Maria Alejandra Velez
Biographic Data
| ID | 218584 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Maria Alejandra Velez |
| GIVEN NAMES | Maria Alejandra |
| FAMILY NAME | Velez |
| SIGNATURE | VELEZ M A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Universidad de los Andes |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8916-8808 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 85 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 23 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
The Unfulfilled Promises of the “Solution to the Problem of Illicit Drugs”
The 2016 Final Peace Agreement with the FARC-EP articulated a new drug policy aimed at “definitively solving the problem of illicit drugs” in Colombia. At its core, this commitment recognized the illicit drug trade as a key source of funding for the FARC-EP and promised to rebuild the state’s relationship with coca-growing territories and populations. In this paper, we argue that this promise has remained largely unfulfilled. The policy agenda se…
Social Control of Coca Production
The Bolivian state stands out for its innovative policies in defence of the coca leaf and coca growers’ rights, such as the 2004 Cato Agreement, signed between the state and coca growers to assign legal plots for coca cultivation and to launch a social control system for their monitoring. Based on interviews and secondary information conducted in the Tropic of Cochabamba, we argue that, although this system of coca social control faces some chall…
Small-scale gold miners’ preferences on formalization
Transitioning to Legality
Considering existing models in the United States, Uruguay, and Canada, this policy commentary highlights the need for context-specific regulatory frameworks for adult use cannabis markets that align with national objectives. Colombia, a major player both in the global cocaine trade and the regional cannabis market, faces unique challenges in its quest in regulating cannabis for adult use. This policy commentary provides insights into the Colombia…
From strong leadership to active community engagement
Temporary PES do not crowd out and may crowd in lab-in-the-field forest conservation in Colombia
Payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs exist globally and at times shift behaviors. Unlike protected areas, PES compensate land users, raising local acceptance of conservation. Yet some worry that if payments are temporary, as is often the case, conservation behaviors can be reduced by PES, 'crowded out' to be lower after PES than if no PES had existed. We conducted lab-in-the-field experiments in Colombia, where PES policies are expandin…
Leaders’ distributional & efficiency effects in collective responses to policy
Introduction Special Issue
For decades, illicit economies have predominantly been studied and debated as a security problem with social and development consequences. However, the interaction between illicit economies and the environment, in cases such as illicit drug crop cultivation and drugs production, is more recent and a rather unexplored discussion– despite that it is not a new phenomenon. From an environmental standpoint, illicit economies can lead to a broad array …
Covid-19
The social and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures to contain it in Latin America could lead to a series of long run consequences that could impact the region’s achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This article is the result of the collaboration of environmental economists from eight of the region’s countries and it discusses the possible pandemic effects on air pollution, deforestation, and other relevan…
Is collective titling enough to protect forests? Evidence from Afro-descendant communities in the Colombian Pacific region
Pragmatic conservation
Challenges of Organised Community Resistance in the Context of Illicit Economies and Drug War Policies
The voice and role of communities, particularly their capacity to organise and resist, has been understudied in the specialised literature on illicit crops and largely ignored in policy debates. Based on ongoing research in Colombia, this policy paper explores the capacity of communities to organise and resist – as a manifestation of cultural and social capital – in the context of illicit economies. The paper argues that in the context of weak st…
Beyond proximate and distal causes of land-use change
Rueda, X., M. A. Velez, L. Moros, and L. A. Rodriguez. 2019. Beyond proximate and distal causes of land-use change: linking Individual motivations to deforestation in rural contexts. Ecology and Society 24(1):4. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10617-240104
Payments for Ecosystem Services and Motivational Crowding in Colombia's Amazon Piedmont
Collective Property Leads to Household Investments
Leadership, entrepreneurship and collective action
Building upon case-based evidence this paper explores the role of leaders in Ecomanglar, a community-based enterprise in the Black collective territory of La Plata-Bahía Málaga in the Colombian Pacific Basin, whose purpose is to provide eco and ethno-tourism services. This purpose is inextricably bound up with the region’s biophysical and institutional characteristics, both of which make management of common-pool resources a key strategic task fo…
Framed field experiment on resource scarcity & extraction
Institutional heterogeneity in social dilemma games
A main research focus in many Social Dilemma Games is the suitability of external institutional treatments in inducing socially optimal outcomes. It is likely that participating subjects exhibit unobserved heterogeneity in their reaction to these treatments. This type of “institutional heterogeneity” has to date not found much attention in the experimental literature. We propose a Hierarchical Bayesian estimation framework to highlight these hete…
Rules Compliance and Age
We report the results of common-pool resource economic experiments conducted with indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazon. The experiments recreate two contexts: a limited open access with no institutions regulating the fisheries and a nonmonetary external regulation that limits individual extraction when a fisher is found to be overextracting. We find that variables that did not explain behavior under limited open access do so under the r…
Unequal Information, Unequal Allocation
Preferences for government enforcement of a common pool harvest quota
Efficiency and equity in negotiated resource transfers
