A number of soccer officials have long debated whether to ban soccer games played at high altitudes above sea level. This paper explores soccer player’s performance when playing at high elevations using data obtained from the Copa Libertadores. I propose a range of direct indicators of player performance when playing at high altitudes: the number of total passes, the number of passes in the opposition’s half, and the number of successful passes. I also review the effects on the percentage of successful passes and the percentage of successful passes in the opponents’ half of the field. The performance indicators compare player outcomes when playing away above 2,500 meters (8,202 feet) relative to when they play away below that threshold. The results suggest that, for the most part, altitude has no impact. It does, however, have an impact on variables related to the way a player performs when faced with risky decisions. In particular, I find that the percentage of successful passes rises by about 5.6 percentage points, mostly driven by each player’s behavior in his own half. My findings suggest that players (and coaches) adapt to the conditions.

Using newly collected national and sub-national data and historical case studies, this paper argues that differences in innovative capacity, captured by the density of engineers at the dawn of the Second Industrial Revolution, are important to explaining present in come differences, and, in particular, the poor performance of Latin America relative to North America. This remains the case after controlling for literacy, other higher order human capital, such as lawyers, as well as demand side elements that might be confounded with engineering. The analysis then finds that agglomeration, certain geographical fundamentals, and extractive institutions such as slavery affect innovative capacity. However, a large effect associated with being a Spanish colony remains suggesting important inherited factors.

Using a global panel on research and development (R&D) expenditures, this paper documents that on average poor countries do far less R&D than rich as a share of GDP. This is arguably counter intuitive since the gains from doing the R&D required for technological catch up are thought to be very high and Griffith et al. (2oo4) have documented that in the OECD returns increase dramatically with distance from the frontier. Exploiting recent advances in instrumental variables in a varying coefficient context we find than the rates of return follow an inverted U: they rise with distance to the frontier and then fall thereafter, potentially turning negative for the poorest countries. The findings are consistent with the importance of factors complementary to R&D, such as education, the quality of scientific infrastructure and the overall functioning of the national innovation system, and the quality of the private sector, which become increasingly weak with distance from the frontier and the absence of which can offset the catch up effect. China’s and India’s explosive growth in R&D investment trajectories in spite of expected low returns may be justified by their importing the complementary factors in the form of multinational corporations who do most of the patentable research.

Using detailed survey data on management practices, this paper uses recent advances in unconditional quartile analysis to study the changes in the within country distribution of management quality associated with country convergence to the managerial frontier. It then decomposes the contribution of potential explanatory factors to the distributional changes. The US emerges as the frontier country, not because of on average better management, but because its best firms are far better than those of its close competitors. Part of the process of convergence to the frontier across the development process represents a trimming of the left tail, much es movement of the central mass and, for rich countries, it is actually the best firms than lag the frontier benchmark. Among potential explanatory variables that may drive convergence, ownership and human capital appear critical, the former especially for poorer countries and that latter for richer suggesting that the mechanics of convergence change across the process. These variables lose their explanatory power as firm and average country management quality rises. Hence, once in the advanced country range, the factors than improve management quality are less easy to document and hence influence.

Este trabajo analiza los efectos de largo plazo de la reforma agraria entendida como la asignación de tierras baldías sobre el desplazamiento forzado, el abandono y despojo de tierras, en un contexto concentración del poder político y aumentos en los retornos de la tierra. A partir de un estudio econométrico, se encuentra que en Colombia la adjudicación de baldíos en presencia de aumentos en los retornos de la tierra, tiene un efecto positivo y estadísticamente significativo en el desplazamiento forzado. Además, se evidencia una correlación positiva y significativa entre la adjudicación de baldíos, el abandono y el despojo de tierras.

