Economic growth in Colombia: A reversal of “fortune”?

Between 1950 and 1980, the Colombian economy grew at a respectable average rate of 5 percent. Between 1980 and 2000, that average rate of growth fell to 3 percent. Why? Because of the drop in productivity caused by violence, primarily from the drug trade. According to Colombian economist Mauricio Cardenas, a visiting scholar at the Center for International Development at Harvard University, drops in productivity occurred because of the rapid expansion in drug-trafficking activities that erupted around 1980. Cardenas dramatically shows how a period of high crime results in low productivity, damaging what was once a thriving economy.