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Colombia's financial system has experienced important transformations during the last two decades. In order to illustrate the most significant modifications, Tables 1 and 2 present a summary of the financial system's structure during four different points in time: 1986- 1989, 1990, 1995, and 2001. Table 1 shows the assets of different types of banks (private domestic banks, foreign banks and state-owned banks), Savings and Loans corporations, and the rest of the financial system, all of them as a proportion of GDP. Table 2 complements the information by presenting the participation of each financial intermediary in the total assets of the financial system.

Entre 1984 y 2000 se registraron variaciones importantes en la relación entre salarios de los trabajadores de mayor y menor nivel educativo que alteraron el grado de desigualdad en la distribución del ingreso salarial. Entre 1992 y 1998 se presentó un incremento en dicha relación que muy probablemente contribuyó a explicar la reversión de la tendencia previa a la desconcentración del ingreso. Nuestras estimaciones indican que tales movimientos de los salarios fueron causados por cambios de la relación entre demanda y oferta de trabajadores con diferentes niveles educativos, en consonancia con el modelo convencional de determinación de salarios. Además, no se rechaza la hipótesis de ocurrencia de un cambio técnico intensivo en el uso de trabajadores del mayor nivel educativo durante los años noventa cuyo efecto en la demanda fue tan alto que no logró ser compensado por los aumentos en la oferta.Palabras clave: Salarios relativos, demanda y oferta de trabajo calificado, función de producción CES, cambio técnico sesgado. Clasificación JEL: J0, J23, J3

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.