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Inflation expectations in Colombia are characterized. Empirical evidence following conventional tests suggests that they might not be rational, although the period of disinflation included in the sample makes it difficult to ascertain this conclusion. Inflation expectations display close ties…

Determining the exchange rate pass-through on inflation is a necessity for central banks as well as for firms and households. This is an apparently easy and intuitive task, but it faces high complexity and uncertainty. This paper examines the nature of the pass-through and quantifies…

In this paper output gaps that include financial cycle information are evaluated against models used in policy analysis by the Colombian central bank. Employing this dataset is no trivial matter, since policy related models are the only relevant yardstick, and emerging economies (such as…

This paper tests the importance of the financial structure of banks in the bank lending channel of monetary policy transmission in Colombia, using an unbalanced panel of 51 banks for the period of 1996:4-2014:8. We find that an increase in the interbank rate (proxy of the intervention rate) has…

Banks and other credit institutions are key players in the transmission of monetary policy, especially in emerging market economies, where the responses of deposit and loan interest rates to shifts in policy rates are among the most important channels. This pass-through depends on the conditions…

The paper develops a New Keynesian Small Open Economy Model characterized by external habit formation and Calvo price setting with dynamic inflation updating. The model is used to analyze the effect of nominal ex-change rate targeting on optimal policy and impulse responses. It is found that…

Derivatives are contingent claims that complete financial markets. Their use allow agents and firms to ameliorate the impact over con-sumption, production and investment given a change in relative prices induced by an active monetary policy. In this sense, derivatives generate in some cases a…

Colombian monthly data covering the period from 1995:01 to 2002:11 and ECM, fixed and time-varying parameters and Kalman filter techniques are used in this paper to quantify the exchange rate pass-through effects on import prices within a sample of manufactured imports. Also, whether the foreign…

Since 1991, inflation in Colombia was reduced from 25% on average to about 6% more recently. Although this performance is in line with a long run inflation target of 3%, some analysts ask whether the Central Bank should continue disinflating. In this paper we present a dynamic stochastic general…

The surge in Colombian sovereign international bond issues during the 1990s has created an increasing need for the Colombian Government and the Banco de la República to understand the dynamics and the determinants of the sovereign spread. This is the first comprehensive study of the Colombian…

This paper proposes a framework for a regional economic policy in Colombia. The regional characteristics and disparities of the country are studied, and regional disparities are shown to be both significant and persistent over time. This calls for a policy initiative to promote the development…

In this paper we explore the price setting behavior of Colombian producers and importers using a unique database containing the monthly price reports underlying the Colombian PPI from Jun-1999 to Oct-2006. We focus on five particular questions:

Colombia experienced a deep recession in 1999-2003. Growth slowed by 4.2%, and investment by 34.6%. Was the severity of the recession due to a financial accelerator mechanism á la Bernanke, Gertler, and Gilchrist (1999)? To answer this question, this paper estimates a dynamic stochastic general…

In order to asses the credibility of their targets and policies, inflation targeting central banks always keep an eye on market expectations of the future inflation rates and short maturity interest rates. In economies with developed financial markets the prices of financial assets are a prime…

The Colombian economy experienced several shocks in the past ten years. The permanent fall of inflation, the adoption of inflation targeting (IT) and a financial crisis altered the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. Low inflation and IT reduced inflation persistence and contributed to…

This paper investigates the possible responses of an inflation-targeting monetary policy in the face of asset price deviations from fundamental values.

During the transition from a moderately high level of inflation to an internationally accepted level, the target, the inflation rate, the nominal interest rate and the nominal equilibrium interest rate may be difference stationary. Policy rules estimation, however, is usually performed under…

The Colombian economy and financial system have coped reasonably well with the effects of the global financial crisis. Hence, "unconventional" policy measures have not been at the center of the policy decisions and discussions. Nominal short term interest rates have remained the main monetary…