Legalizing cocaine: Uno de los elementos que puede conducir a reducir el conflicto en Colombia.

La guerra puede terminar con una victoria, pero los conflictos sociales, culturales y de clases acaban realmente cuando la gente está cansada. Y ojalá que Colombia esté en ese punto. Ahora, hay elementos de ese conflicto que no son de Colombia, que no son su culpa. Si la cocaína, por ejemplo, fuese legal, este conflicto no habría existido. El combustible de la guerra es el uso de la cocaína afuera. Y cuando se tiene ese ‘petróleo’, es muy difícil. Si las Farc tienen plata, si pueden comprar armas, si se pueden esconder en las montañas, es muy duro. Para mí, lo que se tiene que hacer es matar el negocio de la cocaína. Después, bueno, no puedo hablar por Colombia, pero me parece que una nueva generación tiene que llevar a cabo un cambio social para que todos los colombianos puedan tener esperanza en el futuro, que puede ser brillante.

Otras preguntas están en esta entrevista hecha al antropólogo y botánico.

Colombia claim of the day

. . . formal workers earn between 30 to 60 percent more, on average, than informal workers.

Source. HT: Catalina Granda Carvajal.
  

Transferencias y Criminalidad (Bogotá)

Daniel Mejía es uno de los economistas-investigadores mas rigurosos y creativos de América Latina. Ha hecho estudios sobre el efecto de la guerra contra las drogas, entre otros. En este artículo él y su coautora, Adriana Camacho, analizan el efecto de un programa gubernamental de transferencias condicionadas, llamado Familias en Acción, sobre la criminalidad en la ciudad de Bogotá. Del abstract: 

En este trabajo estudiamos los efectos indirectos del mayor Programa de Transferencias Condicionadas (PTC) en Colombia, Familias en Acción, sobre los niveles de criminalidad en el área urbana de la ciudad de Bogotá. Para realizar este estudio combinamos las siguientes dos fuentes de información: el Sistema de Información de beneficiarios de Familias en Acción (SIFA) y los reportes administrativos de criminalidad de la Policía Nacional. En el estudio evaluamos dos posibles canales por los cuales Familias en Acción puede afectar los niveles de criminalidad. Por un lado, el efecto ingreso, para el cual explotamos la variación existente en las fechas de pago del programa. Nuestros resultados indican que a través de este efecto el programa reduce el crimen a la propiedad. Específicamente, encontramos que las transferencias del programa reducen la tasa de hurto a personas y de hurto a vehículos en 7.2% y 1.3%, respetivamente, en los días posteriores a las trasferencias de Familias en Acción. Por otro lado, estudiamos si las condicionalidades de asistencia escolar como requisito para obtener los subsidios que otorga el programa “incapacitan” (o impiden) que los adolescentes se vinculen a actividades delictivas. Para estimar dicho efecto hacemos uso de las fechas de vacaciones del sistema educativo y las fechas de los paros del principal sindicato de trabajadores del sector educación (FECODE). Nuestros resultados indican que el programa Familias en Acción no tiene efectos sobre la criminalidad a través del efecto incapacitación. Con esto, los resultados muestran que las transferencias que otorga el programa Familias en Acción disminuyen el crimen (efecto ingreso), pero el efecto a través de la incapacitación de los adolescentes de vincularse a actividades delictivas no parece operar.

Es decir la incondicionalidad de la transferencia funcionó mejor que la condicionalidad sobre el crimen. 

Retornos de la Educación Técnica y Tecnológica (Colombia)

Esto es de un articulo publicado en la Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad, de la Universidad de los Andes:

La educación superior no universitaria (ESNU), que comprende los programas técnicos y tecnológicos, puede ser una opción de política pública para disminuir la brecha salarial y evitar la concentración de la riqueza. Mediante estimaciones tipo pool de la ecuación de Mincer para los años 2007-2011 y la descomposición del ingreso por componentes factoriales en la que se toma como insumo la ecuación del ingreso, se encuentra que la educación técnica y tecnológica tiene una tasa de retorno superior a la de la educación media en 19,5% y, además, la tasa de crecimiento de este retorno entre 2007 y 2011 fue superior a la de la educación universitaria en 0,4%. Así mismo, la ESNU incrementa la probabilidad de empleo con respecto a no poseer ningún título o tener educación superior universitaria en 1,7% y 0,2% respectivamente. Este tipo de educación favorece principalmente a mujeres, jóvenes y población ubicada en los estratos socioeconómicos más bajos.

