Latin America's macroeconomic crisis of the 1980s and '90s forced a severe fiscal adjustment across the region. More often than not, however, fiscal stability was achieved at the cost of a drastic compression of public infrastructure spending, which in some countries amounted to half or more of...

Previous studies indicate that Colombian farmers make production decisions based on informal sources of information, such as family and neighbors or tradition. In this paper the authors randomize recipients of price and weather information using text messages (SMS technology). The authors find...

The 1991 Colombian Constitution strengthened the checks and balances of the political system by enhancing the role of Congress and the Constitutional Court, while somewhat limiting the powers of the President (who nonetheless remains extremely powerful even by Latin American standards). As a...

Las finanzas del sector público colombiano mostraron déficit durante prácticamente todos los años del período 1980-1996. Este resultado no debe sorprender si se compara con la evolución fiscal de otros países de la región o del continente europeo en el mismo período, que también fue...

We study the socio-economic gradient of child development on a representative sample of low- and middle-income children aged 6-42 months in Bogota, using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, a high quality test based on direct observation of the child's abilities. We find a statistically...

This paper attempts to establish a formal relationship between innovation and productivity using Colombian firm-level data. It is found that the production of goods and services new to the firm and to the domestic market enhances firms' sales per worker, and innovation that results in...

This paper studied whether the use of short message service (SMS) technology effectively informed Bogota's population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) about its eligibility to receive social benefits. Half of the sample population was randomly informed of their eligibility via SMS and...