Ensayos sobre POLÍTICA ECONÓMICA

<font color="#000080">Ensayos sobre política económica ESPE is a serial publication in economics, whose aim is to publish technical papers of high quality. The kind of papers that ESPE publishes is characterized for being: i) interesting, ii) original y iii) technically correct. Hence, ESPE will consider for publication original research work, both theoretical and applied, which is of relevance for a better understanding of economic problems and of policies needed to remedy them. ESPE emphasizes economic problems facing Colombia, and LatinAmerican but is not limited to work applied to these cases: any manuscript from which it is possible to learn about economic problems and policies may be submitted to the editorial process, with the proviso that ESPE will not consider for publication work with relevance only in the very short term. ESPE is published by the Deputy Governor`s office of Banco de la República, the Colombian Central Bank, but this does not imply that only papers produced in Banco de la República are published in ESPE, nor that the journal expresses the opinions of the institution. ESPE is a scientific publication, targeted and open to all members of academic communities with interest in economics. Hence, ESPE will not consider documents in which authors merely express their opinions, but only those with a technical foundation according to current standards in economics.<br></font><br>

List of Papers (Total 505)

Trade liberalization and regional productivity growth: Some lessons from Mexico's Northern Border manufacturing after 20 years

The analysis of productivity performance of the Mexican Northern Border offers an interesting case study for that objective. This is because it combines mobile growth factors due to regional reallocation of economic activity and, on the other hand, the fact that factors that are considered immobile in the literature such as education, infrastructure and specialization were...

Winners and losers in the allocation of credit during the era of import-substitution industrialisation in Colombia, 1940-1967

This paper examines the structure and dynamics of institutionalised flows of credit between economic sectors - with a distinct emphasis on industry - during the era of import-substitution industrialisation. Using the debate between "balanced vs. unbalanced growth" theories as prompting guide, the paper challenges conventional wisdom sustaining that the state supported...

Un estudio de las brechas municipales en calidad educativa en Colombia: 2000-2012

This article studies regional gaps in education quality at the senior high school level, for the period2000-2012, in Colombia's municipalities. Municipal education quality is measured using a test calledSaber 11, applied to high school students in their last year. With the aforementioned aim in mind, a non-parametric convergence analysis is carried out, in which the geographical...

Flujos de capital, recursos naturales y enfermedad holandesa: el caso colombiano

This article provides empirical evidence about the relationship between capital flows, natural resource exploitation, and de-industrialisation in the case of Colombia. To this end, we analyze if the massive increase in capital inflows during the latest commodity boom led to an additional appreciation of Colombia's real effective exchange rate, thereby aggravating Dutch disease...

Review of some recent estimations of exchange rate pass-through from exchange rate to prices in Mexico

This article shows that estimates of the elasticity of pass-through from exchange rate to prices reported in some of the recent literature are derived from erroneous calculations. The Board of Bank of México has been using these estimates for several years to make decisions on monetary policy.Keywords : Exchange rate pass-through in Mexico; Structural VAR-X models; Impulse...

Do foreign exchange interventions work as coordinating signals in Colombia?

This paper analyses the effectiveness of official interventions of the Colombian Central Bank in the foreign exchange market over the period of June 2008-December 2013. The estimation procedure suggested by Hansen (2000) is used to estimate a threshold model for the spot exchange rate that splits the data sample into two different regimes that depend on the extent of the...

Flujos de capital, recursos naturales y enfermedad holandesa: el caso colombiano

This article provides empirical evidence about the relationship between capital flows, natural resource exploitation, and de-industrialisation in the case of Colombia. To this end, we analyze if the massive increase in capital inflows during the latest commodity boom led to an additional appreciation of Colombia's real effective exchange rate, thereby aggravating Dutch disease...

Credit and business cycles: Causal effects in the frequency domain

The history of economic recessions has shown that every deep downturn has been accompanied by disruptions in the financial sector. Paradoxically, up until the financial world crisis of 2007-2009, little attention was given to macroeconomic and financial interdependence. In this paper, a study is conducted on the relationship between financial and real business cycles for a sample...

Do foreign exchange interventions work as coordinating signals in Colombia?

This paper analyses the effectiveness of official interventions of the Colombian Central Bank in the foreign exchange market over the period of June 2008-December 2013. The estimation procedure suggested by Hansen (2000) is used to estimate a threshold model for the spot exchange rate that splits the data sample into two different regimes that depend on the extent of the...

The opportunity cost of technical change, economic growth and the Colombian case 1925-2012

This document presents a dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous technical change. The model is used to guide an interpretation of the Colombian case for the period 1925-2012. The main conclusions are the following: the steady state technical change and economic growth rates depend upon a balance between the individual benefit for innovation and its opportunity cost...

Relationship between monetary policy and financial stability: An analysis applied to Colombia

This paper analyzes the relationship between monetary policy decisions and financial stability conditions, considering the asset prices as the key variable. The econometric estimates show that the Banco de la República has not had any response between 1996 and 2012 to the variables associated with financial stability, such as the gap in asset prices and credit. In this sense, we...

Impacts of monetary policy and transmission channel in Latin-American countries with an inflation targeting scheme

The purpose of this study is to compare the effect of monetary policy on economic activity in the five longest-operating Latin American countries operating the inflation targeting scheme (Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Mexico). A structural VAR model is estimated for each country using similar variables, finding that the impacts are significantly higher in Mexico and Peru...

Nicaragua: Threshold inflation, economic growth and new monetary policy after the international crisis

After the international crisis, it was suggested that inflation targets should be raised in order to allow more space to monetary policies during contractionary product times. The present study proposes that the limit to raise the inflation target should be threshold inflation, defined as the rate above which price variability is detrimental to economic growth. Bayesian methods...

Quality of employment and well-being: An equivalence-scale analysis

Quality of employment has traditionally been analyzed using synthetic indicators. However, this analysis does not incorporate a theoretical framework that supports weighting variables within such indicators. This study seeks to fill the existing gap by using the Consumer Theory and equivalence scales, in an attempt to measure quality of employment. According to the Quality of...

El costo de oportunidad del cambio técnico, el crecimiento económico y el caso colombiano 1925-2012

This document presents a dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous technical change. The model is used to guide an interpretation of the Colombian case for the period 1925-2012. The main conclusions are the following: the steady state technical change and economic growth rates depend upon a balance between the individual benefit for innovation and its opportunity cost...

Calidad del empleo y bienestar: un análisis con escalas de equivalencia

Quality of employment has traditionally been analyzed using synthetic indicators. However, this analysis does not incorporate a theoretical framework that supports weighting variables within such indicators. This study seeks to fill the existing gap by using the Consumer Theory and equivalence scales, in an attempt to measure quality of employment. According to the Quality of...