Blattman, Christopher. <br/><br/>
State-building on the Margin:  An Urban Experiment in Medellín / 
Christopher Blattman, Gustavo Duncan, Benjamin Lessing, Santiago Tobon. 
 - Cambridge, Mass.  National Bureau of Economic Research  2022. 
 - 1 online resource:  illustrations (black and white); 
 - NBER working paper series  no. w29692 .
 - Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)  no. w29692. .
<br/><br/> January 2022. 
<br/><br/> Medellín's government wanted to raise its efficacy, legitimacy, and control. The city identified 80 neighborhoods with weak state presence and competing armed actors. In half, they increased non-police street presence tenfold for two years, offering social services and dispute resolution. In places where the state was initially weakest, the intervention did not work, mainly because the government struggled to deliver on its promises. Where the state began stronger, the government raised opinions of its services and legitimacy. If there are indeed low marginal returns to investing in capacity in the least-governed areas, this could produce increasing returns to state-building. 
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