Research

Partner selection is a cornerstone of human life, influencing everything from fertility and career-investment choices to broader demographic trends. In the dating market, individuals navigate not only their personal preferences for certain traits but also their perceptions of what their desired partners value. These perceptions can have profound consequences; for instance, as Bursztyn et al. (2017) show, people may forgo career-enhancing opportunities to avoid signalling undesirable personality traits in the marriage market. Yet, the accuracy of these beliefs remains largely unexamined due to the lack of incentive-compatible methods for eliciting true preferences and second-order beliefs in this context. This study seeks to bridge that gap by systematically measuring these perceptions and assessing their influence on dating-market dynamics. Collaborating with a popular dating app, we will capture both the actual preferences and beliefs of users, and conduct an RCT to determine how correcting misperceptions affects outcomes in the dating market.

This paper explores the long-run relationship between average adult height and several socio-economic development indicators using time series techniques. We use information from national identification cards for nearly 13 million individuals born between 1910 and 1989 in Colombia. The results indicate that improvements in the availability of better-quality food, and the reduction in food prices, as well as better economic conditions lead to increases in average height throughout the century. Regarding gender inequality, we find that height dimorphism in absolute terms decreased during the time period. However, the downward trend observed until the end of 1950s reversed at the beginning of the 1960s, despite the advances in the living conditions of women during this period. This result suggests that earlier improvements in the economic conditions benefited women more, given the considerable gender gap in education, health, and income at the beginning of the 20th century. However, the rise in GDP during the second half of the century benefited average male height more than women's.

This paper explores the relationship between the physical stature of Colombians born during the 20th century and several socio-economic and demographic variables at the individual level. Using a dataset of more than 225,000 individuals built with information from judicial background certificates, we found a sustained growth of the average height of women and men during the 20th century. The results show significant differences in stature according to gender, level of education, occupation, and place and date of birth. Similarly, health conditions and access to aqueducts significantly affect height. We found that departmental average height disparities decreased and the gap across regions closed throughout the century.

The female workforce was an important part of Colombian industrialization. In 1945, Colombian female factory workers earned 60% of their male colleague’s wages on average. I use data from the 1945 Colombian Industrial Census to analyze the gender wage gap distribution across sectors of Colombian industry. I evaluate three possible causes for the wage gap: differences in literacy rates, career interruption after marriage, and differences in productivity. I develop a model that measures the share of the gender wage gap that is not due to differences in productivity between female and male workers for each industrial sector. The results indicate that neither differences in level of education or marital status, nor differences in productivity account for the large wage gap.