Working Papers on Economics

The incomplete pass-through of exchange rates to prices is a well-documented phenomenon. Firms respond optimally to exchange rate shocks by adjusting margins and buying inputs from regions with more advantageous terms of trade. Consumers, in turn, substitute goods that become more…

We bring together the largest meta-analysis ever conducted in the macroeconomic literature to investigate the effects of central bank credibility on monetary policy. With nearly 1,200 surveyed effects, we first confirm that: (i) conventional policy significantly affects inflation and…

Education in Colombia and Latin America is characterized by significant gaps in the quality of education as measured by standardized test scores. This  paper assesses the impact of a Colombian program called SaberEs, which strengthens preparation for standardized…

Over the past 30 years, monetary and macroprudential policy in Colombia evolved towards the pursuit of a low and credible inflation target and a stable financial system. The protracted inflation that began in the early seventies was defeated at the turn of the century with the help of…

Colombia saw a drop in investment as a result of the COVID-19 shock, which resulted in a negative gap in the second quarter of 2020 of -2.8% of the GDP. In the context of the region, Peru was hardest hit, while countries such as Mexico, Chile, and Brazil suffered minor setbacks. The…

Colombia saw a drop in investment as a result of the COVID-19 shock, which resulted in a negative gap in the second quarter of 2020 of -2.8% of the GDP. In the context of the region, Peru was hardest hit, while countries such as Mexico, Chile, and Brazil suffered minor setbacks. The…

The burden of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) is expected to increase due to the aging of the population and risk factors from unhealthy lifestyle habits. This paper aims to analyze how the evolution of NCDs (e.g., Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease, Chronic Respiratory Disease,…

This study evaluates the financing mechanisms of the healthcare system, differentiating between resources of fiscal, parafiscal, and other origins used primarily to cover the costs of the contributory and subsidized health regimes. In recent years, the sector has faced financial and…

In this paper, we analyze the tail-dependence structure of credit default swaps (CDS) and the global financial cycle for a group of eleven emerging markets. Using a Copula-CoVaR model, we provide evidence that there is a significant taildependence between variables related with the…

We provide an overview of the primary structural features of the labor market in Colombia and survey the margins of adjustment of the market during the pandemic. Given the decline of real wages amid the post-pandemic inflationary surge, mainly due to the formal wage rigidity in the…

In this paper we extend the economic model used in Parra et al. (2020) to incorporate two significant groups that were not included in the original analysis: people who are retired with pension equivalent to the minimum wage and those who do not fulfill pension requirements and therefore…

The business cycle is the cycle in the output gap and also in a stationary measure of trend output. Both the output gap and trend output are driven by joint trend-cycle shocks. The model is a univariate trend-cycle decomposition with hysteresis in trend output that enables the…

We develop a methodology that recovers an estimate of the average stock of vacancies using the information on aggregated hires. We show that our prediction of the vacancy stock is unbiased, and it captures well the level and the dynamics of the United States job opening positions…

Assessing the effects of U.S. monetary policies on portfolio flows is important for policymakers as they could pose risks to the effectiveness of domestic monetary policy. This paper analyzes the effects of the Global Financial Cycle (GFC) and Federal Reserve (Fed) unconventional…

The development of methodologies that enable the diagnosis of the current state and trend of economic activity is particularly important to improve the decision-making process in economic policy. This paper proposes a new weekly indicator of economic activity for Colombia, covering the…

The objective of the study is to evaluate the main determinants of the Colombian gross portfolio inflows and outflows from non-resident and resident investors and to study the role of the interest rate of the domestic monetary policy. The conceptual framework is the standard portfolio…

We revisit an old question but with a new identification strategy, namely the difference in exchange rate effects between announced (“vocal”) and secret (“dirty”) foreign exchange intervention. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design, we exploit a rule-based intervention mechanism…

Assessing the composition of sovereign debt holders is important because investors’ behavior varies according to distinctive  components, including shareholders’ preferences, regulatory constraints, and profitability mandates. To study this issue, we examine the determinants of…

Behavioral Equilibrium Exchange Rate (BEER) models suggest many variables as potential drivers of equilibrium real exchange rates (ERER). This gives rise to model uncertainty issues, as ERER depends and varies, often drastically, on a particular set of chosen variables. We address this…