Luis Fernando Gamboa

Determinants of ICT Usage among Low-Income Groups in Colombia, Mexico, and Peru

The authors examine the determinants of information and communications technology (ICT) usage among low-income people in three developing countries: Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. Using two composite indicators, they focus on cross-country differences and similarities in ICT usage across gender, age, education, and income levels. The authors’ analysis indicates that the single most important factor limiting the digitalization of low-income people in all three countries was lack of education. The impact of income itself was low although positive. Their findings also suggest that comprehensive measures that mix standard ICTs with very advanced ones can be misleading.

An Approximation to the Digital Divide Among Low Income People in Colombia, Mexico and Perú: Two Composite Indexes

This study examines the determinants of information and communications technology(ICT) use and access of low-income people in three developing countries: Colombia,Mexico and Peru. We focus on cross-country differences and similarities in ICTs use acrossgender, age, education and income, using two composite indicators of ICT. The mainsimilarity across the countries is that education is by far the single most important factorlimiting the digitalization of low-income people. The impact of income was low althoughpositive. There is not apparently a gender gap in Colombia and Mexico but one in Peru.Our findings also suggest that when using a composite indicator that only include the`advanced ICTs´, disadvantage people among the low-income people can be moreconstrained in the use and access of more advanced information and communicationstechnologies.****El estudio analiza los determinantes de uso y acceso a las tecnologias de informacion ycomunicacion en personas de bajos ingresos en pasases como Colombia, Mexico y Peru. Elpunto central esta en analizar las diferencias entre paises de acuerdo a diferentes variablessocioeconomicas. Se encuentra que la variable que mas explica el nivel de acceso digital esla escolaridad. De otro lado no se encuentra una brecha por genero sino en Peru. Losresultados tambien indican que cuando solo se tienen en cuenta las tecnologias mas`avanzadas´, las diferencias entre la poblacion son mas notorias.

Use of Informal Mobile Telephony in Low Income Households in Colombia

Access to mobile telephony in Colombia exhibits rather interesting features compared to other countries. Colombia witnessed the beginning of a new alternative for communication consisting in the use of informal resale of minutes on the streets and small stores during the first years of this century. In this paper we are interested in analyzing the main factors that determine the utilization of this kind of service. We use a probabilistic model to explain the characteristics of the people that use `informal resale´ on the streets and we find that people in the modality of prepayment and people from small cities has a higher probability of using this alternative. It is also found that people in the firm-leader use more often this service. These results seem indicate that price differentials among on-net and off-net and between prepaid and postpaid are the causes of the rise of this economic activity.***El acceso a la telefonia movil en Colombia evidencia ciertas particularidades con respecto a otros paises. En Colombia surgio una nueva alternativa de comunicacion que consistia en la venta de minutos de celular en las calles y en pequenos negocios durante los primeros anos de esta decada. En este documento se analizan las principales caracteristicas de quienes usan esta modalidad de comunicacion con base en una encuesta dirigida a usuarios y no usuarios de bajos ingresos. Se usa un modelo probabilistico para explicar las caracteristicas de las personas que lo usan y se encuentra que las personas que estan en la modalidad de contrato prepago y que viven en ciudades pequenas tienen una mayor probabilidad de usar esta alternativa de comunicacion. De otro lado se encuentra que quienes estan con el operador dominante tienden a usar este servicio tambien de una forma mas notoria. Estos resultados parecen indicar que los diferenciales de precios entre las llamadas off-net y on-net asi como entre prepago y postpago son los que alimentaron el surgimiento de esta actividad.

