Colombian Economy Research Articles

Illicit activity and money laundering from an economic growth perspective: A model and an application to Colombia

This paper contributes to the economic analysis of illicit activities and money laundering. First, it presents a theoretical model of long-run growth that explicitly considers illicit workers, activities, and income, alongside a licit private sector and a functioning government. Second, it generates estimates of the size of illicit income and provides simulated and econometric estimates of the volume of laundered assets in the Colombian economy. In the model, the licit sector operates in a perfectly competitive environment and produces a good through a standard neoclassical production function. The illicit sector operates in an imperfectly competitive environment and is composed of two different activities: The first activity produces an illicit good that nonetheless is valuable in the market (for example illegal drugs); the second does not add value to the economy but only redistributes wealth (for example robbery, kidnapping, and fraud). The paper provides a series of comparative statics exercises to assess the effects of changes in government efficiency, licit sector productivity, and the demand for illegal drugs. From the model, the analysis derives a set of estimable macroeconometric equations to measure the size of laundered assets in the Colombian economy in the period 1985–2013. The paper assembles a dataset whose key components are estimates of illicit income from drug trafficking and common crime. Illicit incomes increased drastically until 2001, reaching a peak of nearly 12% of gross domestic product and then decreasing to less than 2% by 2013. The decline not only overlaps with a period of high economic growth but also occurs after the implementation of Plan Colombia. The dataset is used to estimate the volume of laundered assets in the economy by applying the Kalman filter for the estimation of unobserved dynamic variables onto the derived macroeconometric equations from the model. The findings show that the volume of laundered assets increased from about 8% of gross domestic product in the mid-1980s to a peak of 14% by 2002, and declined to 8% in 2013.

Tasas efectivas del impuesto de renta para sectores de la economía colombiana entre el 2000 y el 2015

El principal objetivo de este trabajo es calcular la tasa efectiva del impuesto neto de renta generado por las personas jurídicas, pertenecientes a cada uno de los sectores de la economía colombiana, usando la información disponible en los agregados de declaraciones de renta de la Dirección de Impuestos y Aduanas Nacionales (DIAN), durante el periodo 2000-2015. Las tasas efectivas obtenidas muestran que el impuesto neto de renta real pagado por las personas jurídicas no es tan alto como se cree, además de que los valores de estas tasas presentan diferencias significativas, para los diferentes sectores económicos, debido a la existencia de beneficios tributarios que impactan de forma diferente a cada sector. Estas diferencias demuestran la inequidad horizontal del sistema tributario colombiano, dado que sectores que no son tan relevantes en generación de empleo, tales como el financiero y el minero, fueron los que presentaron los mayores montos de beneficios tributarios.

Flexibilización cuantitativa: características e impacto en las economías de los Estados Unidos y Colombia

Rev.esc.adm.neg
 Este trabajo presenta un análisis de la política monetaria no convencional puesta en marcha por la FED, teniendo en cuenta los objetivos de cada una, la teoría económica que la sustenta y el impacto en los principales indicadores de la economía de los Estados Unidos y de la economía colombiana y un breve comentario del impacto en los índices de las bolsas de valores de economías emergentes. En aquel país, se observa el efecto de las tres etapas del programa en indicadores de interés, como los agregados monetarios, la tasa de desempleo y los activos financieros de renta fija. En la economía colombiana, se observa el impacto de la flexibilización cuantitativa en el índice COLCAP, la rasa representativa del mercado (TRM), el precio del crudo de Texas (WTI) y la inversión extranjera directa (IED) durante el periodo 2010 y 2015. Al finalizar el estudio, se encuentran las evidencias que permiten resaltar el efecto de la política sobre estos cuatro indicadores económicos. Para observar los efectos en el índice COLCAP, la TRM y el WTI, se construye un modelo de mínimos cuadrados ordinarios (MCO) que nos permite ver la volatilidad de las acciones y las variaciones de el WTI, basados en el modelo de valoración de activos financieros (CAPM ‘capital asset pricing model’), finalizando con la decisión de la FED de endurecer su política monetaria en diciembre de 2015.

