Latin America had a golden decade from 2002 to 2012, mostly thanks to favorable external conditions. Its commodity exports prices raised almost continuously, there were abundant capital inflows and low international interest rates. This golden decade has come to an end, even while no sudden worsening of external conditions is expected. Using several short term and structural indicators, this paper analyzes if this decade represented a turning point. Macroeconomic and financial vulnerabilities were indeed sharply reduced, labor market conditions improved significantly and investment rates increased, in most countries. Many of these achievements are likely to stay and Latin America may prove to be much more resilient to future shocks than in the past. However, the boom in extractive exports prices led to over-concentration of exports, stagnation of other tradable activities and other symptoms of Dutch Disease. Worst still, productivity gaps were not reduced as their structural determinants improved just too slowly. In summary, the boom was not completely wasted, nor was it fully capitalized.

Minimal consistent enlargements of the immediate acceptance rule and the top trading cycles rule in school choice

We consider school choice problems. We are interested in solutions that satisfy consistency. Consider a problem and a recommendation made by the solution for the problem. Suppose some students are removed with their positions in schools. Consider the “reduced” problem consisting of the remaining students and the remaining positions. Consistency states that in the reduced problem, the solution should assign each remaining student to the same school as initially. Neither the immediate acceptance rule (also known as the Boston mechanism) nor the top trading cycles rule is consistent. We show that the efficient solution is the smallest consistent solution containing the immediate acceptance rule. It is also the smallest consistent solution containing the top trading cycles rule.

Este documento contiene una serie de reflexiones sobre políticas de desarrollo del sector productivo en Colombia, que surgen de investigaciones de los autores, algunas de ellas en compañía de otros coautores. El documento, estructurado a manera de “postre de notas”, plantea reflexiones puntuales sobre diferentes temas relacionados con la política de desarrollo productivo en Colombia, centrales al debate actual.

Adverse Selection vs Discrimination Risk with Genetic Testing. An Experimental Approach

We develop a theoretical analysis of two widely used regulations of genetic tests, disclosure duty and consent law, and we run several experiments in order to shed light on both the take-up rate of genetic testing and on the comparison of policy-holders’ welfare under the two regulations. Disclosure Duty forces individuals to reveal their test results to their insurers, exposing them to the risk of having to pay a large premium in case they are discovered to have a high probability of developing a disease (a discrimination risk). Differently, Consent Law allows them to hide this detrimental information, creating asymmetric information and adverse selection. We obtain that the take-up rate of the genetic test is low under Disclosure Duty, larger and increasing with adverse selection under Consent Law. Also, the fraction of individuals who are prefer Disclosure Duty to Consent Law increases with the amount of adverse selection under the latter. These results are obtained for exogenous values of adverse selection under Consent Law, and the repeated interactions experiment devised has not resulted in convergence towards an equilibrium level of adverse selection.

La Encuesta Longitudinal Colombiana de la Universidad de los Andes tiene por objetivo seguir a lo largo de una década a más de 10 mil hogares en zonas urbanas y rurales en Colombia. Es la primera encuesta longitudinal de esta magnitud en Colombia que permitirá conocer las dinámicas de los hogares, la evolución en el mercado laboral, en el desarrollo de los niños, la vulnerabilidad frente a choques y los mecanismos que los hogares tienen para reaccionar ante ellos, el acceso a los servicios financieros, las dinámicas en la propiedad de la vivienda y la tenencia de tierras y producción en la zona rural, entre otros temas. En 2010 se realizó la primera ronda de la ELCA donde se encuestó a 5,446 hogares urbanos, representativos nacional de la zona urbana y a nivel regional y 4,720 hogares rurales representativos de cuatro microrregiones regiones de Colombia. La segunda ronda se recogió en el primer semestre del 2013 alcanzando una cobertura del 94% de los hogares de seguimiento. Este documento describe la ELCA y provee información sobre la muestra, los instrumentos, el diseño de los contenidos, el operativo de campo y los resultados de cobertura del primer seguimiento.

