La medición del gasto público social tiene importantes inconvenientes en el caso colombiano, problema que se ve reforzado por el hecho de que la discusión política alrededor del tema es escasa y, por ende, poco exigente. No obstante lo anterior, con base en la información disponible, puede...

Previous work has documented a negative correlation between internal conflict and state capacity. We attempt to shed light on mechanisms that underlie this relationship, using data for Colombian municipalities. We rely on identifying heterogeneous effects of different types of violent events on...

We re-examine the view that wars make strong states, taking advantage of panel data to address two of the most obvious endogeneity concerns that arise in this context: initial conditions and persistence of state capacity. Our main message is that, in modern times, there is no evidence that wars...