Working Papers on Economics

Determinants of consumer credit are estimated by using information from a Credit Union located in Medellín-Colombia. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first investigation using this kind of data in Colombia. We find that life cycle-permanent income hypothesis (LC-PIH) related variables…

We study the interdependence between real commodity prices and world real GDP using long-term annual data since 1870, by performing two empirical exercises. First, we compute long-term and medium-term cycles and measure their degree of synchronization for different leads and lags. Second, we…

This paper assesses the efficiency of crop and livestock production in Colombia by using a sample of 1,565 households. The study considers households located in different production systems which differ in geography, climate and soil types. These conditions affect technical efficiency and thus…

Fluctuations in commodity prices are an important driver of business cycles in small emerging market economies (EMEs). We document how these fluctuations correlate strongly with the business cycle in EMEs. We then embed a commodity sector into a multi-country EMEs business cycle model where…

We introduce a dispatch model of Colombia's independent system operator (XM) in order to study the relative merits of self-commitment vs. centralized unit comment.  We capitalize on the transition that took place in 2009 from self-unit commitment to centralize unit commitment and use data…

This paper reports on the recent developments in the construction of an interregional input-output matrix for Colombia (IIOM-COL). As part of an ongoing project that aims to update an interregional CGE (ICGE) model for the country, the CEER model, a fully specified interregional input-output…

This paper provides evidence on the positive role of fiscal decentralization on regional economic growth in Colombia since the promulgation of the Political Constitution of 1991. The empirical strategy involved the choice of a suitable estimator for the panel data approach, the Augmented Mean…

This document presents how to estimate and implement a structural VAR-X model under long run and impact identification restrictions. Estimation by bayesian and maximum likelihood methods is presented. Applications of the structural VAR-X for impulse response functions to structural shocks,…

In this paper we study the structure of the fiscal system of the Viceroyalty of New Granada towards the end of the colonial period. Then we discuss how the tax system inhereted from the Spanish Empire evolved over the period 1821-1850. The conclusion that emerges from the review of the evidence…

Monetary neutrality in the colombian Monetary neutrality in the Colombian real exchange rate

Why justice is unresponsive to crime: Why justice is un responsive to crime: The case of cocine in Colombia

This piece was part of a research on the colombian inflationary experience published as: The Rise and Perpetuation of a Moderate Inflation, Colombia 1970-1991. It collects together the summaries of the response of Colombian policy-makers to the shocks identified in that paper. Since 1963 the…

A price-setting mechanism based on a markup over variable costs is studied for the quite different inflationary experiences of Argentina and Colombia. The paper pursues a twofold strategy: first, it test the null hypothesis of a constant markup against the alternative of a variable one; second,…

The study evaluates the virtues of asymmetric trimmed means as efficient estimators of inflation for Colombia, an economy with high and variable inflation rates. Results suggest that the proposed indicators are more efficient than alternative indexes and are particularly suited for environments…

The paper provides a model of the banking firm in the macroeconomy intended to explain what determines the interest rate spread. A key factor explaining the spread in our model is the resource cost of capital. A statistical result confirms the prediction of the model, that is, the bank's spread…

Structural time series models, frequency domain analysis, the HP-filter, and the Blanchard-Quah decomposition, are used to observe, some peculiarities of the business cycle. Such properties are those related to the volatility of the temporary component and the duration of the business cycle…

Exploiting spatial and temporal variations in the number of seizures from criminal organizations, I estimate regional fixed effects models of the increase in the number of properties confiscated on the main crime rates. From 2002 security strategies changed, and as a result,…

In this paper we study the effect of monetary policy shocks on commodity prices. While most of the literature has found that expansionary shocks have a positive effect on aggregate price indices, we study the effect on individual prices of a sample of four commodities. This set of commodity…

Este documento propone un modelo multisectorial de crecimiento, dinámico y estocástico que integra la literatura de ciclo económico real con la de economías con sectores en bonanza y enfermedad holandesa para analizar fluctuaciones, asignación de recursos y los cambios en precios relativos en…

Levels of interest rates below historical norms may have enhanced financial instability in developed and developing economies during the 2000's. The risk taking channel of monetary policy transmission is a recent theory that explains the interaction between risk perceptions of the financial…