El lado oscuro de la equidad: violencia y equidad en el desempeño escolar

The empirical literature on the impact of violent conflicts on educational outcomes has focused on the impact of violence on human capital accumulation, neglecting other relevant outcomes such as educational equity. Using the empirical implementation of Ferreira and Gignoux (2011) of Roemer (1998)s conceptual framework of equality of opportunities, this paper estimates the impact of conflict intensity on educational equity in Colombia, as measured by the school performance in the Saber 11o test, for the period 1997-2010. To deal with potential biases due to reverse causality or omitted variables, we use the apprehension of murderers by the public force as a source of exogenous variation of violence in an instrumental variables estimation. The results suggest that conflict increases equality of opportunities in educational attainment. By increasing school dropout, conflict induces a positive selection in terms of ability and effort for the proportion of students who remain in the system. This suggests that caution is needed when interpreting patterns of educational equity based on outcomes rather than processes.La literatura empirica sobre el efecto de los conflictos violentos en variables educativas se ha enfocado en la acumulacion de capital humano y ha dejado a un lado otras variables relevantes como la equidad educativa. Usando la implementacion empirica de Ferreira y Gignoux (2011) del marco conceptual de igualdad de oportunidades de Roemer (1998), este articulo estima el efecto de la intensidad del conflicto armado sobre la equidad educativa en Colombia, medida a traves del desempeno escolar en las pruebas Saber 11o para el periodo 1997-2010. Para resolver sesgos potenciales por simultaneidad o por variable omitida se utilizan las capturas de homicidas por parte de la fuerza publica como fuente de variacion exogena de la violencia en una estimacion de variables instrumentales. Los resultados apuntan a que el conflicto aumenta la equidad de oportunidades en los logros educativos. Al aumentar las tasas de desercion escolar, el conflicto genera una seleccion positiva en cuanto a habilidad y esfuerzo para la fraccion de estudiantes que el sistema retiene. Esto sugiere que se debe tener cautela al interpretar los patrones de equidad en la educacion basada en resultados, en lugar de procesos.

Fertility and Schooling: How this Relation Changed between 1995 and 2005 in Colombia

We test the existence of changes in the relationship between fertility and schoolingin Colombia for women from 30 to 40 years old between 1995 and 2005. For ourpurpose, we use Poisson Regression Models. Our database is the Demographic andHealth Survey from 1995 and 2005. We found a reduction in the fertility during thisperiod and an increase in the educative level of the population. According to ourresults the total number of children a woman has, keeps an inverse relationship withher educative level, which may be explained by the effects of education on theknowledge of the fertility. We also find that the effect of an additional year ofeducation in 1995 is higher than 2005. Besides, we also find that there are significantrural-urban differences in the determinants on fertility for Colombia´s women in thelast decade.***En este trabajo se pretende evaluar la existencia de cambios en la relacion entrefecundidad y escolaridad en Colombia para mujeres de 30 a 40 anos de edad entre1995 y 2005. Para tal efecto se utilizan modelos de Poisson sobre la EncuestaNacional de Demografia y Salud 1995 y 2005. Se encuentra una reduccion en lafecundidad durante el periodo y su relacion inversa con la escolaridad, que puede serexplicada por el efecto de la educacion sobre otras variables como el incremento enel conocimiento sobre los programas de control natal. Se encuentra ademas que elefecto de un ano adicional de educacion sobre la fecundidad es mayor en 1995 queen 2005. De otro lado, se encuentra que las diferencias entre zonas urbanas y ruralesson significativas en la explicacion de la fecundidad en Colombia durante la ultimadecada.

Measuring Inequality of Opportunity in Education by Combining Information on Coverage and Achievement in PISA.

Measuring the distance between countries and the goal of equality of opportunity in education has been the focus of recent contributions in the economic literature, which have concentrated either on intergroup gaps in access to a given level of studies or on intergroup gaps in educational achievement. We argue that both aspects are important and interrelated and, as a consequence, should be measured simultaneously and combined in a composite index of equality of opportunity in education. Employing recent PISA data for a selected set of countries, rank reversals are observed with respect to orderings based upon a single dimension. The index can be generalized to include further dimensions, such as average scores or dissimilarity in access.

Statistical Inference for Testing Gini Coefficients: An Application for Colombia

This paper uses Colombian household survey data collected over the 1984-2005 period to estimate Gini coefficients and their corresponding standard errors. We find a statistically significant increase in wage income inequality following the adoption of the liberalization measures during the early 1990s, and mixed evidence from the recovery years that followed the economic recession during the late 1990s. We also find that in several cases the observed differences in the Gini coefficients across cities have not been statistically significant.

Network Externalities in an Economy with Three Languages (Externalidades De Red En Una Economía Con Tres Idiomas)

We study the effect of learning another language on the social and individual welfare by a people group who do not know that language. We use network economics approach in order to take into account the externalities of languages. The equilibrium with decentralized choices is not as good as the resulting from centralized choices. El documento estudia el impacto del aprendizaje de una lengua por parte de un grupo de personas sobre el bienestar individual y social. Se aborda el enfoque de economia de redes para incorporar las externalidades que aparecen en lenguaje. Se encuentra que el equilibrio alcanzado cuando se toman decisiones descentralizadas es inferior al que se obtendria al tomarlas de manera centralizada.