We study the nature of regional inequality in Colombia over the past 200 years. The main empirical fact is that regional inequality has been highly persistent despite the large changes that have taken place and the modernization of the society. We show that regional inequality is highly...

Exchanging one's vote for particularistic benefits - practices usually grouped under 'clientelism' - is often thought to weaken programmatic links between citizens and politicians and disincentivize public good provision, as well as undermine voter autonomy and the ideal role of elections....

Tax evasion lies at the core of the relationship between citizens and the state: it reflects the level of trust in the state and compliance with society's implicit ‘social contract'. However, empirically analyzing it is challenging, with few direct and reliable measures. This has hampered the...

Customs face a difficult tradeoff between, on one side, collecting tariff revenues and preventing smuggling, and on the other side, avoiding creating additional barriers to trade. They also tend to concentrate discretionary power in the hands of officials whose decisions can bear high costs for...

We describe some features of the political environment in Colombia, drawing from a unique panel dataset of about 10,000 households. Contrasting responses in 2013 and 2016, we document a persistent lack of interest in politics and prevailing clientelism, with personalistic links dominating...

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...

Spanish Abstract: Esta investigación busca evaluar el uso de algoritmos de aprendizaje de máquinas en la detección temprana de actos de corrupción en la administración pública municipal de Colombia. Esto se desarrolla a partir de dos enfoques: (i) una evaluación de algoritmos de...

This paper evaluates the impacts of increased coordination, accountability, and leadership among teams of responsible public officials, with evidence from homicide investigations in Colombia. We randomly assigned the investigations of 66% of the 1,683 homicides occurring in Bogotá, Colombia,...

English Abstract: We develop a model of the politics of state capacity building undertaken by incumbent parties that have a comparative advantage in clientelism rather than in public goods provision. The model predicts that, when challenged by opponents, clientelistic incumbents have the...