After several decades of financial repression with some partial attempts at liberalization, Colombian policymakers set out to complete the liberalization process in the early nineties, reducing financial taxation, freeing interest rates, facilitating entry/exit, and eliminating capital account...

This paper examines the determinants of the high intermediation spread observed in the Colombian banking sector for over two decades. A reduced-form equation is estimated on the basis of a bank profit maximization model that permits a decomposition into operational costs, financial taxation,...

This book analyzes the political economy of exchange rate policy in Latin America. It brings together the work of economists and political scientists interested in the interaction of economic and political factors in the development of exchange rate policy.

Como parte de un ambicioso programa de reformas iniciado con la reducción unilateral de aranceles en 1989, durante lo corrido de los noventa en Colombia se adoptaron medidas tendientes a redefinir la estructura y funcionamiento del sistema financiero. Así, se facilitó la entrada de nuevos...

Since the 1960s Colombia has exhibited notorius economic stability and institutional continuity. Until rencently, the political system was based on an entreched bipartisan coalition, with little ideological confrontation. Power sharing, which was mandatory during the National Front (NF,...