We consider a case of water reallocation in Brazil, one which has numerous analogs elsewhere. To permit empirical study of the effects of institutions that can facilitate or restrict allocations, we conducted field experiments to explore trust's potential when resource contracts are limited, using a novel asymmetric-productivity ultimatum game with a final surplus-sharing step added. As a form of informal institution, trust could in principle mak…
Collective Titling and the Process of Institution Building
This research is an empirical examination of institutional developments in Afro-Colombian communities that have occurred since the change in the property rights regime in 1991. I surveyed 82 local leaders of 42 communities to understand whether these communities have succeeded in designing and implementing rules to manage their collective land and its resources. I found that the new property regime has not replaced individuals¿ informal land hold…
Collective Titling and the Process of Institution Building
This research is an empirical examination of institutional developments in Afro-Colombian communities that have occurred since the change in the property rights regime in 1991. I surveyed 82 local leaders of 42 communities to understand whether these communities have succeeded in designing and implementing rules to manage their collective land and its resources. I found that the new property regime has not replaced individuals¿ informal land hold…
Is collective titling enough to protect forests? Evidence from Afro-descendant communities in the Colombian Pacific region
Collective Property Leads to Household Investments
Payments for Ecosystem Services and Motivational Crowding in Colombia's Amazon Piedmont
Pragmatic conservation
Leadership, entrepreneurship and collective action
Building upon case-based evidence this paper explores the role of leaders in Ecomanglar, a community-based enterprise in the Black collective territory of La Plata-Bahía Málaga in the Colombian Pacific Basin, whose purpose is to provide eco and ethno-tourism services. This purpose is inextricably bound up with the region’s biophysical and institutional characteristics, both of which make management of common-pool resources a key strategic task fo…
Temporary PES do not crowd out and may crowd in lab-in-the-field forest conservation in Colombia
Payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs exist globally and at times shift behaviors. Unlike protected areas, PES compensate land users, raising local acceptance of conservation. Yet some worry that if payments are temporary, as is often the case, conservation behaviors can be reduced by PES, 'crowded out' to be lower after PES than if no PES had existed. We conducted lab-in-the-field experiments in Colombia, where PES policies are expandin…
Leaders’ distributional & efficiency effects in collective responses to policy
Introduction Special Issue
For decades, illicit economies have predominantly been studied and debated as a security problem with social and development consequences. However, the interaction between illicit economies and the environment, in cases such as illicit drug crop cultivation and drugs production, is more recent and a rather unexplored discussion– despite that it is not a new phenomenon. From an environmental standpoint, illicit economies can lead to a broad array …
Challenges of Organised Community Resistance in the Context of Illicit Economies and Drug War Policies
The voice and role of communities, particularly their capacity to organise and resist, has been understudied in the specialised literature on illicit crops and largely ignored in policy debates. Based on ongoing research in Colombia, this policy paper explores the capacity of communities to organise and resist – as a manifestation of cultural and social capital – in the context of illicit economies. The paper argues that in the context of weak st…
Beyond proximate and distal causes of land-use change
Rueda, X., M. A. Velez, L. Moros, and L. A. Rodriguez. 2019. Beyond proximate and distal causes of land-use change: linking Individual motivations to deforestation in rural contexts. Ecology and Society 24(1):4. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10617-240104
Unequal Information, Unequal Allocation
Efficiency and equity in negotiated resource transfers
We consider a case of water reallocation in Brazil, one which has numerous analogs elsewhere. To permit empirical study of the effects of institutions that can facilitate or restrict allocations, we conducted field experiments to explore trust's potential when resource contracts are limited, using a novel asymmetric-productivity ultimatum game with a final surplus-sharing step added. As a form of informal institution, trust could in principle mak…
Small-scale gold miners’ preferences on formalization
Covid-19
The social and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures to contain it in Latin America could lead to a series of long run consequences that could impact the region’s achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This article is the result of the collaboration of environmental economists from eight of the region’s countries and it discusses the possible pandemic effects on air pollution, deforestation, and other relevan…
Rules Compliance and Age
We report the results of common-pool resource economic experiments conducted with indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazon. The experiments recreate two contexts: a limited open access with no institutions regulating the fisheries and a nonmonetary external regulation that limits individual extraction when a fisher is found to be overextracting. We find that variables that did not explain behavior under limited open access do so under the r…
Preferences for government enforcement of a common pool harvest quota
Efficiency and equity in negotiated resource transfers
We consider a case of water reallocation in Brazil, one which has numerous analogs elsewhere. To permit empirical study of the effects of institutions that can facilitate or restrict allocations, we conducted field experiments to explore trust's potential when resource contracts are limited, using a novel asymmetric-productivity ultimatum game with a final surplus-sharing step added. As a form of informal institution, trust could in principle mak…
Collective Titling and the Process of Institution Building
