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This paper examines the determinants of teacher and course evaluations at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. The paper explores how teacher and course characteristics affect evaluation results. Grades obtained by students directly and positively affect teacher evaluations. Class size negatively affects the results of the evaluations. Finally whether teachers are full or part-time as well as years of experience of teachers have a negligible impact on evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2004, the district of Bogotá has built massively schools of great capacity and infraestructure known as Megacolegios (Mega-schools). By 2010, the city counted with 42 new school which were built in the areas of the city with the highest demand for educational access. This paper uses matching techniques to measure the impact of the megacolegios in the students performance on the Saber 11° estandarized test. The results show that the megacolegios have no impact on the students performance. Nevertheless, The megacolegios do mitigate the negative relation between performance and some students characteristics like over age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper attempts to measure empirically the externalities generated by the street vendors in four zones of the city. Given the lack of information censuses and surveys were carried out during December of 2004 and January 2005. The descriptive statistics show that the established commerce is less formal than expected; whereas the street vendors are mostly stationary, exhibit reduced scale and low space rivalry. The econometric estimations show that the congestion of the public space generated by street vendors has a negative impact on both sales and employment of established retail commerce. The simulations of a reduction of street vendors pinpoint that although street sales account for just 2% of total sales in the four areas under study, they reduce 14% and 16% sales and employment of formal retail commerce respectively. Finally, some limitations of the methodological strategy are raised and some public policy proposals to face the phenomenon are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The perception of security related to crime is not always tied to the individual level of victimization or the real risk of crime, but rather to the fear of crime. To investigate this, we carried out a survey among the community at Universidad de los Andes. We found that the fear of crime is more decisive than the actual victimization in terms of shaping people's perception of security during Bogotá's current administration (i.e., Garzón) as compared to its three former administrations (i.e., Mockus-Peñalosa-Mockus). This becomes even more surprising if one takes into account the fact that Bogotá has experienced a decrease in most high social-impact crimes, according to official data, yet the survey reveals that still one third of those surveyed feel worst under Garzón's administration as compared to the three former ones. We show that the perception of security in public spaces, and on public transport, is determined by factors which are related more to the fear of crime than to the level of subjective victimization (understood as that of the surveyed and his/her kin). This paper also corroborates widely held beliefs that surround the fear-of-crime literature, such as the attitude towards crime risk among the young, and the higher perception of safety that men feel as compared to women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]