In the past decade the Colombian Economic Authorities undertook a series of measures that reduced the structural fiscal deficit, decreased the Government currency mismatch and deepened the local fixed-rate public bond market. This paper presents some evidence suggesting that these improvements...

The recent public debt crisis in most developed economies implies an urgent need for increasing tax revenues or cutting government spending. In this paper we study the importance of household heterogeneity and the progressivity of the labor income tax schedule for the ability of the government...

This paper reviews the relationship between the business cycle and public finances in Colombia. The evidence shows that cyclical movements in output systematically affect the situation of public finances. Hence, the distinction between the cyclical and permanent (i.e. structural) components of...

Structural VAR and Structural VEC models were estimated for Chile and Colombia, aiming at identifying fiscal policy shocks in both countries between 1990 and 2005. The impulse responses obtained allow the calculation of a pesofor- peso ($/$) effect on output of a shock to public spending and to...