This research is an empirical examination of institutional developments in Afro-Colombian communities that have occurred since the change in the property rights regime in 1991. I surveyed 82 local leaders of 42 communities to understand whether these communities have succeeded in designing and implementing rules to manage their collective land and its resources. I found that the new property regime has not replaced individuals¿ informal land hold…
Unequal Information, Unequal Allocation
Preferences for government enforcement of a common pool harvest quota
Institutional heterogeneity in social dilemma games
A main research focus in many Social Dilemma Games is the suitability of external institutional treatments in inducing socially optimal outcomes. It is likely that participating subjects exhibit unobserved heterogeneity in their reaction to these treatments. This type of “institutional heterogeneity” has to date not found much attention in the experimental literature. We propose a Hierarchical Bayesian estimation framework to highlight these hete…
Rules Compliance and Age
We report the results of common-pool resource economic experiments conducted with indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazon. The experiments recreate two contexts: a limited open access with no institutions regulating the fisheries and a nonmonetary external regulation that limits individual extraction when a fisher is found to be overextracting. We find that variables that did not explain behavior under limited open access do so under the r…
Framed field experiment on resource scarcity & extraction
Leadership, entrepreneurship and collective action
Building upon case-based evidence this paper explores the role of leaders in Ecomanglar, a community-based enterprise in the Black collective territory of La Plata-Bahía Málaga in the Colombian Pacific Basin, whose purpose is to provide eco and ethno-tourism services. This purpose is inextricably bound up with the region’s biophysical and institutional characteristics, both of which make management of common-pool resources a key strategic task fo…
Payments for Ecosystem Services and Motivational Crowding in Colombia's Amazon Piedmont
Collective Property Leads to Household Investments
Is collective titling enough to protect forests? Evidence from Afro-descendant communities in the Colombian Pacific region
Pragmatic conservation
Challenges of Organised Community Resistance in the Context of Illicit Economies and Drug War Policies
The voice and role of communities, particularly their capacity to organise and resist, has been understudied in the specialised literature on illicit crops and largely ignored in policy debates. Based on ongoing research in Colombia, this policy paper explores the capacity of communities to organise and resist – as a manifestation of cultural and social capital – in the context of illicit economies. The paper argues that in the context of weak st…
Beyond proximate and distal causes of land-use change
Rueda, X., M. A. Velez, L. Moros, and L. A. Rodriguez. 2019. Beyond proximate and distal causes of land-use change: linking Individual motivations to deforestation in rural contexts. Ecology and Society 24(1):4. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10617-240104
Covid-19
The social and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures to contain it in Latin America could lead to a series of long run consequences that could impact the region’s achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This article is the result of the collaboration of environmental economists from eight of the region’s countries and it discusses the possible pandemic effects on air pollution, deforestation, and other relevan…
Leaders’ distributional & efficiency effects in collective responses to policy
Introduction Special Issue
For decades, illicit economies have predominantly been studied and debated as a security problem with social and development consequences. However, the interaction between illicit economies and the environment, in cases such as illicit drug crop cultivation and drugs production, is more recent and a rather unexplored discussion– despite that it is not a new phenomenon. From an environmental standpoint, illicit economies can lead to a broad array …
From strong leadership to active community engagement
Temporary PES do not crowd out and may crowd in lab-in-the-field forest conservation in Colombia
Payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs exist globally and at times shift behaviors. Unlike protected areas, PES compensate land users, raising local acceptance of conservation. Yet some worry that if payments are temporary, as is often the case, conservation behaviors can be reduced by PES, 'crowded out' to be lower after PES than if no PES had existed. We conducted lab-in-the-field experiments in Colombia, where PES policies are expandin…
Small-scale gold miners’ preferences on formalization
Transitioning to Legality
Considering existing models in the United States, Uruguay, and Canada, this policy commentary highlights the need for context-specific regulatory frameworks for adult use cannabis markets that align with national objectives. Colombia, a major player both in the global cocaine trade and the regional cannabis market, faces unique challenges in its quest in regulating cannabis for adult use. This policy commentary provides insights into the Colombia…
The Unfulfilled Promises of the “Solution to the Problem of Illicit Drugs”
The 2016 Final Peace Agreement with the FARC-EP articulated a new drug policy aimed at “definitively solving the problem of illicit drugs” in Colombia. At its core, this commitment recognized the illicit drug trade as a key source of funding for the FARC-EP and promised to rebuild the state’s relationship with coca-growing territories and populations. In this paper, we argue that this promise has remained largely unfulfilled. The policy agenda se…
Social Control of Coca Production
The Bolivian state stands out for its innovative policies in defence of the coca leaf and coca growers’ rights, such as the 2004 Cato Agreement, signed between the state and coca growers to assign legal plots for coca cultivation and to launch a social control system for their monitoring. Based on interviews and secondary information conducted in the Tropic of Cochabamba, we argue that, although this system of coca social control faces some chall…
Economics (17 works) · Business (15 works) · Political science (14 works) · Geography (11 works) · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies (9 works) · Microeconomics (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management (6 works) · Ecology (6 works) · Natural resource economics (6 works)