Explicit inflation targets have existed in Colombia since the early nineties1 . The Colombian authorities announced a quantitative in‡ation target for the first time in 1991. The announcement was made by the Minister of Finance, at a time when there was no clear distinction between the tasks of the central bank and those of the government with respect to macroeconomic management, nor there was any autonomy in the design and execution of monetary policy. In 1991, a new Constitution assigned the design and conduct of monetary, exchange, and credit policies exclusively to the Board of Directors of Banco de la República and made the central bank independent from the central government. According to the Constitution, "The State, through Banco de la República must preserve the purchasing power of currency". In addition to the constitutional mandate, in 1992 the Central Bank Law stated that the Board of Directors must announce each year a quantitative inflation target. The reduction of inflation in Colombia has faced several hurdles. To begin, the introduction of explicit inflation targets in Colombia had two special features. First, unlike other countries, the inflation target was not initially announced as part of a policy framework to achieve price stability. Second, there was a marked deviation between observed inflation and the first announced target. Thus, inflation targeting in Colombia started with low credibility and confusion about its nature and operational meaning.
After decades using monetary aggregates as the main instrument of monetary policy and having different varieties of crawling peg exchange rate regimes, Colombia adopted a full-fledged inflation-targeting (IT) regime in 1999, with inflation as the nominal
Civilians constitute a large share of casualties in civil wars across the world. They are targeted to create fear and punish allegiance with the enemy. This maximizes collaboration with the perpetrator and strengthens the support network necessary to consolidate control over contested regions. I develop a model of the magnitude and structure of civilian killings in civil wars involving two armed groups who Öght over territorial control. Armies secure compliance through a combination of carrots and sticks. In turn, civilians di§er from each other in their intrinsic preference towards one group. I explore the e§ect of the empowerment of one of the groups in the civilian death toll. There are two e§ects that go in opposite directions. While a direct e§ect makes the powerful group more lethal, there is an indirect e§ect by which the number of civilians who align with that group increases, leaving less enemy supporters to kill. I study the conditions under which there is one dominant e§ect and illustrate the predictions using sub-national longitudinal data for Colombiaís civil war.
An edition was published, Madrid, 1917, with title "Cuadros de la historia militar y civil de Venezuela". ; At head of title: L. Duarte Level. ; Laconquista de guayana.--La colonia.--La primera patria.--Las derrotas.--Fastos militares: Los batallones de "La Guardia". Las campañas de 1819. El armisticio. El motin de la Legión británica. Maracaibo. Campaña de 1821. ; Mode of access: Internet.
First edition published, Caracas, 1911, with title "Historia patria". ; La conquista.--La colonia.--La primera patria.--Las derrotas.--Grandes campañas.--Cuadros antiguos.--Fastos militares; los batallones de "La Guardia". ; Mode of access: Internet. ; 14
When private agents have difficulty in interpreting price fluctuacions, they are led into suboptimal allocations of resources. Consequently, price uncertainty is an undesirable feature of a business cycle. However, the way how monetary po1icy is implemented may influence the size of the unpredictable component of price fluctuacions and hence, the welfare of the private agents in the economy. This paper addresses the long standing issue of the optimal choice of a monetary instrument under uncertainty. Ina money-in the-utility function modeL it is shown that this is far from being a purely monetary issue, and also that the optirnal choice of instrument depends on the fiscal policy in effect. If the Govemment collects enough taxes, relative to its expenditures, a nominal interest rate policy produces a more stable price level, the opposite being true when taxes are low, relative to Government expenditures.
