Publications OLD

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…

Social protection programs have become an important and effective tool to mitigate poverty and vulnerability. This document reviews the main cash transfer programs in Colombia. We study their history, targeting, coverage, operation, and fiscal commitments derived from…

The growth of the Colombian economy in 2022 (7.5%) was considerably higher than that of its Latin American peers and more than doubled the world’s growth average. Such a vigorous expansion over a GDP that had already exceeded its pre-pandemic level, growing by 11.0% in 2021, was…

By the end of the 1990s, inefficiency, excess supply and low service quality characterized the mass transit system of Bogotá. The average travel time to work was one hour and ten minutes, obsolete buses provided public transport, traffic generated 70 percent of air pollution and there were…

Presentation made in 10th Annual Conference: Is inflation back, and in which form?, Swiss Geneva

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…

This work contributes to the reconstruction of the demographic and economic data of the department of Córdoba for a long period of time, which allows to a great extent to cover the seventy years of existence of this territory. We foundthat the population growth of Córdoba washigher…

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…

Using a novel database of historical series of revenues and expenses of different levels of government between 1923 and 2020, in this paper we describe the evolution of the vertical and horizontal imbalances between central government, states, and municipalities in Colombia. The…

Price dispersion is a prevalent feature even of markets where, arguably, homogeneous good are traded. At the heart of the causes of price dispersion lie the firms’ strategic interactions with their customers and rivals. Consumers’ eagerness and ability to search for lower prices tends…

Online Presentation delivered at the webinar held by the National Bank of Ukraine and the Euro Area Business Cycle Network (EABCN): Session 1. Effectiveness of Inflation Targeting with Limited Monetary Policy Transmission.

One explanation for the increasing number of hectares with coca cultivation is that eradication strategies displace coca crops but fail to completely clear affected areas. In the drug policy literature, that dynamic shifting is commonly known as the balloon effect. This study…

This paper estimates the effect of financial development on the transmission of monetary policy. To do so, the paper employs a panel data set containing financial development indicators, policy rates, lending rates, and deposit rates for 43 countries for the period 2000-2019 and…

Colombia is particularly affected by the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather fluctuations. In this context, this study explores how the adverse weather events linked to ENSO affect the inflation expectations in Colombia and how to incorporate these second-round effects into a…

We introduce a methodology for generating alerts of potential anti-competitive practices in the Colombian wholesale electricity market.

Using a computable general equilibrium model calibrated for 2019, shocks of various characteristics to the minimum wage are simulated to establish the effects on the nation's fiscal accounts. This document is a pioneer in that analysis. The evidence suggests adverse effects of…

The objectives of the study are, first, to build homogeneous and consistent series of macroeconomic savings and investment and their balances for the economy and institutional sectors of Colombia for the period 1975-2021. Second, describe the economic context in which they were…