Documento de trabajo

Abstract: We investigate the effectiveness of foreign exchange interventions using the Colombian experience as a case study. Recent theoretical work emphasizes the importance of financial sector balance sheets and capital flows in determining the effects of currency…

This paper presents an estimation of expenditure needs and fiscal capacity of Colombia’s municipalities and departments in 2014. We use standard per capita norms to estimate the spending needs and data envelopment analysis for the local fiscal capacity.

We test current account sustainability based on the framework developed by Hakkio and Rush [1991] and Husted [1992] using a two-regime threshold vector error correction model. This methodology allows us to characterize short-run nonlinearities in the current account. We estimate the model for…

In an open-economy model with financial constraint, Schmitt-Grohé and Uribe (2017) propose an expression for a capital control policy. From this expression, they argue that the optimal tax, i.e. the one that solves the overborrowing problem, is indeterminate when crises occur (i.e. when the…

The aim of this paper is to explore firms wage adjustment practices in the Colombian formal labor market; specifically, the timing and frequency of wage increases, as well as the link between wage and price changes. To this end, we use an ad hoc survey of 1,305 small, medium and large firms…

This paper examines inflation expectations of the World Economic Survey for ten inflation targeting countries. First, by a Self Organizing Maps methodology, we cluster the trajectory of agents inflation expectations using the beginning of the oil price shock occurred in June of 2014 as a…

We use the recently developed panel rank-cointegration test proposed by Pedroni et al. [2015] to check for the stability conditions of the cross-country money market interest rate bases. Using weekly information on short-term interest rates and spot and forward exchange rates for a set of 20…

We study the determinants of sovereign default risk for a group of 23 OECD countries using quarterly data spanning the period between 2000:Q1 and 2016:Q3. Applying the recently developed panel dynamic heterogeneous common correlated effects estimator of Chudik and Pesaran [2015] our study…

Central banks generally target multiple objectives while having at least the same number of monetary instruments. However, some instruments can be inadvertently collinear, leading to indeterminacy and identification failures. Paradoxically, most empirical studies have shied away from this…

The paper assesses the role of taxes on investment in Colombian firms. The analysis is carried out at the firm level for the period 2003-2014. During this period, the national government set five different tax reforms, including changes in the statutory tax rates, tax credits and incentives for…

In this paper, we build a heterogeneous agents-dynamic general equilibrium model wherein saving constraints interact with credit constraints. Saving constraints in the form of fixed costs to use the financial system lead households to seek informal saving instruments (cash) and result in lower…

Can technological misallocation generate financial frictions? We build a theoretical model with testable implications, in which the misallocation between R&D and production activities generates borrowing constraints. The investor offers the innovator a rent that is contingent to the success…

We use hazard models to study the determinants of housing price bubbles’ duration. We answer two related questions: i). Does prolonged domestic monetary policy easing increase the duration of housing price bubbles? And, ii). Does prolonged monetary policy easing in the US influences housing…

We study the existence and international migration of housing market bubbles, using quarterly information of twenty OECD countries for the period comprised between 1970 and 2015. We find that housing bubbles are present in all the countries included in our sample. Multiple bubbles are found in…

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…

In this paper, we compute standard measures of fluidity for the Colombian urban labor market: worker and job reallocation rates and the excess of worker reallocation over job reallocation. We analyze the period between the second semester of 2008 and the second semester of 2014, finding evidence…

Value at Risk (VaR) is a market risk measure widely used by risk managers and market regulatory authorities. There is a variety of methodologies proposed in the literature for the estimation of VaR. However, few of them get to say something about its distribution or its confidence intervals.…

Inflation expectations in Colombia are characterized. Empirical evidence following conventional tests suggests that they might not be rational, although the period of disinflation included in the sample makes it difficult to ascertain this conclusion. Inflation expectations display close ties…

Determining the exchange rate pass-through on inflation is a necessity for central banks as well as for firms and households. This is an apparently easy and intuitive task, but it faces high complexity and uncertainty. This paper examines the nature of the pass-through and quantifies…