.
Work in Progress
"Cash Transfers and Violence against Women in Quarantine: Evidence from Bogota, Colombia" with Michael Weintraub.
"An Impact Evaluation of a Large Scale Housing Program on Welfare: Evidence from Colombia" with Fabio Sanchez.
"An Impact Evaluation of a Housing Program with a Gender Perspective" with Fabio Sanchez.
"Poverty Traps and Housing: Evidence from Colombia" with Fabio Sanchez.
“Sharing the gains from trade: Land Allocations after a large Trade Shock, The Case of the Panama Canal” with Felipe Carozzi.
"The Dark Net and the Market of Cocaine" with Stephen Machin and Carlos Ramirez.
"On the origins of Inequality in Colombia".
"Women Economic Empowerment and Political Representation in Colombia".
“Free Slaves and Social Mobility in the Long Run: Evidence from Sierra Leone” with Leonard Wantchenkon.
"The Repeated History: Economic and Political Cycles in Colombia during the 19th century" with Juan Carlos Echeverry.