Empirical research on the relationship between violence and social development in Colombia
| Autor | Alexander Cotte Poveda |
| Páginas | 37-56 |
Ensayos Revista de Economía–Volumen XXXI, No.2, noviembre 2012, pp. 37-56
Empirical research on the relationship between violence
and social development in Colombia
Alexander Cotte Poveda
Fecha de recepción: 07 X 2011 Fecha de aceptación: 15 VIII 2012
Abstract
Violence is a significant development constraint that generates economic
problems, limits public and private investments, and damages the country’s
infrastructure. This paper offers an explanation of violence through an
empirical analysis of Colombian departments that takes into account
categories of violence and variables of ec onomic development and the
deterrence of violence. We use different datasets to measure violence and
economic development, and we employ p anel fixed-effects regressions and a
dynamic panel model for a sample of 32 Colombian departments between
1993 and 2007. We find that the aggregate -level production per capita,
education, deterrence variables and employment rate show a negative effect
on violence, whereas t he GINI coefficient and lagged rate show a positive
effect o n violence. Mo reover, the objective conditions and their
interrelationships have been important in the trends of violence in
Colombian departments.
Keywords: Economic development, categories of violence, deterrence
variables, Panel Data, Colombia.
JEL Classification: O1, 040, I30, C33.
Resumen
La violencia se ha convertido en un obstáculo para el desarrollo económico y
social de los países, q ue origina problemas en el sistema econó mico, limita
las inversiones públicas y privadas y causa daños en la infraestructura. Este
documento ofrece una explicación de la violencia a través de un análisis
Faculty of Accounting and Administration, University of La Salle. Cra. 5 No. 59ª-44
Bogotá – Colombia. Tel: (571) 3488000, ext 1573 (571) 3500449. Fax: (571) 3477232.
Correo electrónico: acotte@lasalle.edu.com
The author is grateful for the support provided by Deutscher Akademischer Austausch
Dients (DAAD), the University of Göttingen and the University of La Salle. Any
remaining errors are the responsibility of the author.
Ensayos Revista de Economía
38
empírico para los departamentos de Colo mbia, te niendo en cuenta las
categorías analíticas del problema, así como las variables del desarrollo
económico y social y las medidas disuasivas. Se emplea una base de datos
tipo panel con efectos fijos y modelos de datos de p aneles dinámicos, que se
usan en el análisis de algunos de los determinantes de la violencia, para una
muestra de 32 departamentos de Colombia entre 1993 y 2007. Los resultado s
evidencian que la producción per cápita, el empleo, la educación y las
variables asociadas con la disuasión, muestran un efecto negativo sobre la
violencia; mientras que el coeficiente de Gini y las variables aso ciadas con el
tráfico de drogas, indican un efecto positivo.
Palabras Clave: Desarrollo económico, categorías de la violencia, datos
panel, Colombia.
Clasificación JEL: O1, 040, I30, C33.
Introduction
Decreasing violence and increasi ng economic gro wth and social
development are the mai n challenges facing developing countries such
Colombia that have been affected by violence in recent decades. Several
studies show that high levels of violence in a country indicate significant
institutional failures (Koonings and Kruijt, 2004; WB, 2003; B roekman,
2000). Violence can have different sources (Soriano, 2000): (1) economic
causes associated with societal pressure to seek a larger share of real income
and the stock of national wealth; (2) the interest of illegal groups in the
appropriation of income derived from national resources or illegal activities
such as drug trafficking; and (3) differences in ideas or opinions abo ut how
society should be organised or in political ideologies.
According to Moser (2000) violence has been studied in terms of different
categories such as political and economic violence. P olitical violence
represents co mmission of violent acts, motivated by the d esire, either
conscious or unconscious, to obtain or maintain political power; while
economic violence represent s violent acts motivated with the objective to
obtain or maintain economic power. Several studies have indicated that the
category of political violence has increased in recent decades and that the
main root causes include poverty, inequality and decreases in economic
growth and state capacity (Nafziger and Auvinen, 2002; Sambanis, 2004;
Besley a nd Persson, 2009). Various studies have demonstrated that
economic violence is more se vere in poorer countries; this type of violence
has negative effects on investment and econo mic growth, and there is a
strong relationship between the factors of economic violence and economic
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