A minimum performance insurance in the Principal-Agent problem is wealth reducing to the principal. This result points to further inefficiencies in mandatory individual Pension Funds' contracts, particularly the one established in the 1993's 100th Law in Colombia.

In this paper we explore the price setting behavior of Colombian producers and importers using a unique database containing the monthly price reports underlying the Colombian PPI from Jun-1999 to Oct-2006. We focus on five particular questions: 1. Are prices sticky or flexible? 2. Is a price...

As originally drawn and estimated by professor Phillips, the Phillips curve is a curve indeed, not a straight line as often thought. Following Laxton, et. al. (1999)we estimate a convex Phillips curve and model the NAIRU as a variable that is unobserved. Using Colombian data, we provide...

Most of the proposed macro models and Phillips curves for policy design and analysis in Colombia depend on estimates of the potential output. However, it is widely known that this estimates are highly unreliable because of its level of estimation uncertainty. Following Staiger et al.(1996), we...

The price setting behavior of Colombian retailers of goods and services was studied based on a unique dataset containing 12,052,970 individual price reports covering all items in the Colombian CPI from March 1999 to May 2008. The main results are summarized as follows: 1. Colombian consumer...

Due to the fact that many reliable indicators of further inflationary pressures do not seem to work anymore, finding whether or not wages Granger cause prices is an important concern for policymaking. However, international evidence on the relationship between wages and prices does not show...

The current implementation of the Fan Chart displays equal tail probability bands and do not take into account that the variable of interest may be subject to data revision. In this note I propose the use of Highest Probability Density, HPD, bands and include flexibility to display the risks...

A closed formula for the Hodrick & Prescott, HP, filter subject to linear restrictions is derived. This filter is also known as the HP filter with priors. When the formula is applied to the ordinary HP filter linear restrictions apply only within the sample. However, when this formula is applied...

Due to the fact that many reliable indicators of further inflationary pressures do not seem to work anymore, finding whether or not wages Granger cause prices is an important concern for policymaking. However, international evidence on the relationship between wages and prices does not show...

The current implementation of the Fan Chart displays equal tail probability bands and do not take into account that the variable of interest may be subject to data revision. In this note I propose the use of Highest Probability Density, HPD, bands and include flexibility to display the risks...