La crisis de 2008 y las decisiones en política económica colombiana

El siguiente artículo es el resultado del proyecto de investigación «Impacto de las principales crisis financieras internacionales en la Política Económica Colombiana (1929–2010)» y tiene como objetivo central analizar los efectos de la crisis financiera internacional de 2008 frente a las medidas de política económica colombiana. La metodología utilizada para la realización de artículo fue de tipo documental y descriptivo. Como resultado se puedo determinar que la crisis financiera internacional del siglo XXI ha generado algunos desbalances macroeconómicos en la economía colombiana, siendo menos profundos que en crisis anteriores y están financiados en mayor proporción por flujos externos más estables. Su deuda pública es menos frágil a las devaluaciones abruptas y su perfil más largo.El periodo de estudio 2007–2010 ha sido un proceso para la economía colombiana, en cuanto a cambios en el sistema financiero, monetario y en materia fiscal, que han permitido mejores condiciones frente a los choques financieros internacionales.

The strategic orientation of communications consulting firms in Colombia

This article reports the results of a research conducted among a group of 55 CEOs of public relations and communication consulting agencies in Colombia. It aims at determining if strategic orientation predominates in the services for which these agencies are hired. As it has been found, some of them focus their business on this perspective. Nevertheless, there is a higher volume of technical services, such as free press and journalistic media relations. The increase in services in recent years has been due, among other reasons, to the good moment of Colombian economy. The reasons for hiring an agency are its prestige and reputation. However, this result contrasts with the argument presented by the interviewed executives as the main impediment to their practice as consultants: the lack of knowledge of their work on the part of clients.

Colombia’s macroeconomic challenges at the end of the supercycle of commodity prices

ABSTRACTThe end of the commodity boom presents major challenges for the Colombian economy. The major ones relate to the need to reduce the current account deficit and find new growth engines. A competitive real exchange rate is essential for objectives and requires stronger interventions in the foreign exchange market; these interventions also help to smooth out the trajectory of the inflation rate. Finally, although fiscal adjustment has been adequate, there are fiscal needs associated with the additional public sector spending demanded by the peace agreement and the need to correct the major structural tax imbalances generated by previous tax reforms.

Análisis de la redistribución de las regalías en la región del llano. periodo 2011-2014

Al inicio del siglo XXI, aquellas economías con producción extensiva de materias primas vieron crecer sus ingresos y sus niveles de inversión en este sector. La economía colombiana no fue la excepción, y en los últimos años, las actividades principales que han impulsado el crecimiento económico son las relacionadas con la minería y los hidrocarburos, las cuales demandan cambios en su administración. Por tal motivo, el Gobierno en el marco de la política económica y fiscal impulsó una serie de reformas que crearon el Sistema General de Regalías, con la finalidad de mejorar las condiciones de equidad social, y a su vez impulsar el desarrollo del país mediante el redireccionamiento de estas a todo el territorio nacional. El propósito de la investigación es analizar la redistribución de las regalías en la región del Llano periodo 2011-2014, a través del comportamiento del Fondo de Compensación Regional en materia de reasignación de recursos entre los departamentos productores y no productores.

MANAGEMENT OF PROCESSES FOR ENRICHMENT OF COPPER- MOLYBDENUM ORES USING QUALITY CONTROL QUALITY

An overview of the Colombian economy is presented and mining is made special between 2000 and 2016. The most important aspects of Colombian mining production are presented and the sector is characterized in terms of extractive industry and environmental components. It presents an historical evolution of the mining sector in terms of production and prices and presents a global picture of mining income, employment generation, reserves of the most important minerals, as well as foreign direct investment in mining. Finally, data on exports of the most important minerals produced in Colombia are presented.

