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The effect of urban violence on student achievement in Medellin, Colombia

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  • Gregory L. Haugan

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of urban violence on the standardized test scores of public school students in Medellin. I use the school-level variation in exposure to local homicides for years 2004-2013 in a model that includes school and year fixed effects, allowing me to control for the endogeneity of violence. I find that each additional homicide per year occurring within 500 meters of a school reduces student achievement by slightly over 0.01 standard deviations on a variety of tested academic subjects. For an average school, this implies dropping from the 50th percentile to the 47th percentile in a typical violent period. The effect does not appear to be driven by bias from student migration, and evidence from differential effects estimates is more consistent with supply-side channels. Examining the causal pathways of the effect, the impact of local violence is shown to induce higher levels of teacher turnover, although this may actually improve the average qualifications of teachers in the school in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Gregory L. Haugan, 2016. "The effect of urban violence on student achievement in Medellin, Colombia," Documentos CEDE 14326, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000089:014326
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Duque, Valentina, 2019. "Violence and Children’s Education: Evidence from Administrative Data," Working Papers 2019-16, University of Sydney, School of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    violence; urban crime; education outcomes; teacher turnover;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • J28 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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