Approximately one third of the global prison population is in pretrial detention, waiting for trial. Overreliance on pretrial detention exposes defendants to harsh conditions, exacerbates jail overcrowding, increases recidivism, and favors criminal governance. What policies can resource-strapped...

This paper characterizes the labor market of youth in Colombia from 2008 to 2017. We estimate labor market indicators for individuals aged between 14 and 28 years using microdata from Colombia's household surveys over the study period. Our estimates document the main patterns and trends in the...

This paper characterizes the labor market of youth in Colombia from 2008 to 2017. We estimate labor market indicators for individuals aged between 14 and 28 years using microdata from Colombia's household surveys over the study period. Our estimates document the main patterns and trends in the...

Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) provide income to the poor in an effort to improve current welfare and promote investment in human and social capital to prevent future deprivation. So far, the impact evaluation literature has focused on estimating current effects on outcomes such as school...

This article studies minimum wage non-compliance in Honduras, a dual labor market with high wage floors that are weakly enforced. However, rather than just counting how many workers earn sub-minimum wages, it also estimates violation indices that measure compliance at the intensive margin. I...

Rebels, militias, and criminal groups all govern civilians. Governing strategies adopted by armed groups during civil war likely influence citizens' post-conflict political participation, with consequences for democratic politics. We theorize that an armed group's position relative to the state...

While many recommend electoral democracy as a way to avoid or resolve civil conflict, the empirical record of electoral democracy as an alternative to civil conflict is decidedly mixed. We apply recent work from new organizational economics on the nature of elite pacts to add to both sides of...

Why is it so hard to get opposing elites to work together rather than to seek partisan gains and/or political survival? While the credible commitment problem is widely known, there are a number of lesser known obstacles to building trust and trust worthiness between opposing elites. This article...

In many low and middle-income countries, motorcycles are the most commonly used means of transportation. Over and beyond their many legal uses, motorcycles are also widely used to commit crimes. While motorcycle restrictions to reduce crime have been adopted in at least 14 countries, we do not...

Governments across the developing world deploy their armed forces for domestic policing. Advocates of these policies tout their crime reduction effects, while detractors claim they undermine human rights. We experimentally evaluate a military policing intervention in Cali, Colombia, one of the...