Exploring the Roots of Chronic Underdevelopment: The Colonial Encomienda and Resguardo and their Legacy to Modern Colombia (original) (raw)
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Two decades of economic and social development in urban Colombia: amixed outcome
2002
La serie ARCHIVOS DE ECONOMIA es un medio de la Dirección de Estudios Económicos, no es un órgano oficial del Departamento Nacional de Planeación. Sus documentos son de carácter provisional, de responsabilidad exclusiva de sus autores y sus contenidos no comprometen a la institución. ABSTRACT This paper examines urban Colombia's socio-economic development from 1978Colombia's socio-economic development from to 1999 analysis of income inequality and welfare, and the evolution of poverty and its determinants. The evidence shows mixed results. First, social progress appears contradictory. Although most of the indicators pertaining to education, health, and infrastructure show substantial long-term improvements during the last two decades, the simultaneous escalation of violence -mostly associated with the illegal drug trade originating in the seventies-has become a substantial social and economic burden deteriorating living conditions in urban Colombia. In addition, extensive economic welfare improvements during the eighties and early nineties were partially reversed in the late nineties when the economy entered into a recession rooted on fiscal imbalances. We find that, from 1978 to 1995, extreme poverty fell by nearly two thirds-and income per capita almost doubled. But the impact of the recent recessive period, with its adverse effects on both the level and distribution of income, pushed economic welfare measures back to late eighties levels. In studying the poverty profile, we find that the typical faces of the poor -e.g., children of all ages, young lower-to-middle-skilled household heads, recent migrants and non-homeowners-have not changed much in the last two decades, but have become more ostensible. Causes and determinants of poverty such as low education endowments and high dependency ratios are becoming more powerful in predicting poverty. We next study how the dynamics of poverty in urban Colombia are linked to economic growth, inequality and the evolution of basic income per-capita generating factors. We conclude that income per capita growth, rather than changes in the income distribution, explains most of urban poverty dynamics. For the representative household, the key sources of income growth have been the rise in education endowments and the reduction in the dependency ratios. Simultaneously, changes in employment ratios or wages made a positive contribution up to 1995, but had a symmetric and detrimental effect during the recession that followed. However, lowskilled-headed households not only reap the most benefits from lower fertility and more education, but some from higher wages as well. During the economic recession, most of the poverty rise was generated by losses of wage-earning jobs, and the remainder by lower earnings for the selfemployed. Some additional downwards adjustment in average wages was obtained via increasing labor market participation of low-skilled women and a reduction in the wage gender gap.
Toward Shared Prosperity in Colombia
Shared Prosperity and Poverty Eradication in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2015
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Voices of the poor in Colombia: strengthening livelihoods, families, and communities
2004
The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of the World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries.
New Left Review, 2022
Petro became the first left candidate ever to win the presidency in Colombia, defeating the right-wing real-estate magnate Rodolfo Hernández by 50.4 to 47.4 per cent in the second round. 1 The turnout, at 58 per cent, was the highest for a quarter-century. Petro's electoral bloc, the Pacto Histórico, had already won 48 out of 268 congressional seats in the March 2022 legislative elections. To set these victories in perspective, it's necessary to grasp the nature of the power bloc that ruled Colombia for over 150 years under an oligarchic Conservative-Liberal duopoly, which then gave way to the hard-right counterinsurgency regime of Álvaro Uribe from 2002. With Washington's backing, Uribe intensified the Colombian Army's long-running war against guerrilla forces in the hinterlands; casualties, according to the country's Truth Commission, include some 450,566 dead and another 121,768 'disappeared', as well as 50,770 kidnapped and 8 million displaced, the vast majority poor peasants. Uribe and his successors-Juan Manuel Santos (2010-18) and, especially, Iván Duque (2018-22)-also backed harsh neoliberal measures against the urban poor.