SEMINARIOS Y WORKSHOPS

Fecha: 16/09/2021, 11:00

Modalidad: Virtual

Presentador: Melissa Rubio

Autor: Rubio, Melissa

Black males constitute 6.5% of the US population but account for 40% of the prison population. The extent to which this disparity reflects differences in criminal conduct and socio-economic background, as opposed to differential treatment is a long-standing question. However, little is known about the roots of this disparity. This paper uses US decennial censuses for the period 1850 to 1940 to show that the race gap in incarceration can be traced back to the abolition of slavery in 1865. In particular, I exploit the variation in the prevalence of slavery across counties in southern states to estimate the short- and long-run impact of slavery on black incarceration rates. I document a substantial increase in black incarceration immediately after the abolition of slavery, with no comparable effect on whites, and that this black-white incarceration gap continued to grow. These baseline OLS results are not driven by omitted variables given their robustness to: (i) observable controls, which proxy for racial attitudes and socioeconomic and geographic characteristics, (ii) analyses of neighboring counties that are more likely to be comparable on unobservable dimensions, and (iii) an IV analysis that instruments for slavery intensity with a county’s suitability for growing cotton. Using novel historical data on prison work camps from the Department of Labor, I provide evidence that the high levels of black incarceration in the US started, at least in part, due to labor scarcity in which convict labor was used to replace slave labor. This mechanism is further supported in analyses of three natural experiments – land grant allocations, Boll Weevil cotton pests, and the Mississippi River floods – that reduced the demand for labor; these reverse shocks are associated with lower black incarceration rates.

Más información

Fecha: 23/09/2021, 11:00

Modalidad: Virtual

Presentador: Martin Valdivia (GRADE)

Autor:

Can small or microentrepreneurs’ decisions and actions be affected by behavioral biases that limit their growth and profitability? We explore this question with the help of a field experiment with microentrepreneurs operating in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in which we provide information and reminders to informal microentrepreneurs about the advantages and convenience of a formalization program (MEI). Our average results suggest that informative visits do increase the knowledge about MEI and even the interest in formalization, but that reminder messages are needed to increase formalization. That is, treatment groups that received only informative sessions alone or messages alone show no effect, while those receiving both do show an increase in formalization of 7.2 percentage points. Then, we explore the differentiated effects by the level of violence between competing drug-related criminal groups, and the mobility restrictions they tend to impose on their residents and businesses. We find that none of the treatments have positive effects in the neighbourhoods most affected by conflicts with the police and competing drug-related criminal organizations. On the other hand, the effect of informational visits plus reminding messages increases to 29% in the neighbourhoods least affected by such violence, but informative visits alone also increase formalization by 17 percentage points. We interpret these results as evidence in support of the importance of limited attention and procrastination when explaining low rates of formalization by microentrepreneurs, but also show that drug-related violence may be a key negative conditioning factor for microfirms’ growth prospects.

Más información

Fecha: 30/09/2021, 11:00

Modalidad: Virtual

Presentador: Sandra Rozo (Banco Mundial)

Autor:

What are the impacts of regularization on migrant’s lives? This study examines the effects of the PEP visa, an opportunity for regularization for half a million Venezuelan refugees in Colombia. We collect a survey of 3,455 migrant families and leverage four identification strategies to assess the effects of the program in migrant’s life outcomes. Causal effects are estimated using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design that compares the wellbeing of migrants who arrived to Colombia close to June 8th, 2018 (eligible for the program) and those who arrived later (not eligible). The results indicate that migrants with a PEP visa have 18% and 24.5% higher consumption and income per capita relative to the other migrants. Migrants with a PEP visa also have more access to safety nets and financial services, better labor conditions, less food insecurity, are more integrated to the Colombian society, and showed more resilience to the COVID-19 crisis. The program had negligible effects on migrant’s labor formalization.

Más información

Fecha: 07/10/2021, 11:00

Modalidad: Presencial

Presentador: Stanislao Maldonado (URosario)

Autor: Maldonado Stanislao

Prosocial drivers of human motivation have recently attracted the attention of scholars interested in improving civil servant performance in developing countries. Unfortunately, the existing literature is unclear about which drivers are more relevant to motivate public officials in these settings. We implement a field experiment that varies the salience of different dimensions of prosocial motivation to enforce policy compliance among civil servants from a school maintenance program in Peru. In particular, we study the role of altruism, commitment to a mission, and identity in a large-scale intervention to induce civil servants to invest school maintenance funds and report the use of monetary transfers to monitor corruption. We find that commitment to a mission and identity are cost-effective ways to promote policy compliance, whereas altruism does not play a role in this regard. Our results highlight the importance of a better understanding of the role of different sources of prosocial motivation of civil servants in settings where the state lacks institutional mechanisms to enforce compliance.

Más información

Fecha: 28/10/2021, 11:00

Modalidad:

Presentador: Mariano Scapin (University of Bristol)

Autor: Mariano Scapin

We study the relation between CEO industry tournament incentives, measured as the distance between CEO-pay and the highest-paid CEO among similar firms by industry and size, and conditional accounting conservatism. Conditional conservatism imposes a faster recognition of bad news in earnings, vis-à-vis good news. We hypothesize and find that the relation between industry tournaments and conditional conservatism varies substantially with debt contracting. Our evidence shows that firms with lower debt contracting pressures exhibit a negative relation between conservatism and tournament incentives; however, as debt contracting pressures increase, this negative relation disappears. Overall, we provide evidence that debt contracting affects the relation between CEO industry tournaments and financial reporting.

Más información

Fecha: 04/11/2021, 11:00

Modalidad:

Presentador: Maarten Bosker (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Autor: Maarten Bosker

Colombia is the world’s major producer of coca leaves. An important pillar of Colombia’s efforts to curb the production of this illicit crop is to induce farmers to substitute coca for a viable legal alternative. In this paper we identify the extent to which farmers respond to variation in the price of five of the most promising legal alternatives when deciding how much coca to plant – coffee, sugar, palm oil, cocoa, and banana. We do this using a rich, spatially very detailed dataset that contains yearly information on the amount of coca grown in each of 31,000 villages (veredas) in Colombia over the period 2001-2018. For identification, we exploit exogenous variation in commodity prices, in combination with detailed information about the soil and climatic suitability of each vereda. We find the strongest, most robust, response of coca farming to price changes of coffee and banana: when prices of these crops go up (down), less (more) coca is found in veredas that are suitable for the production of these two crops. We discuss why we find this effect for these two crops only. Furthermore, we show that our findings are driven by veredas with better (road) access, closer to police stations, and those without good access to Colombia's waterways that are heavily used by coca(ine) traffickers.

Más información

Fecha: 09/11/2021, 09:00

Modalidad:

Presentador: David Zuckerman (Stanford University)

Autor: David Zuckerman

I experimentally investigate third-party preferences for victim compensation and offender punishment when one party has harmed another. If the harm is intentional, third parties not only display an increased demand for punishment, but also an increased demand for compensation. I refer to these additional demands for punishment and compensation as preferences for retributive justice and compensatory justice, respectively. These preferences are positively correlated across individuals, suggesting that the two notions of justice are compatible with one another. However, each appears to speak to distinct concerns: I do not find evidence that either is a substitute for the other. Exploring situational factors that may affect these demands, I find suggestive evidence that the victim's knowledge of offender punishment and the offender's knowledge of victim compensation matter. I then move to a setting where the offender's action only induces a probabilistic harm on the victim. I find that whether the victim is harmed affects demands for compensation and punishment, but not demands for retributive or compensatory justice.

Más información