Mining as the “Locomotive” of the Colombian Economy: It’s Real Cost

For the past 15 years, the Colombian government has enacted laws promoting large-scale mining across the country with the banner of the sector becoming the engine for growth and development of the country. By declaring it an “activity for public utility and social interest”, expropriations, forced displacements, and licenses to operate in protected areas have been pervasive. Out of the 114 million hectares of the Colombian territory, the area dedicated to mining grew from 1.1 million hectares in 2001 to 5.34 million in 2010. Furthermore, a recent decree declared an area that encompasses 22.2 million hectares as “strategic mining sites” (Resolution 045 of 2012), which covers vast areas of the Amazon jungle and 18% of the national territory. The revenues have not translated in building up Colombia´s inadequate infrastructure or improving the productivity and competitiveness of sustainable sectors of the economy. Furthermore, the expansion of both industrial and artisanal mining has worsened social conflicts and increased poverty in mining regions. The rise in gold production has been paralleled by increased imports of elemental mercury, sodium cyanide, and proliferation of illegal mining operations. With these antecedents, this document provides arguments to consider the mining “boom” in Colombia as “adverse to” rather than as a “potentiator” of the prosperity and peace of the country. A few studies that are representative of the environmental consequences of industrial and artisanal gold mining, such as destruction of tropical forests, are used to illustrate some issues of concern.

Articulación de sectores y crecimiento económico en Colombia: un enfoque multivariado de detección de clusters empleando un Modelo de Insumo Producto

<p>Considerando como base de información a la Matriz Insumo Producto para la economía colombiana de 2010, actualizada por el Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE, 2013), el presente documento emprende un proceso multivariante de reducción de datos sobre la submatriz de flujos intersectoriales con el objeto de presentar componentes principales derivados de la intensidad de comercialización intermedia. Tales componentes representan <em>clusters</em> cuya definición proviene de la intensidad de los intercambios sostenidos en las actividades económicas participantes. Los resultados pretenden convertirse en un referente de la complejidad productiva de Colombia cuya aplicación se traduzca en el desarrollo de un esquema normativo de cohesión y articulación del aparato productivo como factores de crecimiento económico.</p>

¿Evolucionan las exportaciones colombianas hacia un mercado más volátil?: un análisis del periodo 1974-2014

<em><span>Este estudio busca determinar si la economía colombiana se mueve hacia una estructura de exportaciones más inestable, para lo cual se analiza tanto la evolución de las mismas entre el 1974 y el 2014, como la volatilidad de sus precios; entendida esta como las desviaciones en torno a la media, corregida o no por la tendencia, sin pretender explicar las razones de dicha inestabilidad. Los resultados muestran que las exportaciones colombianas siguen una marcada tendencia a moverse hacia productos minerales y energéticos, antes que agropecuarios. Los precios de los commodities tienden por lo general a crecer, alcanzando sus máximos en la primera década del siglo XXI. Los indicadores de volatilidad considerados, aplicados a los índices de precios de los productos de exportación tradicional y de otros índices de precios combinados, sugieren una mayor volatilidad en los mercados hacia los cuales se mueven las exportaciones de Colombia: los minerales. Con respecto a la tendencia que sigue la volatilidad observada en los precios considerados, los resultados no son concluyentes. Mientras los indicadores básicos apuntan a una creciente fluctuación en los precios agropecuarios, el rango de Parkinson sugiere lo contrario.</span></em>

Do knowledge externalities lead to growth in economic complexity? Empirical evidence from Colombia

AbstractWe live in a complex economic system where externalities play a key role in fostering growth in complexity through increasing interdependence of interacting agents. This study tests this hypothesis for the case of Colombia. We ask whether knowledge externalities lead to growth in economic complexity. If yes, which variety of knowledge externalities—Marshall-Arrow-Romer (MAR), Porter or Jacobs? Results from our empirical investigation uphold the MAR theories of externalities or intra-industrial externalities, which are maximized with high local specialization1 and local monopoly. A pattern of convergence in economic complexity of Colombian municipalities emerges from our results, supporting Schumpeterian growth theories, which advocate that knowledge externalities drive convergence. This is in line with the recent macroeconomic trends of the Colombian economy, which is suffering from “Dutch disease” leading to a contraction in its domestic economy. We show that knowledge externalities are a mechanism through which convergence dynamics are brought about and fostered in the domestic economy.

