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This paper analyzes the relationship that is present between the jurisprudence of the Colombian Constitutional Court (regarding the writ of tutela) during the twenty years that the Colombian Constitution has been in legal force, on the one hand, and the Coase theorem, proposed by the Nobel laureate Ronald H. Coase, on the other hand. The paper states that the Colombian Constitutional Court, although implicitly and without noticing, when considering efficiency as a criterion for deciding at least some of its cases and allocating rights that facilitates transactions between the parties to the lawsuit, has performed an analysis similar to the one that Coase explains in his paper "The Problem of Social Cost". [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]