En este trabajo se analiza la dinámica de la política monetaria sobre la actividad económica real y los precios en Colombia durante el período 2001:1-2009:12. Utilizando una nueva metodología que combina los modelos VAR con los recientes desarrollos en el campo del análisis factorial dinámico (FAVAR, por sus siglas en inglés) propuesta por Bernanke, Boivin y Eliasz (2005), se llevan a cabo diferentes especificaciones en donde se muestra las reacciones de distintas variables macroeconómicas ante una innovación en el instrumento de política monetaria. Los resultados sugieren que el modelo FAVAR estimado para la economía colombiana logra capturar de forma adecuada y comprensible los canales de transmisión de la política monetaria. En particular, se observa un rezago de la política monetaria que oscila entre 12 y 18 meses para las variables reales, y alrededor de dos años para las variables de precios. ; This paper analyzes the dynamic of monetary policy on real economic activity and prices in Colombia during the period 2001:1-2009:12. Using a new methodology that combines VAR models with recent developments in the field of dynamic factor analysis (FAVAR) proposed by Bernanke, Boivin and Eliasz (2005), we develop different models, to show the reaction of many macroeconomic variables to an innovation in the monetary policy instrument. The empirical results show that transmission mechanism of monetary policy are well detected by the FAVAR model. Particularly, we found that official interest rate decisions have their fullest effect on real variables with a lag of one year and a half, and their fullest effect on nominal variables (price index) with a lag of around two years.
This article aims at analysing the development of the Central Bank of Chile during the Great Depression andthe economic recovery process in the 1930s. It primarily examines the Bank's relationship with the governmentsand the evolution of its policies. We have identified two main phenomena: The Bank's autonomy reductionand a change in its monetary policy strategy from the exchange rate to inflation. Throughout these years,the Bank went through different relationship schemes with the government. Due to the intensity of the GreatDepression and the internal institutional disorder, the government subordinated the Bank during the mostdramatic years of the crisis (1931-1932), in what is known as a fiscal dominance scenario. Once the constitutionalorder returned, a cooperative relationship scheme established between the Bank and the Ministry ofFinance under the Alessandri's administration (1932-1938). Such cooperation was made possible mainly bythe personalities who led both institutions, Guillermo Subercaseaux, President of the Central Bank, and GustavoRoss Santa María, Minister of Finance. We propose and show that the understanding between both authoritiesallowed an economic recovery in a relatively short period taking into account the impact of the crisis.This collaboration also gave the Bank an additional room for manoeuvre to recommend and implement a newmonetary policy strategy focused on inflation and not on the exchange rate as was the norm under the goldstandard system. From a methodological point of view, we have consulted the Bank's Annual Reports, MonthlyBulletins and Board of Directors' Minutes - the latter scarcely used by historiography. These primary sourcesallowed us to analyse the policies adopted at a level of detail not previously covered by other research, especiallyconcerning the views of the Board members. Similarly, the documentary corpus has allowed us to elaboratemonthly time-series to reconstruct the most relevant banking and monetary variables in real values. ; Este artículo estudia el desarrollo del Banco Central de Chile durante la Gran Depresión y el proceso de recuperacióneconómica implementado durante el Gobierno de Arturo Alessandri Palma (1932-1938). En particular, se analiza la relación del Banco con las autoridades fiscales y la evolución de las políticas adoptadas estosaños, identificando dos fenómenos de gran importancia: la reducción de la autonomía del Banco frente al Gobiernoy el cambio de la monetary policy strategy desde el tipo de cambio a la inflación. Proponemos que, si bienel Gobierno subordinó al Banco en los años más complejos de la crisis (1931-1932), durante la Administraciónde Alessandri se constituyó una relación de cooperación entre el Banco y el Ministerio de Hacienda, especialmentegracias a las figuras que lideraron ambos organismos. El entendimiento entre ambas autoridades permitióuna recuperación económica en un plazo relativamente breve y con tasas inflación controladas para laépoca. Desde un punto de vista metodológico, hemos consultado principalmente las memorias anuales, boletinesmensuales y actas del Directorio del Banco —estas últimas, escasamente utilizadas por la historiografía—,sobre las cuales hemos podido conocer el detalle de las políticas adoptadas por la institución, además de reconstruirlas series monetarias y bancarias más relevantes.
This paper presents an analysis of the price structure of gasoline in Colombia from 1999 to 2009, by doing a comparison of the resolution with which the Colombian government sets the actual price regarding the public sale price in general in the different service stations. The beginning shows how the WTI price influences the gasoline prices in countries such as United States, Venezuela, and France, but for Colombia the relation is not clear yet. Then the article exposes the factors used to set the price of gasoline in Colombia. Finally, it is concluded that the price of Colombian gasoline is very high and does not follow the equation proposed by the government and the factors that have the most influence on the final price are the producer income mainly affected by the WTI and the Market Representative Rate.