Lo que también constituye una oportunidad para emprendedores educativos, y muy probablemente está en la mayoría de países en LA.

The Effects of Drug Enforcement on Violence in Colombia 1999-2010

From a paper by Hernan Botero Degiovanni. The conclusions 

In this paper, I argue that drug enforcement in a source country does generate violence, where the latter is measured as rate of homicides or displacement per 100, 000 inhabitants. I use data on drugs from Colombia during the period 1999–2010 to test this hypothesis. I find that drug enforcement has two effects: first– and second–order effects. . . (p. 23).

. . . Colombian data show that there existed first– and second–order effects of drug enforcement in the period 1999 − 2010: my results indicate that the first–order effect is 0.98% for the homicide rate and 1.24% for the displacement rate in the period 1999-2010 and the second–order effect is 4.00% for the homicide rate and 0.16% for the displacement rate (p. 24).

As a final conclusion, I cannot claim that the military tactics are the best methods to completely control the existence of drugs in Colombia. Despite the strength gained by the Colombian army and police from “Plan Colombia”, there are still Colombians interested in participating in the production of cocaine. Given the existence of an international market providing these individuals with funds to fight back the central government’s security forces, the result is that more Colombians are dying every day for the war against drugs (p. 24).

HT: Maximo Rossi

The war on drugs does not eradicate coca, but people and forests . . .

From a recently published article in Geoforum (March 2013):

Coca plantations are the largest illegal agribusiness in the world, and Colombia is the world’s leading coca producer. Since 1994, the Colombian state, with the aid of the US, has waged a war on drugs based on air fumigation of coca plantations. This article evaluates the social and environmental impacts of this policy. We construct and analyse statistically for the first time a spatial database with social, economic, environmental, coca production and fumigation data for all 1125 municipalities of Colombia for the period 2001–2008. We complement statistical analysis with in situ observations and secondary literature review. We find that even if the questionable government claims that overall extent of coca plantations has been reduced were to be true, still coca activity has been diffused in the territory, with devastating environmental and social consequences. Biodiversity hotspot areas are being deforested, and local populations, especially Afro-Colombian communities, are being displaced from their territories. Our statistical analysis provides quantitative evidence to back up previous claims based on victims’ experience, single case-studies and ethnographic observation. We question the effectiveness of the fumigation policy and suggest that what is actually eradicated by the war on drugs is not coca, but humans and the forest.

The title of the article is "Caught in the middle, Colombia’s war on drugs and its effects on forest and people," and it is by Rincón-Ruiz & Kallis.

The authors explain:

We find that in the municipalities where fumigations increased (black color – Maps 2a and 3a), the extent of land covered by coca area declined in the subsequent period (gray color – Maps 2b and 3b). However there was an increase in the extent of the cultivated area in the municipalities neighboring the areas fumigated (black color – Maps 2b and 3b). Therefore the shrinking of coca production in one part came at the expense of expanding in another. In other words, even if overall coca cultivation were to be decreasing (as the official data claims), it is nonetheless diffusing in the territory. 

More:

. . . is not coca production alone that causes the deforestation; it is the fumigation that is con- tinuously pushing it to new areas. 

 And more:

Even if fumigations have been reducing the cultivated area, which is questionable, their goal of total eradication is not feasible; illegal groups have easily adapted and responded to fumigation with fast reloca- tion, forest clearance and production anew. While the intention of the fumigation policy may have been to make coca cultivation too costly to maintain, illegal groups have managed to shift the cost to producers and the local people, maintaining the lucrative cocaine trade going on. The costs of this ineffective war on drugs are dis- proportionately distributed along lines of class (income), race and ethnicity. Colombia continues to receive massive amounts of US aid to wage this chemical air war on drugs. The policy implica- tions of our study for Colombia and beyond are clear: any govern- ment that attempts to stamp out coca production through aerial fumigations should think twice about its effectiveness and its side-effects.

And a meta-conclusion:

Why does aerial fumigation fail? Here we follow this body of lit- erature which suggests that centrally managed social plans often misfire, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex local interdependencies that are not fully understood (Scott, 1998). Norgaard (1994) . . . 

The full article is here.  

Criminal path-dependence (Medellin)

We use the census of criminals captured in Medellín between 2000 and 2010 to construct our peer's variables, and find a strong and robust positive effect of the presence of adult criminal neighbors on the probability of becoming criminal.

Source: Medina, Tamayo, Posso (2013). 
HT: Fabio Sabatini. 

