Objective/Context:

This paper analyzes factors related to political incentives for public organizations to cease operations. It suggests that political turnover has a negative effect on the duration of these types of entities. However, this effect differs according to the size of the governing coalition.

Methodology:

Semi-parametric models and Cox regressions are used to estimate the survival of 415 public organizations in Colombia.

Conclusions:

The data show that a change in the presidential administration allows the new president to reshape the administration according to their interests. Data analysis also indicates that the larger the size of the government coalition, the lower the probability that a public entity will be eliminated.

Originality:

The article uses an original database containing longitudinal information on public organizations in Colombia for the period 1958 to 2020. This database contains 415 observations on the organizational characteristics of each entity. This paper contributes to the scarce literature on the termination of public organizations in Latin America.