Do Loans for Higher Education Lead to Better Salaries? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Approach for Colombia

Since 2002 the ACCES credit for higher education has financed more than 280,000 students. Prior evaluations have shown evidence as to its positive effect on the academic performance and the reduction in the dropout rates of the recipients. Nevertheless, no evidence exists so far on the effect these credit programs have had on the labor market indicators of their beneficiaries. In this study we attempt to estimate such effect. In particular, the question we seek to answer is if, once working as graduates, do the beneficiaries of ACCES loans have higher salaries and if this is the case, why does this happen and through which channels does it occur. Using administrative data for more than 300 thousand applicants of this credit in Colombia and using a regression discontinuity design, we found that the recipients of the ACCES educational credit have starting salaries as graduates which are higher in comparison with those graduates not receiving this credit. We also undertake a mediation methodology within an Intent-to-Treat Regression Discontinuity framework that allows for a precise identification and quantification of the mediation channels. We concluded that once graduated, the ACCES beneficiaries’ exhibit longer job search periods, which would substantially explain their greater starting salaries of their first formal jobs. Academic performance during college also account for the differences in starting salaries yet to lesser degree.

Cobertura de Acueducto y Alcantarillado, Calidad del Agua y Mortalidad Infantil en Colombia, 2000-2012

Determinar la relación entre las tasas de cobertura de acueducto y alcantarillado y la calidad del agua con la mortalidad infantil es clave para el diseño de políticas públicas que buscan mejorar las condiciones de vida de la población. El presente estudio encuentra que –para el caso de Colombia- aumentos de las coberturas mencionadas se traducen en disminuciones significativas en los menores de un año y cinco años. Este estudio cuantifica también el impacto de la calidad del agua sobre las tasas de mortalidad infantil medida aquella a través del Índice de Riesgo de la Calidad del Agua (IRCA) –información que se recolecta Colombia desde 2006. Los resultados de las estimaciones econométricas sugieren que los efectos en la disminución de la mortalidad infantil de una mayor calidad del agua sobre la mortalidad infantil son bastante mayores que los de la cobertura.

Este documento analiza los efectos económicos de la Constitución de 1991 sobre Colombia, en materia de inflación; sostenibilidad de las finanzas públicas; coberturas y calidad de los servicios públicos; pobreza y pobreza extrema; pensiones y vivienda. Los temas se presentan de forma pedagógica y pensando en un público amplio, estudiando las reformas que se llevaron a cabo; la magnitud e importancia de algunos de esos efectos y algunas áreas en las que hay campo para mejorar. En el documento se argumenta que dicha Constitución ha tenido efectos positivos, efectos negativos y aspectos que generan inquietud, con respecto a lo sucedido antes y después de 1991 en América Latina y en el mundo.

Legislando minas. Breve recuento de la legislación minera en Colombia (1829 – 2001)

Este documento presenta un breve recuento de la legislación minera en el país durante su vida republicana, esto es, desde 1829, fecha en que Simón Bolívar expidió el decreto sobre minas o Ley minera, hasta 2001, cuando se expidió el Código de Minas que rige en la actualidad. El objetivo del texto consiste en describir cómo han cambiado, a lo largo del tiempo, el conjunto de reglas y los objetivos de la política minera a nivel nacional para así identificar sus rasgos centrales, principales cambios y continuidades. La descripción se estructura alrededor de los siguientes ejes temáticos: 1) propiedad del recurso minero; 2) sistemas legales o instrumentos jurídicos que regularon el proceso de su aprovechamiento; 3) relación entre minería y entorno (ambiente y comunidades); y 4) legalización y formalización. El documento hace un breve recuento de cerca de doscientos años de historia de la legislación minera y busca servir de herramienta académica de consulta general para nutrir e informar el debate actual, ubicándolo en su contexto histórico.

Credit constraints and business performance: evidence from public lending in Colombia

Whether public lending to firms effectively eases credit constraints has been widely studied for very small businesses. The evidence documented for larger firms refers to lending that is significantly subsidized and targeted to these businesses, so the estimated positive effects may reflect poor allocation of public credit. This paper investigates the impact on its beneficiaries of a wide, untargeted and unsubsidized, lending program in Colombia. We use data on all non-micro manufacturing firms and all formal credit operations. After correcting for potential selection biases using econometric techniques, we find that Bancóldex loans increase firms’ employment, purchases of inputs, investment, and output for small (but non-micro) firms, while large firms experience increases in variable inputs, but not on investment. While both short-term and long-term Bancóldex loans are found to have positive impacts on output, input demand and employment, only long-term loans increase investment. Moreover, short-term loans have a larger impact on input demand than long-term loans. Our findings also indicate that Bancóldex’ beneficiaries end up with improved overall credit conditions after receiving Bancóldex credit: the amount of credit received goes up, the duration of the loans increases, and beneficiaries are able to establish credit relationships with more financial intermediaries. Though the interest rates go down, in this dimension the effect is small.