ECONOMÍA FORMAL E INCLUSIVA: Lecciones, impacto y legado de la Alianza EFI
Esta publicación busca resaltar los aprendizajes, el impacto, y lo que queda como legado de la Alianza EFI para la sociedad y para la comunidad académica. La brevedad con que está escrito no le hace justicia al esfuerzo y horas de dedicación de más de ciento cincuenta investigadores, consolidados y en formación, y de un […]
The response of illegal mining to revealing its existence
New monitoring technologies can help curb illegal activities by reducing information asymmetries between enforcing and monitoring government agents. I created a novel dataset using machine learning predictions on satellite imagery that detects illegal mining. Then I disclosed the predictions to government agents to study the response of illegal activity. I randomly assigned municipalities to one […]
Local incentives and national tax evasion: The response of illegal mining to a tax reform in Colombia
Achieving a fair distribution of resources is one of the goals of fiscal policy. To this end, governments often transfer tax resources from richer to more marginalized areas. In the context of mining in Colombia, we study whether lower transfers to the locality where the taxed economic activity takes place dampen local authorities’ incentives to […]
One step ahead of the law:The net effect of anticipation and implementation of Colombia’s illegal crops substitution program
Pre-announced policies often generate unintended consequences due to individuals’ acting to take advantage of the policy conditions. Little is known about the extent to which unintended consequences from the early announcement of a policy can be larger than the implementation effect, especially in contexts of weak state capacity. We use detailed 1 km grid square […]
Communal Property Rights and Deforestation
Almost a third of the world’s forest area is communally managed. In principle, this arrangement could lead to a ‘tragedy of the commons’ and therefore more deforestation. But it may be easier to monitor outsiders’ deforestation of land owned by a community rather than an individual. We present a theoretical framework to examine these trade-offs […]
The daily grind: Cash needs and labor supply
The majority of people in developing countries are self-employed and can therefore set their own work hours. How do self-employed individuals motivate themselves to work hard day after day? We document four facts about the labor supply of Kenyan bicycle-taxi drivers: (1) drivers work more on days with higher cash needs; and (2) the quitting […]
Caracterización de minas formales e informales en Colombia
Mas del 60 % de los trabajadores en el mundo se encuentra en el sector informal. En el caso de la minería, la informalidad no solo representa ausencia de prestaciones sociales y pago de impuestos. También existen externalidades ambientales, conflictos sociales y riesgos laborales. En este documento presentamos estadísticas descriptivas de una encuesta realizada a […]