In Venezuela, exchange controls affect firm competitiveness, market structures and, potentially, markups’ size. Also, legal rigidities in the labor market and an active setting of minimum wages by the government could produce other markup innovations. These exogenous variations in markups...

This paper assesses reserve management for determining optimal or minimal reserves for an oil producing economy under dynamic uncertainty. Reserve benchmarks are formulated taking into consideration the amount of contingent liabilities in foreign exchange that arises during currency crises....

The Venezuelan overnight market trades funds electronically similarly to limit order markets, but allows the imposition of credit lines, which inflict binding credit restrictions to some participants and introduce a peculiar bid-ask spread dynamic. The objective of this paper is to determine...

This paper uses a core-periphery model for measuring two systemic risk dimensions in the Venezuelan interbank market: connectivity and funding patterns between banks. The period analyzed is particularly interesting because it includes an episode of financial adjustment induced by regulators in...

In this paper, we analyze the dynamic of inflation in Venezuela, in the last eighteen years, through a Markov-switching estimation of a New Keynesian Phillips curve. Estimation is carried out using the EM algorithm. The model’s estimates distinguish between a “normal or backward looking”...

This paper seeks to understand the changing relationship between the Venezuelan government and PDVSA (the state oil industry) regarding the national oil policy design and formulation. Using a political economy narrative, the analysis is based on the construction of several qualitative indicators...

En este trabajo se analiza el riesgo crediticio de la economía venezolana con base en el enfoque de pasivos contingentes (contingent claim analysis). Esta metodología se orienta a la obtención de indicadores que cuantifican el riesgo de insolvencia de los principales sectores macroeconómicos...

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the short run effects of monetary policy actions during the period April 2002 – January 2004. Narrative indicators are used to characterize monetary policy actions, since they reflect the intentionality of decisions from the information contained in...

How have external shocks affected the LA region? To what extent such shocks relate to US domestic conditions? Has the region engaged in procyclical or countercyclical monetary and fiscal policy in response to external shocks? In this paper we address these questions through an empirical exercise...

Which structural macroeconomic shocks have typified rising house prices? What ultimate factors have compromised financial stability and risk? These questions are answered for the Venezuelan economy by estimating a FAVAR model with macroeconomic, banking and asset price variables. We find that...