Income distribution in the Colombian economy from an econophysics perspective

Recently, in econophysics, it has been shown that it is possible to analyze economic systems as equilibrium thermodynamic models. We apply statistical thermodynamics methods to analyze income distribution in the Colombian economic system. Using the data obtained in random polls, we show that income distribution in the Colombian economic system is characterized by two specific phases. The first includes about 90% of the interviewed individuals, and is characterized by an exponential Boltzmann-Gibbs distribution. The second phase, which contains the individuals with the highest incomes, can be described by means of one or two power-law density distributions that are known as Pareto distributions.

Mining and Energy Boom, Dutch Disease and Informality in Colombia: A DSGE Approach

The paper develops a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model, which assesses the macroeconomic and labor market effects derived from simulating a positive shock to the stochastic component of the mining-energy sector productivity. Calibrating the model for the Colombian economy, this shock generates a whole increase in formal wages and a raise in tax revenues, expanding total consumption of the household members. These facts increase non-tradable goods prices relative to tradable goods prices, then real exchange rate decreases (appreciation) and occurs a displacement of productive resources from the tradable (manufacturing) sector to the non-tradable sector, followed by an increase in formal GDP and formal job gains. This situation makes the formal sector to absorb workers from the informal sector through the non-tradable formal subsector, which causes informal GDP to go down. As a consequence, in the net consumption falls for informal workers, which leads some members of the household not to offer their labor force in the informal sector but instead they prefer to keep unemployed. Therefore, the final result on the labor market is a decrease in the number of informal workers, of which a part are in the formal sector and the rest are unemployed.

Posconflicto colombiano y sus efectos económicos

<p align="center">Resumen</p><p> </p><p>Las negociaciones de paz del gobierno con las denominadas Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) podrían tener efectos sobre la economía colombiana. Por ello se esbozan tres escenarios –pesimista, neutral y optimista– en los que se distingan efectos a nivel financiero y de comercio internacional en los cinco años posteriores a la finalización del proceso de negociación. Partiendo del estudio de casos en cinco países que enfrentaron la terminación de un conflicto interno, por vía militar o diplomática, se analizaron variables sobre las cuales se podría prever un efecto, teniendo en cuenta el posconflicto y el desenlace de las negociaciones de paz entre la guerrilla y el Gobierno. Se concluye que en los cinco años posteriores a la firma del acuerdo, la balanza de bienes y servicios crecería entre el 3% y 6%; el comercio lo haría entre 10% y 15%; el Riesgo País se incrementaría alrededor de 4 puntos; la Inversión Extranjera Directa (IED) aumentaría entre 40% y 50%; el crecimiento del PIB anual estaría 1 ó 2 puntos porcentuales más alto que el actual y el gasto militar disminuiría al 10% como porcentaje del PIB.</p><p> </p><p align="center">Abstract</p><p> </p><p>The government peace negotiations with the so-called Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) could have an impact on the Colombian economy, being relevant to analyze such effects. Therefore three possible scenarios to financial and international trade level for a period of five years, compared to the possible outcomes of the negotiation process are outlined. From case studies in five countries faced the completion of an internal conflict, military or diplomatic channels, variables were analyzed on which could provide an effect, taking into account the post-conflict and outcome of peace negotiations between the guerrillas and the government. It is concluded that in the five years after signing the agreement, the balance of goods and services would grow between 3% and 6%; would trade between 10% and 15% greater; country risk would rise about 4 points; Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) would increase between 40% and 50%; annual GDP growth would be 1 or 2 percentage points higher than the current and military spending would decrease 10% as a percentage of GDP.</p>

Incidencia de los precios del petróleo en el crecimiento económico y la inversión extranjera directa en Colombia durante el periodo 1990-2010