Intriguing: The monopoly of violence: Evidence from Colombia

From a new published paper by Acemoglu, Robinson, and Santos (Journal of the European Economic Association, January 2013):

Many states in Latin America, Africa, and Asia lack the monopoly of violence, even though this was identified by Max Weber as the foundation of the state, and thus the capacity to govern effectively. In this paper we develop a new perspective on the establishment of the monopoly of violence. We build a model to explain the incentive of central states to eliminate nonstate armed actors (paramilitaries) in a democracy. The model is premised on the idea that paramilitaries may choose to and can influence elections. Since paramilitaries have preferences over policies, this reduces the incentives of the politicians they favor to eliminate them. We then investigate these ideas using data from Colombia between 1991 and 2006. We first present regression and case study evidence supporting our postulate that paramilitary groups can have significant effects on elections for the legislature and the executive. Next, we show that the evidence is also broadly consistent with the implication of the model that paramilitaries tend to persist to the extent that they deliver votes to candidates for the executive whose preferences are close to theirs and that this effect is larger in areas where the presidential candidate would have otherwise not done as well. Finally, we use roll-call votes to illustrate a possible “quid pro quo” between the executive and paramilitaries in Colombia. 

Family Firms in Colombia

From the new paper "Family firms and financial performance: The cost of growing" by González et al (December 2012) in the Emerging Markets Review:

Econometric results show the positive effect of family involvement is robust when firms are small and young, especially when the founder is still active in management; but as firms grow, the results suggest family involvement must be avoided to increase efficiency and improve overall corporate governance practices (p. 3).

A draft is here.  

Colombia Tries Again to End Drug-Fed War

William Neuman writes in the NYT: 

Despite three previous rounds of failed negotiations since the 1980s, many observers say there are reasons to hope that this time things could be different, including recent military successes by the government that have the guerrillas on the defensive. 

But the negotiations must not only convince members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, one of the world’s most tenacious armed groups, to finally lay down their weapons. They also aim to dismantle a major criminal enterprise that derives much of its income from drugs and is a prime source of cocaine to the United States.

And: 

For many in the organization, known as the FARC, the drug profits may be simply too rich to leave behind.In Bogotá, the capital, with its bustling neighborhoods and expensive restaurants, it is sometimes easy to forget the war. 

But in Toribío, a town in the Cauca region, where the FARC is defending its drug routes from increased army pressure, the nights are punctuated by the sound of mortar rounds. Soldiers and police officers patrol the streets, and many homes bear the scars of a large bomb set off more than a year ago.

It is difficult to believe that the war in Colombia can end without ending the war on drugs first. 

Violence and Economic Development in Colombian Cities

This paper studies the socio-economic determinants of violence in the seven most important cities in Colombia. Derived from theories rooted in classic works, including Becker's paradigm, criminal inertia, social disorganisation, urbanism and strain, we formulate several hypotheses on the socio-economic determinants of violence. To test these hypotheses, a dynamic panel data analysis is employed. The analysis shows that cities’ deprivation and high population density are strong predictors of homicide rates. Comparing the results among Colombian cities, we find support indicating that city-level homicide rates are influenced by the city's level of development. Moreover, we find evidence that economic growth, inequality, poverty and human capital influence violence in the cities studied, which could generate negative effects on the economic and social development of Colombia.

That is from a new paper by Alexander Cotte Poveda (Journal of International Development, October 2012). A draft is here. 

Probably the analysis should have added governance or efficiency of the judiciary (or a proxy of them) as explanatory variable. 

The author explains: 

Another finding consistent with our hypothesis (Hypothesis 2) concerns drug seizures, measured as marijuana, cocaine, and coca seizures, where the relationship between violence and drug sized is negative and significant for marijuana seizures, indicating that a higher level of drug seizures generates a lower motivation to commit an illegal activity. However, Becker et al. (2004) have demonstrated that drug trafficking as an illegal activity for suppliers and consumers is a not efficient strategy to drug control, whereas legalizing drug use and taxing consumption may be more effective than continuing to prohibit the use of drugs.

Colombia graph of the day (Ref. Height)

The data shows that for Colombians born between 1946 and 1992 there is a positive trend and a continuous rise in height. For the total sample, those born in the last five years (1987-1992) reached about five additional centimeters compared with those born in the first half of the period under study (1946-1950). However, the analysis by ethnic groups shows different growths patterns. The data reveals that the group ‘others’ (those who do not want to classify themselves in any group) had higher growth rates compared to Afro and indigenous, 3.3% for men, and 3.7% for women.

