(joint with Maximiliano García)

Water resources present a classic tragedy of the commons that is of increasing relevance due to climate change. This paper provides evidence of how property rights institutions, particularly local irrigators' organizations, impact water markets' efficiency. Our analysis is based on a unique dataset that integrates administrative records, hydrological measures, geographic information, and satellite imagery. We develop a novel misallocation test, which suggests that these organizations reduce misallocation caused by the natural capacity of upstream users to over-extract. We show that these efficiency gains are a result of both water redistribution and individual adaptation, as downstream farmers increase their water consumption and agricultural yield. Large farms extend their growing season, adopt more efficient irrigation technologies, and overall gather more benefits from the analyzed property rights institution. Meanwhile, although upstream farmers reduce their water consumption, their productive outcomes remain unchanged. We also document increases in river streamflow during the irrigation season, concentrated in basins with higher agricultural activity. Our results provide micro-evidence of the consequences of effective governance for both allocative efficiency and equity. 

This paper leverages a quasi-natural experiment to trace the short- and long-run effects of international trade on structural change in an economy with a comparative advantage in agriculture. I find that regions in Colombia that gained access to international markets thanks to the opening of the Panama Canal experienced higher population growth and faster structural change. While the impact of trade on population growth is increasing in the capacity to grow agricultural exports, the impact of trade on structural change is maximized at intermediate levels. Furthermore, I provide evidence of the indirect effects of trade: regions located between ports and places suitable for growing agricultural exports saw a larger share of their labor reallocated towards services. The findings highlight the within-country distributional consequences of exposure to international trade for developing countries.

(joint with Diego Gentile)

CAF Development Bank Working Papers Series 

This paper estimates the impact of alternative transportation modes on economic development. It focuses on Argentina, where over three decades, 10,000 kilometers of railroads were closed, and 18,000 kilometers of paved roads were constructed. Our empirical strategy leverages a discontinuity in how a World Bank mission selected railroads for closure assessment. We find that the dismantling of railroads operated as a negative trade shock that led to an overall decline in economic activity. It decreased the share of labor in agriculture - the export sector - and had negative impacts on both the population and industrial production. . We find evidence of paved roads increasing the share of labor in manufactures, but no impacts on population growth nor industrial production.

This paper studies the impact of land redistribution on human capital accumulation in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution. Exploiting a discontinuity in exposure to this policy around state borders, I find that land redistribution had a negative causal effect on literacy rates.