Since mid-July 2002 this rate has remained more or less constant at around 7.8 percent. More importantly, it did not react to any of two 100-basis-point increases in the overnight repo rate, the main tool of monetary policy that Banco de la República has to influence domestic interest rates,...

The study presented here looks at the Colombian corporate sector broken down by city. In particular, it studies the eight main cities of the country. It is an initial study, maybe the first of its kind, and it aims to act as a foundation for future research in the area. A database obtained from...

This paper tests for purchasing power parity (PPP)between Colombia and its main trading partners using the Johansen framework of multivariate cointegration. The tests shows that PPP does not hold in the strong sense, but a clear purchasing power relationschip is, nevertheless, shown to exist....

This is the third of three papers investigating the differences between foreign and domestic firms in Colombia. The study uses a dataset containing the 2003 balance sheets and income statements for some 7,001 firms obtained from the Superintendencia de Sociedades. This dataset is crossed with a...

This paper proposes a framework for a regional economic policy in Colombia. The regional characteristics and disparities of the country are studied, and regional disparities are shown to be both significant and persistent over time. This calls for a policy initiative to promote the development...

This study uses two different econometric frameworks to study exchange rate pass-throught to import, producer and consumer prices in Colombia. Both frameworks are based on vector autoregressive (VAR) models, the first using an unrestricted VAR model, and the second using the Johansen framework...

At a request from the Ministry of Finance, Banco de la República last year carried out an investigation into the feasibility to use parts of the foreign reserves to buy back some of Colombia’s outstanding sovereign U.S.-dollar debt. This project resulted in two thorough technical reports....

This is the second of three papers investigating the differences between foreign and domestic firms in Colombia. The study uses a dataset containing annual balance sheets and income statements for a sample of 3,452 firms for the period 1996 to 2003. This period includes the 1999 economic crisis....

The study presented here is a follow-up study to Rowland and Torres (2004),who used a panel data framework together with data from 16 emerging market issuers to identify the determinants of the spread and the creditworthiness. Since many new issuers of emerging market sovereign debt have emerged...

This study develops three exchange rate models as well as a simple statistical model defined as a random walk with a variable drift. The exchange rate models all use the purchasing power parity hypothesis to account for the long-term relationships between prices and the exchange rate, together...