Publications

Colombian inflationary experience is explained using a theoretical model that stresses two elements: the effect of shocks and the type of policy designed to respond to them. The empirical investigation uses the event-study methodology and finds that the model successfully accounts for the main…

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,…

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…

Notas de la Presentación Reuniones Anuales del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID) Medellín, marzo 29 de 2009

This paper examines the role of exchange rates in determining the short-and-long-run trade balance behavior for Colombia. Conventional wisdom says that a nominal devaluation improves the trade balance. This conjecture is rooted in the Bickerdike- Robinson-Metzler (BRM) and Marshall-Lerner (ML)…

This study develops three exchange rate models as well as a simple statistical model defined as a random walk with a variable drift. The exchange rate models all use the purchasing power parity hypothesis to account for the long-term relationships between prices and the exchange rate, together…

This study uses two different econometric frameworks to study exchange rate pass-through to import, producer and consumer prices in Colombia. Both frameworks are based on vector autoregressive (VAR) models, the first using an unrestricted VAR model, and the second using the Johansen framework of…

The effects of capital destruction are endogenized in a neoclassical growth model where the economy can optimally allocate part of its labor force to defend capital from being destroyed. The purpose is to explain the optimal allocation of the labor force between productive and deterrence…