Working Papers on Economics

Imagine a country whose inflation rate has recently surpassed 300% a year, and during some months even surpassed the 50% level that was estabilished as a benchmark for the definition of Phillip Cagan's classic study on the subject. This rapid inflation led to a devaluation of the local currency…

One of the principal issues of Colombian macroeconomic policy in the 1990s has been the deterioration of private savings (Figure 1). The decline in the private saving rate was usually related to consumers real expenditure, which grew by an average of 3.9% in the period 1991-1993, compared to 1.9…

This After 1991 Colombia witnessed a sharp fall in the national savings rate (see figure 1.1), and in particular that of the private sector. Two hypotheses have been advanced for explaining this behavior. The first one stresses consumption smoothing within the Perrnanent Income Hypothesis…

Graph 1 shows a conventional PPP measure of the real exchange rate in Colombia and an index of the relative price of tradable goods in terms of non tradeable. The common conclusion is that, since 1990-92 there has been a medium term process by which the RER has appreciated by as much as 26%. The…

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…

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,…

This document analyzes the macroeconomic effects of a boom in a small-open economy’s natural-resource sector. We study the effects of this shock on the most important macroeconomic variables, the resource reallocation across sectors and on welfare under alternative fiscal rules. We employ a DSGE…

International reserves are very important for emerging economies, as they allow to buffer possible liquidity vulnerabilities within a countries' balance of payments. Consequently, the issue of how many reserves should each country hold is a relevant issue for economic policy. The literature has…

We set a dynamic stochastic model for the interbank daily market for funds in Colombia. The framework features exogenous reserve requirements and requirement period, competitive trading among heterogeneous commercial banks, daily open market operations held by the Central Bank (auctions and…

This paper can be divided into two main parts. The first one, using a simple example by Minford (2004) and Hatcher (2011), gives the reader a basic introduction to understand the comparison between two monetary-policy regimes: Inflation Targeting (IT) and Price-Level Targeting (PLT).

To date, there is still great controversy as to which exchange rate model should be used or which monetary channel should be considered, when measuring the effects of monetary policy. Since most of the literature relies on structural models to address identification problems, the validity of…

Single-sex classes within coeducational environments are likely to modify students' risktaking attitudes in economically important ways. To test this, we designed a controlled experiment using first year college students who made choices over real-stakes lotteries at two distinct dates. Students…

We examine the effect of single‐sex classes on the pass rates, grades, and course choices of students in a coeducational university. We randomly assign students to all‐female, all‐male, and coed classes and, therefore, get around the selection issues present in other studies on single‐sex…

In this paper we investigate the impact of rapid credit growth on ex ante credit risk. We present micro-econometric evidence of the positive relationship between rapid credit growth and deterioration in lending portfolios: Loans granted during boom periods have higher probability of default than…

Based on the counting of Help-wanted advertisements in print newspapers, we present national vacancy indexes and vacancy rates for Colombia. These series will allow tackling a myriad of questions related to the functioning of the labor markets in emerging economies, where such datasets were not…