Happily Ever After? Domestic Violence in Periods of Scarcity (¿Felices para siempre? Violencia Domestica en Periodos de Escases)

English Abstract: This paper estimates the causal impact that changes in household´s income have on Domestic Violence (DV) rates in Colombia. Using the arguably exogenous variation in time and space of the payments of a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program and a three-year-long monthly municipal balanced panel data set, we find that DV rates decrease by six percent in the months when the transfers are received. However, this effect is only transitory and varies according to households’ expectations on when the transfers are received. Negative shocks that take place when families do not receive the transfer they were expecting, intensify economic scarcity, and DV rates in those months follow suit. On the contrary, positive shocks that occur when families receive an unexpected transfer only have a marginal reduction on DV. The channel that appears to be explaining our results is a budget constraint alleviation mechanism that reduces scarcity as the timing of the receipt of the transfer consistently reduces DV and increases consumption in the month of payment. Furthermore, there is no clear evidence of alternative channels that could explain the results such as changes in female empowerment, marital status, labor participation, or social networks of the beneficiary women. Spanish Abstract: Este trabajo estima el impacto causal que tienen los cambios en ingresos del hogar sobre la tasa de Violencia Domestica (VD) municipal para Colombia. Para ello se utiliza la variacion exogena, dada en el tiempo y en el espacio, de los pagos del programa de Transferencia Condicionadas, encontrando asi, que la tasa de VD se reduce en un seis porciento en los meses de pago de la transferencia. Choques negativos de ingreso, que occuren cuando la familia no recibe una transferencia que esperaba, intensifica la escases economica y se traduce en una mayor tasa de VD. Por el contratio, cuando ocurren choques positivos de ingreso, por recibir una transferencia inesperada, solo se evidencia una reduccion marginal en la VD. El canal por el cual se reduce la VD parece estar explicado por la reduccion en la escasez economica. La transferencia relaja la restriccion presupuestal permitiendo un incremento en consumo que coincide exactamente con el mes de pago. Adicionalmente, no hay evidencia clara que indique que otros canales alternos como el empoderamiento de la mujer, el estado civil, la participacion laboral, o redes sociales puedan estar cambiando.