This paper analyses land policy when the state lacks the monopoly of legitimate violence (MLV) through a territory. I use historical data for Colombia to empirically assess the dynamics through which the central state allocates land in such a scenario. I argue that colonization processes...

Independence from Spain was a complex movement of civil confrontation and long and cruel wars of liberation. Human lives were lost, assets destroyed, capital fled, slavery abolished and public issues left to inexpert administrations, but at the same time there was an important reduction in the...

This paper examines how trust on institutions and organizations are shaped according to age and exposure to violence during La Violencia. It also evaluates how people's actual trust on different groups (out-group trust) changes in municipalities that were exposed to violence in comparison to...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effects of land concentration prompted by the distribution of disentailed Church land during the second half of the 19th century on the accumulation of human capital, in early 20th century Colombia. Utilizing existing primary sources on the process of land...

Este trabajo presenta evidencia del impacto financiero y administrativo de la reforma educativa de Santander en una universidad privada de comienzos del siglo XIX en Colombia. La reforma educativa emprendida por el gobierno colombiano durante las dácadas de 1820 y 1830fue un ambicioso proyecto...

How does violence affect social capital? I argue that its impact depends on two factors: i) the ability to identify the perpetrating group, and ii) the intensity of the violence. These factors help to reconcile the seemingly contradictory effects of violence on social capital presented in the...

Using a novel biographical database including all Presidents and presidential candidates in Colombia for the period 1833-2010 I show that the value of a political connection can be quantified in terms of the votes transferred within a political network. I consider three types of political...

This paper aims to identify the effect of political exclusion on social capital in Colombia, suggesting social capital as an important channel through which political inequality has been central for Colombian economic development. I use the Colombian National Front agreement during 1958-1974 to...

This paper aims to identify the effect of political exclusion on social capital in Colombia, suggesting social capital as an important channel through which political inequality has been central for Colombian economic development. I use the Colombian National Front agreement during 1958-1974 to...