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...

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...

We describe the patterns of economic growth and social progress in Colombian "functional territories". Unlike political/administrative divisions that emerge at least partly for historical reasons unrelated to economic interactions, functional territories reflect the patterns of spatial...

Spanish Abstract: La firma del acuerdo de paz colombiano resultó en la desmovilización y reincorporación a la vida civil de más de 12.000 excombatientes de las FARC. El conflicto, que estuvo activo casi 60 años, causó más de ocho millones de víctimas y una sociedad dividida. No abordar...

Free media may not favor political accountability when other democratic institutions are weak, and may even bring undesirable unintended consequences. We propose a simple model in which candidates running for office may engage in coercion to obtain votes. A media scandal exposing these...

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...

English Abstract: We document the existence of a Crime Kuznets Curve in US states since the 1970s. As in come level shave risen, crime has followed an inverted U-shaped pattern, first increasing and then dropping. The Crime Kuznets Curve is not explained by income inequality. In fact, we show...

Traditional theories of democracy suggest that political representation of excluded groups can reduce their incentives to engage in conflict. We consider the response of elites whose power is threatened by new political actors and study the consequences of political inclusion in a context of...

Using Facebook's release in a given language as an exogenous source of variation in access to social media where the language is spoken, we show that Facebook has had a significant and sizable positive impact on citizen protests. By exploiting variation in a large sample of countries during...