Centro de Estudios Manuel Ramírez

Proyectos terminados

Oiling up the field. Forced internal displacement and the expansion of palm oil in Colombia (Jaime Millán & Sebastián Pulgarín)

The analysis of the relationship between natural resources and violent conflicts has shown how positive shocks in agricultural commodities are usually linked with reductions in violence (opportunity cost effect), while positive shocks to minerals or extractive commodities seem to increase conflict (rapacity effect). In this paper we examine the case of palm oil expansion in Colombia and find that our results differ from previous studies. We use changes in international prices of palm oil to show how positive income shocks increased forced displacement in palm producing municipalities.

We found that a 1% increase in the price of palm oil raises the forced internal displacement rate in palm municipalities by 0.42 standard deviations. We also show evidence that the negative effect of palm oil income shock was stronger in areas with paramilitary armies, weak contract institutions and better land distribution. In addition, increases in palm prices increase rural violence but not urban violence. Our results support the hypothesis that the violence linked with the palm expansion was the result of the search for new lands for palm trees in a framework of weak institutions. Therefore, one can argue that in the case of the palm expansion the rapacity effect over new lands was stronger than possible labor market effects.

Keywords: Income shocks, Conflict, Commodity prices, Natural resources, Forced displacement.

JEL: D74, F14, O13, O15, Q17

Liquidity constraints and free post-secondary education. Evidence from Colombia (Jaime Millán & Luis Fernando Gamboa)

Is free education the solution which will allow low-income individuals to invest in tertiary education or, do poor households still face liquidity constraints when education tuition is free?. In this paper we depart from the current literature and provide new evidence on the importance of short run liquidity constraints in the case of free post-secondary education. We take advantage of a unique framework when we observe two sources of exogenous variations in enrollment in tuition free vocational education in Colombia.

Hence, comparing multiple fuzzy regression discontinuity estimates and their interpretation as local average treatment effects, we are able to disentangle the role played by liquidity constraints in explaining low enrollment rates in vocational education. We first show that eligibility for financial aid increases enrollment by 11.9 percentage points for men. In addition, men with larger returns from education are more likely to be affected by the availability of financial aid. In contrast, when variation in enrollment is not coming from changes in the relative cost of education, compliers to such variation are not necessarily individuals with large returns from education. In step with previous literature, our results aligned with the hypothesis that men encounter short-run liquidity constraints even when entering free tertiary education.

JEL: I26, C36, J21

CRAZY BOOKS

PLAN LECTOR TRANSMEDIA

Universidad EAFIT-III Encuentro de Investigación en Análisis del discurso Oral y escrito.
Crazy Books, fue un proyecto que tuvo como objetivo principal formular un plan lector transmedia que promoviera la lectura crítica en los niños y niñas de la educación básica primaria en Colombia.

APRENDIZAJE NO SUPERVISADO PARA LA DETECCIÓN DE CORRUPCIÓN EN LA CONTRATACIÓN PÚBLICA DE COLOMBIA

Esta investigación tuvo como objetivo implementar y evaluar algoritmos de aprendizaje no supervisados para detectar de manera temprana presuntas irregularidades en la contratación pública del país tomando como caso de estudio el PAE. 

En cuento a su impacto social, este proyecto desarrollo un esquema de alertas tempranas para facilitar las labores de veeduría y prevención de los organismos de control, la sociedad en general, y las agencias especializadas del gobierno. 

LINEAMIENTOS PARA LA CONSTRUCCIÓN DEL PLAN DE VIDA DEL RESGUARDO WAYUU PERRATPÚ

Este proyecto tuvo como objetivo

Llevar a cabo la construcción del PDV supone un gran reto para el resguardo, ya qué no se cuenta con la experiencia para el desarrollo de estos procesos. Por otro lado, el reto mayor, teniendo en cuenta el sinsabor generado por el PDV Fallido, es lograr la vinculación de personas de la comunidad al proceso y encontrar en ellas el apoyo, interés y compromiso necesarios para construir el PDV. Por eso el objetivo principal de esta investigación fue:

Diseñar un proyecto para la construcción del PDV del Resguardo Perratpu acorde con sus necesidades y tradiciones culturales, que desarrolle y planifique de manera participativa las condiciones técnicas, financieras y operativas para desarrollar sus fases.