We look at the relationship between religion and innovation at the country level. Innovation is captured by the Global Innovation Index and certain innovation outputs. Religiosity is measured across 141 countries in terms of religious belonging, belief, and intolerance. In addition, we look at...

Between 1989 and 1993 a structural reform program was introduced in Colombia. If the reform package paled in comparison to those of other countries, it was remarkable given Colombia?s long-standing record of moving very cautiously in the reform front. The fact that the reform effort did not...

This paper examines the decentralization process in Colombia, particularly as it relates to reforms embodied in the 1991 Constitution, and the bailouts of territorial entities that have occurred in subsequent years as a result of perverse incentive structures. The paper provides a summary of the...

This paper looks into the political economy forces that helped shape exchange rate policy in Colombia since the early 1960s. As witnessed by the remarkable longevity of the managed crawl, Colombian exchange rate policies since 1967 did not take the form of major regime changes. Policy shifts...

After several decades of financial repression with some partial attempts at liberalization, Colombian policymakers set out to complete the liberalization process in the early nineties, reducing financial taxation, freeing interest rates, facilitating entry/exit, and eliminating capital account...

This paper deals with three aspects related to the value added tax in Colombia. First, we show that althogh the VAT's "productivity" is at an acceptable level according to international standards, it has recently been declining. Second, we estimate tax evasion/elusion for 1994. Our results...

Using matching estimator techniques developed by Heckman, Ichimura, Smith and Todd (1998) and Heckman, Lalonde and Smith (1999), we explore the determinants of achievement rates in standardized tests of Colombian students attending public and private schools. This methodology allows us to...

This study examines the recent marked slowdown in bank credit to the private sector in Latin America. Based on a study of eight countries - Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and Venezuela - the magnitude of the slowdown is documented, comparing it to historical behavior...

I investigate the relationship between measures of skewness and expected stock returns. Forcing the data to fit a linear model, past research finds only a negative relationship between these variables. Using a novel methodology that endogenously estimates breakpoints in the relationship between...

Based on a new dataset obtained from survey data, we study household debt default behavior in Chile. Previous research in this area suggests financial and personal variables that can help estimate individual and group probabilities of default. We study mortgage and consumer default separately,...