Author: Laura Montenegro Helfer

Working Papers

BA and MA

Other Work

Examining Forced Displacement beyond Violence: The Effect of Violence and Control of Armed Actors in Colombia

This paper examines the effect of conflict on internal migration. We uncover the mechanisms through which the presence of non-state armed actors cause migration: direct exposure to violence, uncertainty and fear, and the non-state armed actor exercise of control over the community. We use panel data for households in Colombia before and after migration and exploit the variation in the incidence of community violence and control of non-state armed actors within municipalities. The results show that households are willing to trade reductions in per capita consumption for improvements in security conditions. Direct victims of violence migrate to urban areas, while individuals living in communities with high control of armed groups are less likely to migrate within their municipalities. Stayers are presumably better able to cope with conflict induced risks by negotiating their daily lives with armed actors, adjusting their behavior to abide by the rules they impose, changing their economic behavior, or forming alliances in exchange for protection and economic and political benefits.

Examining Forced Displacement beyond Violence: The Effect of Violence and Control of Armed Actors in Colombia. With Ana María Arjona, Juan Camilo Cárdenas, Ana María Ibáñez, and Patricia Justino. December 2015.

Examining Forced Displacement beyond Violence: The Effect of Violence and Control of Armed Actors in Colombia

This paper examines the effect of conflict on internal migration. We uncover the mechanisms through which the presence of non-state armed actors cause migration: direct exposure to violence, uncertainty and fear, and the non-state armed actor exercise of control over the community. We use panel data for households in Colombia before and after migration and exploit the variation in the incidence of community violence and control of non-state armed actors within municipalities. The results show that households are willing to trade reductions in per capita consumption for improvements in security conditions. Direct victims of violence migrate to urban areas, while individuals living in communities with high control of armed groups are less likely to migrate within their municipalities. Stayers are presumably better able to cope with conflict induced risks by negotiating their daily lives with armed actors, adjusting their behavior to abide by the rules they impose, changing their economic behavior, or forming alliances in exchange for protection and economic and political benefits.

Take a look in: migration-and-conflict-20151103

Rethinking Colombian rurality: The politics of development, land, and the livelihood of agricultural workers in the designing of the Social Agrarian Reform (1960-1961)

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Rethinking Colombian rurality: The politics of development, land, and the livelihood of agricultural workers in the designing of the Social Agrarian Reform (1960-1961). December 2014.

Original title: Pensando el campo colombiano: La política del desarrollo, las tierras y la vida del campesino en el diseño de la Reforma Social Agraria (1960-1961)

 

Forming State Through Land Reform Policy: The Dynamics of Baldío Allocation in Peripheral Colombia

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This paper analyses land policy when the state lacks the monopoly of legitimate violence (MLV) through a territory. I use historical data for Colombia to empirically assess the dynamics through which the central state allocates land in such a scenario. I argue that colonization processes directed towards peripheral areas with lack of MLV induces the state to attempt building capacity using land policy. Public goods nevertheless do not follow. I use an instrumental variable strategy in order to examine these hypotheses. Results show that rural migration towards the peripheral areas accounts for 42.01% of the total number and 68.55% of the total hectares of public land allocations. Allocations however account for only the 7.89% of the number policemen and the 6% of the number of policemen per inhabitant in these regions. Moreover, both their total and per hectare effect on police presence is much higher in the integrated zones than in the peripheral ones.

Forming State Through Land Reform Policy: The Dynamics of Baldío Allocation in Peripheral Colombia. January 2017.