Additionally, it could be said that, regardless of gender, Afrocolombians are the tallest group, followed by ‘others’ and indigenous. While the gap between Afros and ‘others’ has been diminishing over time, this is not the case with the gap between Afros and indigenous, which is, on the whole, constant, with small fluctuations.

Living conditions and nutritional status are clearly associated with stature. People that have better living conditions are, on average, taller than those in the bottom of the distribution. Likewise, those who have food security are generally taller than those with severe insecurity. In the latter category fall households where all members feel they have experienced hunger because of lack of food. 

Although this situation can be generalized to all ethnic groups, indigenous is the group which could have the best improvement in height with an adequate food supply. The results are consistent with the fact that indigenous is the group that presents the highest height potential.

Finally, the initial estimates used in this paper explain almost 50% of the variation in height in the different ethnic classifications. Among the explanatory variables we included gender, access to tap water, age group, and household food security. Together, these variables were significant and allowed us to check the hypothesis of the importance of living conditions on observable physical characteristics, such as height.

In a second set of estimations, we included the height of parents as the best approximation of the intergenerational association of biological well-being. Such specification explains about 70% of the variation in height for all ethnic classifications. This is one of the main findings of this paper. In previous research, such as that of Meisel and Vega (2007), it was not possible to identify the stature of parents or self-classification in ethnic groups, as we were able to do here.

In conclusion, there is clear evidence of the importance of the living condition of parents on their children's height. However, this does not mean that we can ignore that personal conditions are also a significant determinant of height, regardless of the ethnic group of the individual.

Source: "Ethnic Groups and Anthropometric Differences in Colombia" by Acosta and Meisel (2012). 

HT: Clarence Tsimpo.

The long term effects of slavery in Colombia

The graph is from a new paper by Acemoglu, García-Jimeno, and Robinson (June 2012). The paper is titled "Finding Eldorado: Slavery and Long-run Development in Colombia" 

The abstract:

Slavery has been a major institution of labor coercion throughout history. Colonial societies used slavery intensively across the Americas, and slavery remained prevalent in most countries after independence from the European powers. We investigate the impact of slavery on long-run development in Colombia. Our identification strategy compares municipalities that had gold mines during the 17th and 18th centuries to neighboring municipalities without gold mines. Gold mining was a major source of demand for slave labor during colonial times, and all colonial gold mines are now depleted. We find that the historical presence of slavery is associated with increased poverty and reduced school enrollment, vaccination coverage and public good provision. We also find that slavery is associated with higher contemporary land inequality.

HT: Maximo Rossi. 

On the short and medium-term effects of earthquakes: A case in Colombia

This paper studies the impact of the 1999 Colombian Earthquake on child nutrition and schooling. The identification strategy combines household survey data with event data on the timing and location of the earthquake, exploiting the exogenous exposure of children to the shock. The paper uniquely identifies both the short- and medium-term impacts of the earthquake, combining two cross-sectional household surveys collected before the earthquake and two cross-sectional household surveys collected one and six years after the earthquake. Colombia provides a unique setting for our study because the government launched a very successful reconstruction program after the earthquake. Findings report a strong negative impact of the earthquake on child nutrition and schooling in the short-term. Relevantly, amid the aid received by the affected area, the negative consequences of the earthquake persist with a lesser degree in the medium-term, particularly for boys.

That is the abstract of the new and interesting paper "Persistent Impact of Natural Disasters on Child Nutrition and Schooling: Evidence from the 1999 Colombian Earthquake" by Bustelo, Arends-Kuenning, and Lucchetti. 

Photo essay of the day: The winding ways of development

The winding ways of development: A historical journey of a road in the Putumayo region of Colombia. By Simón Uribe Martínez

Roads are by nature a contested subject. Although they represent vital infrastructure to enable the flow of people, goods and ideas, their potential detrimental effects for humans and the environment have been a constant source of debate and criticism. This is particularly true for natural resource-rich regions such as the Amazon, where the development of roads has been directly associated with rampant deforestation and resource extraction, uncontrolled colonization and dispossession of indigenous lands. Yet the impact of roads goes far beyond their direct social and environmental costs and benefits. In many places of the world, roads have a strong evocative power, as they represent spaces that materially and symbolically embody ideas such as "modernity," "progress," "backwardness" and "development." Combining multi-sited ethnography and historical analysis, this photo essay attempts to document the past, present, and likely future of a road in Putumayo, a region of southwest Colombia that has been traditionally considered a marginal frontier, and which has also become internationally known for the production of cocaine and the violence that has come with it. The road, as I will try to show, invites reflection about the complexities inherent to the different meanings and realities of development.