<p>El efecto macroeconómico derivado de la variación de los precios del petróleo puede llegar a ser representativo y de marcada incidencia. Dicha afectación puede estar influenciada por aspectos propios del mercado del sector de hidrocarburos, los choques de oferta y la dinámica de su demanda denotando así particularidades en el criterio para la fijación de los precios del crudo y su correspondiente volatilidad. Este documento verifica la incidencia que han tenido los precios del petróleo en el crecimiento y en la inversión extranjera directa para Colombia en el periodo comprendido entre 1990 y 2010, a través del uso de un modelo econométrico (VAR) con un (1) rezago sobre las variables consideradas, entregando como resultado que no existe evidencia que los precios del petróleo tengan incidencia sobre el crecimiento de la economía colombiana y sobre la inversión extranjera directa.</p>

The evolution of Colombian industry in the context of the energy-mining boom: Symptoms of the dutch disease?

This paper seeks to evaluate and demonstrate the hypothesis of deindustrialization and Dutch Disease (DD) for the case of the Colombian economy by using a Beta regression model. The results of the research indicate that it is not possible to reject the suggestion that the mining and energy boom have potential adverse effects on the manufacturing sector.

Finance, foreign (direct) investment and dutch disease: the case of Colombia

In recent years Colombia has grown relatively rapidly, but it has been a biased growth. The energy sector (the locomotora minero-energetica, to use the rhetorical expression of President Juan Manuel Santos) grew much faster than the rest of the economy, while the manufacturing sector registered a negative rate of growth. These are classic symptoms of the well-known ‘Dutch disease’, but our purpose here is not to establish whether the Dutch disease exists or not, but rather to shed some light on the financial viability of several, simultaneous dynamics: (1) the existence of a traditional Dutch Disease being due to a large increase in mining exports and a significant exchange rate appreciation, (2) a massive increase in foreign direct investment (FDI), particularly in the mining sector, (3) a rather passive monetary policy, aimed at increasing purchasing power via exchange rate appreciation, (4) more recently, a large distribution of dividends from Colombia to the rest of the world and the accumulation of mounting financial liabilities. The paper will show that these dynamics constitute a potential danger for the stability of the Colombian economy. Some policy recommendations are also discussed.

Transnational entrepreneurship in emerging markets

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the transnational entrepreneurial activities of Colombian emigrants to the USA in the context of the Colombian government’s policies and initiatives aimed at encouraging and facilitating emigrants’ transnational entrepreneurship. It examines the profile of Colombian emigrants, the entrepreneurial transnational activities they pursue and the actual and potential role of the government in instigating and shaping these activities. Design/methodology/approach The paper analyzes data obtained from focus groups with migrant families and interviews with governmental officials and an expert researcher. It also evaluates secondary data sources relevant to the subject of the paper. Findings The impact of transnational activities of Colombian migrants upon Colombian economy and society is much lower compared with the activities of migrants in other countries and with the potential these activities could have for contributing to the economic development of Colombia. Possible causes of this include: the specific characteristics of the Colombian emigrant and entrepreneur profile, the fragmentation of transnational networks of the migrants and the lack of governmental strategies to support the development of transnational activities of migrants. Originality/value The paper contributes to the debates on emigrant–state relation through offering an analysis of migrant entrepreneurship, technology and knowledge transfer and investment activities of Colombian emigrants in the home country. It also provides recommendations for policy action and concrete government programs that might encourage greater involvement of Colombian migrants in high value-adding activities that could benefit the country’s development.

The costs of resource-led development. An analysis of the economic impact of the oil extraction boom in Colombia

Oil-rich countries often face negative consequences of natural resources-led development on their overall economic performance. One of the reasons is that a country’s rising extraction rates frequently lead to various changes in its public policy and revenue management. Colombia has spectacularly increased its oil production by almost 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) in ten years, which was the effect principally of the implementation of strongly market-oriented petroleum policies in 2003. It is now the fourth largest crude producer in Latin America, registering nearly ten times more export sales than at the end of the 20th century. The economic effects of the oil-boom are already visible, which has created many new challenges the government must face in order to ensure sustainable development in the country, and to be able to mitigate the impact of the recently dropping world oil prices. The purpose of the article is to present the latest findings on the impact of the oil sector development on the Colombian economy in the 21st century, focusing especially on the current situation.