Research

Journal Articles

Year	Publication Details
2024	“Social distancing and COVID-19 under violence: Evidence from Colombia”. Journal of Development Economics. (With Diego Martin)
2023	“Short- and long-run labor market adjustment to import competition”. Review of International Economics. (With Juan Blyde, Matias Busso and Kyunglin Park)
2022	“Selective Civilian Targeting: The Unintended Consequences of Partial Peace”. Quarterly Journal of Political Science. (With Mounu Prem, Andres Rivera and Juan Vargas)
2020	“The perils of top-down state building: Evidence from Colombia’s False Positives”. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, vol. 16(3), pp. 43-46. (With Daron Acemoglu, Leopoldo Fergusson, James Robinson and Juan Vargas)
2017	“Improving access to preventive maternal health care using reminders: Experimental evidence from Guatemala”, Economic Letters, vol. 161, pp. 43-46. (With Matias Busso and Dario Salcedo)
2017	“The effects of financial aid and returns information in selective and less selective schools: Experimental evidence from Chile”. Labour Economics, Vol. 45, pp. 79-91. (With Matias Busso, Taryn Dinkelman and Claudia Martínez)
2017	“Books or laptops? The effect of shifting from printed to digital delivery of educational content on learning”. Economics of Education Review, vol. 61, pp. 162-173. (With Rosangela Bando, Francisco Gallego and Paul J. Gertler)
2014	“Insecurity or Perception of Insecurity? Urban Crime and Dissatisfaction with Life: Evidence from the Case of Bogotá” . Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy, Vol. 20(1), pp. 169-208.

Working Papers

Year	Publication Details
	"Something Biased This Way Comes: The Effect of Media on House Elections in the US" (With Haaris Mateen) Abstract We provide novel evidence on the effect of a conservative-biased local TV station operator on the ideologies of local election candidates in the US. We document an ideological shift to more conservatism for the winner in House of Representatives elections, which strengthens over time. This is driven by a higher probability of Republicans winning but also a shift to more conservatism for both Republican and Democratic candidates, even though Democratic candidates in the primaries may become more liberal on average. We show that Republican candidates receive increased donations after the entry of the local TV station operator.
	"Downwind of the Bus Lane: Transit Pollution and Academic Performance" (With Diego Martin and Dario Salcedo) Abstract We estimate the effect of air pollution from Bogotá's Bus Rapid Transit system on high school test scores. Using wind direction interacted with bus route intensity as an instrument, we find that schools more frequently downwind of BRT corridors score significantly lower in math and global exams. The instrumental variable estimates imply that an additional μg/m³ of PM2.5 reduces math scores by 0.10 standard deviations and global scores by 0.09 standard deviations, with no effect on language. NOx and PM10 show similar negative effects. Girls and students from higher-income households experience larger declines. A georeferenced household survey provides suggestive evidence that respiratory disease mediates the pollution-achievement relationship. These results reveal a human capital cost of diesel-powered transit and underscore the importance of cleaner fuel technologies in urban transportation policy.
	"Media Slant, Erosion of Trust, and Financial Decisions" (With Elizabeth Berger and Haaris Mateen) Abstract We study the effect of media slant on household banking decisions. We use the staggered expansion of a local TV news station operator with a slant towards national events with emphasis on negative interpretations. We find that depositors shift deposits from national to local banks in areas exposed to the news media shock. Likewise, borrowers, especially low-income borrowers, shift their borrowing activity. Banks do not engage in credit rationing, change loan and deposit rates to attract consumers, or alter branching networks. Our evidence suggests that an erosion in trust drives these results. In sum, media slant alters household financial decision making and these decisions have re-sortative, and perhaps negative, welfare consequences.
	"Soft Training, Hard Repression: U.S. Military Training and Democracy" (With Diego Martin) Abstract We study the effect of U.S. foreign military training on the behaviour of officers upon returning to their home countries. We exploit quasi-experimental variation in the assignment of commanders trained at the School of the Americas, a U.S. facility that trained close to 2,000 Latin American military personnel per year for four decades. Our estimates show that SOA-trained commanders eroded democratic institutions and increased civilian-directed operations, including forced disappearances, with no operational gains against armed groups. We also analyse declassified SOA training manuals and find no explicit instruction to target civilians, but evidence that the manuals blurred the doctrinal boundary between counterinsurgency and civilian control. Latinobarometer surveys show that exposed cohorts are more supportive of democracy and trust less in the military. These findings document a human capital channel through which foreign military assistance can undermine institutions it is designed to strengthen through increased civilian repression.
	"Imperial Threads: Trade Protectionism and the Direction of Innovation" Abstract Captive colonial markets shape innovation in ways that outlast the markets themselves. Spain's colonial system created a captive market for cotton textiles through two complementary reforms: a 1882 bilateral preference agreement and a 1891 increase in domestic protection. Neither reform alone was sufficient to redirect inventive activity toward cotton. Exploiting variation across different textile fibers, I find that cotton patenting rose by 13.5 patents per category relative to other fibers at the peak of colonial access, driven by domestic inventors rather than the adoption of foreign technology and accompanied by a significant expansion of mechanized looms. A significant share of the innovation response occurred after Spain lost its colonies in 1898, consistent with path dependence through knowledge spillovers rather than persistent protection. A directed-technical-change model formalizes the complementarity between the two reforms and shows that the composition of colonial demand, rather than domestic market size alone, is what redirected innovation. These findings establish that the structure of captive markets can permanently shift an economy's technological trajectory.
	"The Environmental Impact of Civil Conflict: The Deforestation Effect of Paramilitary Expansion in Colombia" (With Leopoldo Fergusson and Juan Vargas) Abstract [Abstract coming soon]

Work in Progress

Year	Details
	Political Polarization and Inventor Productivity: Evidence from Local Television Markets in the US (With Haaris Mateen and Po-Hsuan Hsu)
	Mass Deportations, Economic Networks and Firm Productivity in Guatemala (With Carlos Schmidt-Padilla)

Book Chapters

Year	Details
2015	“Facts and Determinants of Female Labor Supply in Latin America”, (with Matias Busso). In Bridging gender gaps? The rise and deceleration of female labor force participation in Latin America, Leonardo Gasparini and Mariana Marchioni (Eds).