Using the 2003 and 2008 Quality of Life Surveys, we identify the factors that affect housing tenure decisions in Colombia and explore the determinants of the demand for rentals and purchases. Variables affecting the choice between buying and renting include civil status, education, age of the...

Accommodative monetary policy during the financial crisis was instrumental in preventing a deeper recession. Views differ, however, on how long such measures should be kept in place. At the heart of this debate is the notion that a protracted period of policy accommodation could create...

Historically, periods of high indebtedness have been associated with a rising incidence of default or restructuring of public and private debts. A subtle type of debt restructuring takes the form of 'financial repression.' Financial repression includes directed lending to government by captive...

According to standard economic theory, fiscal policy should be counter-cyclical. In the neoclassical smoothing model of Barro (1979), a government should optimally run surpluses in good times and deficits in bad times. That is the same a government should do, though for different reasons, in the...

Recent literature has highlighted that international trade is mostly priced in a few key vehicle currencies, and is increasingly dominated by intermediate goods and global value chains (GVCs). Taking these features into account, this paper reexamines the business cycle dynamics of international...

This paper investigates the transmission channel of macroprudential instruments in a closed economy DSGE model with a rich set of financial frictions. Banks' decisions on risky retail loan concessions are based on borrowers' capacity to settle their debt with labor income. We also introduce...

There was a systemic failure of financial regulation: senior policymakers repeatedly enacted and implemented policies that destabilised the global financial system. They maintained these policies even as they learned of the consequences of their policies during the decade before the crisis. The...

En este trabajo se presentan la metodología y los resultados de la evaluación de impacto del programa Jóvenes Rurales Emprendedores del Sena (JRE). Una vez aplicada la metodología Propensity Score Matching (PSM), diferencias en diferencias y la combinación de ambas, se encontró que...

Abstract. Este documento presenta la evaluación de dos programas ejecutados por el SENA - Formación Técnica y Tecnológica (FTyT) y Formación Especializada del Recurso Humano Vinculado a las Empresas (FE). En el caso de FTyT se emplea un enfoque cuantitativo mientras que en el caso de FE se...

Public education is one of the largest components of the public sector in Colombia, in term of its size, share of public expenditures, and geographic coverage. In 1997, Colombia had 85 thousand educational establishments, 390 thousand teachers, and 8.6 million students. In addition, public...