This study reports results from a randomized evaluation of a mandatory six-month Internet-based sexual education course implemented across public junior high schools in 21 Colombian cities. Six months after finishing the course, the study finds a 0.4 standard deviation improvement in knowledge,...

Differences in management quality are an important contributor to productivity differences across countries. A key question is how to best improve poor management in developing countries. This paper tests two different approaches to improving management in Colombian auto parts firms. The first...

Colombia has reduced extreme poverty in the past 16 years by almost half, moderate poverty by 22 percentage points, and made more than four million Colombians jump the threshold of multidimensional poverty. However, it remains one of the most unequal countries in the region, after Brazil and...

The Colombian power market was established in 1995, driven primarily by concerns about the reliability of supply in the largely hydro-based domestic power system. The power sector reform was expected to help avoid blackouts by attracting private investment and increasing the efficiency of...

This paper studies the relationship between information and communication technology, labor demand, and total factor productivity in Colombia. It estimates total factor productivity for the Colombian manufacturing sector using a method that assumes a law of motion where total factor productivity...

The effects of urban transport policies on household welfare are a broadly understudied topic in developing countries. This paper analyzes the distributional effects of a newly established bus rapid transit system in Barranquilla, Colombia. The paper uses pooled cross-sectional household survey...

This study explores the short-run transitions between poverty, vulnerability, and middle class, using synthetic panels constructed from multiple rounds of Colombia's Integrated Household Survey (in Spanish Gran Encuesta Integrada de Hogares). The paper reports results from two approaches to...

At the request of the Colombian authorities, the bank resolution regime was assessed against the Key Attributes of Effective Resolution Regimes for Financial Institutions (KAs). The assessment was conducted by staff of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and...

International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused exclusively on leveraging the power of the private sector to tackle the world's most pressing development challenges. Working with private enterprises in more than one...

Coding bootcamps are intensive short-term programs designed to train participants in programming skills to make them immediately employable. They combine characteristics of traditional vocational training programs with the intensity of military bootcamps for new recruits, intermingling socio...