The demographic transition from high to low mortality and fertility rates was one of the most important structural changes during the twentieth century in most Latin American economies. This paper uses a symple economic framework based on Galor and Weil (2000) for understanding the main forces behind this structural transition; namely, increases in the returns to human capital accumulation driven by continuous advances in productivity led families to reduce the number of offspring and increase the level of investment in their education. As a result, the economy transits from a stage of stagnation subject to Malthusian forces to a stage of sustained economic growth, where increases in productivity lead to improvements in living standards. We use available data for Colombia between 1905 and 2005 to test the main predictions of the model with time series analysis, finding empirical evidence in their favor. AbstractUno de los cambios estructurales más importantes ocurridos en los países latinoamericanos durante el siglo XX fue la transición demográfica, al pasar de altas a bajas tasas de mortalidad y fertilidad. Este artículo utiliza una simplificación del modelo de Galor y Weil (2000) para entender las principales fuerzas detrás de dicha transición, en la cual incrementos en los retornos a la acumulación de capital humano derivados de un continuo avance en la productividad lleva a las familias a reducir el número de hijos e incrementar la inversión en su educación. Como resultado, la economía se mueve de un estado de estancamiento sujeto a fuerzas Malthusianas a un estado de crecimiento económico sostenido, donde los incrementos en productividad llevan a mejoras en los estándares de vida. Para probar sí las principales predicciones del modelo se cumplen para el caso colombiano se realiza un análisis de series de tiempo, encontrando evidencia empírica a su favor.Palabras clave: Crecimiento económico, trancisión demográfica, Colombia.Clasificación JEL: C32, J11, N36, O40, O54

We use data of neighborhoods of Bogotá to assess the causal relation between their adolescent fertility and their homicide rates. We find that neighborhoods with high adolescent fertility rates, and that have low secondary enrollment and high crime rates at the moment the children of their teen mothers become teenagers, are more likely to have higher homicide rates in the future, when those children reach their peak crime ages, estimated to be between 18 to 26 years old in violent cities of Colombia. We did not find evidence of a positive effect on crime when the adolescent fertility rates are either isolated, or only coupled with low school enrollment, or high crime rates. We also find that increases in the secondary school enrollment always reduce the homicide rate. The results are robust to various specifications, including measurement error corrections, and the modeling of the spatial autocorrelation of homicides.

We assess the effects of the Colombian Unemployment Subsidy (US) program on future labor participation, unemployment, formality, school attendance and earnings of its beneficiaries, on household earnings and school attendance of the household members, and on weight and height of their children at birth. In addition to providing benefits, the program also provides training to some recipients. We use regression discontinuity and matching differences-indifferences estimators and find that both approaches indicate that participation in the labor market, the earnings of beneficiaries, and household income, do not increase, and for some populations decrease during the 18 months after leaving from the Unemployment Subsidy program. Enrollment in formal health insurance falls. The effects on male household heads include larger reductions in their earnings, larger decreases in their labor participation, and greater increases in their unemployment rates. We also find a small though statistically significant positive effect of the program on school attendance of the beneficiaries, but none on their children s weight or height at birth. The results also are sensitive to the type of training that beneficiaries receive in the Unemployment Subsidy program. Overall, the program serves as a mechanism for smoothing consumption and providing social assistance rather than as a mechanism for promoting a more efficient labor market.

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