Test direct, spillover and aggregate effects of hot spots policing on crime in a high crime environment. Methods: We identified 967 hot spot street segments and randomly assigned 384 to a six-months increase in police patrols. To account for the complications resulting from a large experimental...

We study the effects of broken windows policing on crime using geo-located crime and arrest reports for 80 Colombian cities. Broadly defined, broken windows policing consists of intensifying arrests - sometimes for minor offenses - to deter potential criminals. To estimate causal effects, we...

Spanish Abstract: En este artículo estimo el efecto causal de las condiciones de reclusión sobre la reincidencia explotando la entrada en operación de nuevos centros de reclusión en Colombia. Entre marzo de 2010 y enero de 2013 entraron en funcionamiento diez nuevos centros de reclusión...

Spanish Abstract: Colombia concentra grandes esfuerzos fiscales a la persecución del delito de porte, fabricación y tráfico de estupefacientes. Estos costos no son siempre visibles, en tanto corresponden al costo de oportunidad de una gran cantidad de funcionarios que intervienen en el ciclo...

Our goal in this paper is twofold: First, evaluate the impact on crime of the restriction of late-night alcohol sales in Bogotá; and second, quantify the causal effect of problematic alcohol consumption on different crime categories. Using a control group strategy, we explore time-series and...

This paper proposes a new identification strategy to estimate the causal impact of illicit drug markets on violence using a panel of Colombian municipalities covering the period 1994-2008. Using a UNODC survey of Colombian rural households involved in coca cultivation, we estimate the...

We model the war on drugs in source countries as a conflict over scarce inputs of successive levels of the production and trafficking chain. We explicitly model the vertical structure of the drug trade as being composed of several stages, and study how different policies aimed at different...

By the time the Colombian government closed DMG and DRFE, two Ponzi schemes that were operating in Colombia until 2008, over half a million customers had deposited funds corresponding to 1.2% of Colombia's annual GDP. We show that the individuals who invested in DMG and DRFE obtained close to...

Well-intended policies often have negative unintended consequences if they fail to foresee the different ways in which individuals may respond to the new set of incentives. When widespread and persistent, these may lead to a net reduction of social welfare. Focusing on the case of anti-drug...

A recurring debate in the literature on crime control is whether an increase in the probability of punishment is a more effective deterrent than an increase in the severity of the sanction. This paper further explores this issue in the context of crime in Colombia. We use a natural policy...