Enduring violent conflict is the flip side of the coin of a weak state. In this article, I propose some political economy underpinnings for the persistence of conflict (and the weak state). Focusing on the case of Colombia, I discuss three broad sets of mechanisms that are also relevant...

We study a recent merit-based financial program for the poor in Colombia. We exploit sharp eligibility rules in household wealth and standardized test scores to identify the causal effect of financial aid on postsecondary enrollment and academic performance. We find large positive effects on...

Spanish Abstract: En 2014 el Ministerio de Educación Nacional de Colombia lanzó el programa Ser Pilo Paga como parte del objetivo de convertir el país en el más educado de América Latina en el 2025. Desde su creación, el programa ha beneficiado a más de 30,000 jóvenes de escasos recursos...

Spanish Abstract: Existe un amplio debate sobre la forma de financiar la educación superior. Mientras que algunos sugieren que se debe incentivar la educación privada con recursos públicos para aumentar la competencia, otros indican que la universidad pública debería fortalecerse. Este...

This study evaluates the impact of a national level subsidized loan program, ACCES, on a number of higher education outcomes (i.e., increase in enrollment rates, decrease in dropout rates, and increase in academic performance) of low-income students in Colombia. We use national level data along...

This paper estimates the impact of a postgraduate merit-based financial aid program in Colombia. Exploiting a regression discontinuity design using rich survey and administrative data, we find three main results by. First, credit constraints are binding and important even for talented...

Spanish Abstract: Por mandato del CONPES 4005, ICETEX desarrolló un Programa de Educación Financiera (PEFI) que provee lecciones virtuales sobre manejo del crédito y del dinero a sus beneficiarios. Esta investigación busca evaluar cómo impacta el PEFI a los conocimientos económicos y...

This paper theoretically assesses the role that uncertainty plays in the intensity of conflicts. The standard two-player rent-seeking contest model (Tullock, 1980) is extended to allow for privately known subjective values of the prize. The conflict is modeled as a Bayesian game on which each...

In this paper, we study how between-group wealth and size heterogeneity affect success probabilities as well as aggregate rent-seeking efforts when two groups compete for the allocation of a pure public good. Unlike with previous models, we measure the utility cost of rent-seeking in terms of...