Tendencias históricas y regionales de la adjudicación de baldíos en Colombia

El presente documento hace una revisión de la política de reforma agraria en Colombia desde principios del siglo XX hasta 2012, caracterizada por la adjudicación de baldíos a campesinos. En este documento, se busca dar cuenta de la magnitud e importancia de esta política pública que ha perdurado a lo largo del tiempo y con una dinámica continua desde sus inicios, con el fin de aportar a la amplia literatura sobre reforma agraria en Colombia que, si bien analiza las tensiones propias de esta política no cuenta con datos desagregados del comportamiento de la política para más de un siglo. Igualmente se hace un recorrido regional que evidencia la dinámica de la reforma agraria en diferentes regiones a lo largo del tiempo.

En este texto se actualizan los datos sobre precios inmobiliarios referidos a la vivienda en Bogotá producidos por el Observatorio del Mercado del Espacio Construido del CEDE, cuya última versión publicada data ya de una década. En este texto se presentan datos entre 1970 y 2013 de tres precios inmobiliarios claves: el monto del canon de alquiler, el precio de compraventa de las edificaciones y el precio del suelo destinado a vivienda. Los dos primeros son producidos por el CEDE a partir de las ofertas publicadas en los periódicos, y el último se apoya en los datos generados por la Lonja de Propiedad Raíz de Bogotá. Una característica importante de estos datos es que tienen control espacial y son enteramente compatibles entre sí: se refieren a siete áreas de vivienda en Bogotá, que se mantienen fijas durante estos 43 años. Las cifras de precios del suelo son anuales, las relacionadas con los precios y alquileres de los inmuebles son anuales hasta 1984 y de allí en adelante son semestrales. Se presentan cifras para tres estratos y un promedio general. Se realiza una estimación de la rentabilidad de la inversión en alquiler de vivienda y se compara con otras opciones de inversión similares. También se comparan las series aquí presentadas con cifras producidas por otras entidades: cifras de alquiler generadas por el DANE y cifras de vivienda usada producidas por el Banco de la República.

En este texto se examina la evolución de los precios de los terrenos destinados a vivienda en Bogotá entre 1970 y 2012. Las cifras se refieren a siete áreas de la ciudad durante estos 42 años, y es posible tener estimaciones para tres estratos de ingreso y un promedio general. En el texto se analiza la relevancia para la interpretación de estos fenómenos de los instrumentos conceptuales desarrollados en la tradición marxista (Samuel Jaramillo- Hacia una teoría de la renta del suelo urbano- Segunda edición revisada y ampliada Ediciones Uniandes 2009). Se examinan por lo tanto tres tipos de movimientos de los precios del suelo urbano: Movimientos estructurales generales, Movimientos coyunturales generales y Movimientos Estructurales Particulares. Se incluye además un cálculo de la rentabilidad de la inversión en tierras para este período y se le contrasta con otras opciones comparables.

We document the existence of a Crime Kuznets Curve in US states since the 1970s. As income levels have risen, crime has followed an inverted U-shaped pattern, first increasing and then dropping. The Crime Kuznets Curve is not explained by income inequality. In fact, we show that during the sample period inequality has risen monotonically with income, ruling out the traditional Kuznets Curve. Our finding is robust to adding a large set of controls that are used in the literature to explain the incidence of crime, as well as to controlling for state and year fixed effects. The Curve is also revealed in nonparametric specifications. The Crime Kuznets Curve exists for property crime and for some categories of violent crime.

More than Words and Good Intentions: The Political Agenda-Setting Power Behind Foreign Aid Mechanisms

In this paper, international aid is examined as a tool for political agenda-setting. A theoretical model is constructed for the analysis, incorporating the incentives created by foreign aid, on the political benefits of recipient governments. The model also incorporates the compensating benefits provided by these governments through the legitimization of the donor country's political agenda. The main results of this model indicate that governments which offer international assistance can in influence the political agenda of recipient countries through two channels: 1) By reducing the political costs of official intervention in issues that receive aid, and 2) By generating incentives for additional political rent-seeking. The results are studied in the case of aid provided by the USA to Colombia during the period 1998-2012, which shows the power of US presidents to establish part of the Colombian political agenda related to drugs and terrorism. The results are obtained through a novel content analysis of presidential speeches in both countries and from a set of estimates corrected by possible problems of endogeneity in foreign aid allocation.