Labor supply, biased technological change and economic growth

Se utiliza un modelo de innovaciones sesgadas para estudiar los efectos de cambios exógenos en la oferta laboral. En un contexto de innovaciones sesgadas, a medida que las economías acumulan capital, el trabajo se hace relativamente más escaso y más caro, por este motivo, hay incentivos para adoptar tecnologías ahorradoras de trabajo. Del mismo modo un cambio en la oferta laboral afecta la abundancia de factores y sus precios relativos. En general, una reducción de la oferta laboral, hace que el trabajo sea más caro y genera incentivos para cambio tecnológico ahorrador de trabajo. Así, el efecto inicial que tiene el cambio en la oferta laboral sobre los precios de los factores es mitigado por el cambio tecnológico. Finalmente, los movimientos en la remuneración a los factores afectan las decisiones de ahorro y, por lo tanto, la dinámica del crecimiento. En este trabajo se exploran las consecuencias de una reducción de la oferta laboral en dos contextos teóricos diferentes: un modelo de agentes homogéneos y horizonte infinito y un modelo de generaciones traslapadas.

Biased technological change, human capital and factor shares

We propose a one-good model where technological change is factor saving and costly. We consider a production function with two reproducible factors: physical capital and human capital, and one not reproducible factor. The main predictions of the model are the following: (a) The elasticity of output with respect to the reproducible factors depends on the factor abundance of the economies. (b) The income share of reproducible factors increases with the stage of development. (c) Depending on the initial conditions, in some economies the production function converges to AK, while in other economies long-run growth is zero. (d) The share of human factors (raw labor and human capital) converges to a positive number lower than one. Along the transition it may decrease, increase or remain constant.

Biased Technological Change, Impatience and Welfare

En este artículo utilizamos un modelo de generaciones traslapadas con heterogeneidad en la tasa de impaciencia para mostrar que los efectos de un cambio tecnológico aumentador de capital no son simétricos en los agentes y pueden conllevar una reducci on en el consumo. La asimetría en la tasa de impaciencia de los agentes en un período, tiene consecuencias sobre los beneficios del cambio tecnológico para las generaciones futuras. Menores tasas de impaciencia llevan a mayores niveles de capital y de consumo, si se entiende que la economía tiene el suficiente nivel de capital per capita.

Violence and growth in colombia : a review of the quantitative literature

This is a critical review of the empirical literature on the relationship between violence and economic growth in Colombia: an interesting case study for social scientists studying violence, conflict, crime and development. We argue that, despite the rapid development of this literature and the increasing use of new techniques, there is still much room for research. After assessing the contribution of the most influential papers on the subject, we suggest directions for future research.

Climate Change and Transregional Convergence: Carbon Markets in North Amer ica

National policies in North America have not been drafted properly to address the problem of climate change, following the impasse of international negotiations. Facing this scenario, new alternatives emerge with the leadership and participation of new actors. Local governments in North America, especially of British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec, have been developing strategies to face climate change and emissions reduction in parallel to the national efforts and the global governance strategies. These local governments have developed a transregional approach that has resulted in the creation of regional institutions such as the Western Climate Initiative, the Regional Greenhouse GasInitiative and the Midwestern GreenhouseGas Reduction Accord.Their main goal is to establish regional carbon markets to mitigate and adapt to climate change impacts in a cost-effective way. In spite of these efforts, these initiatives have faced the overlapping problem among them and with national and globalstrategies. The goal of this research is to explore how these carbon markets have developed convergence policies. Convergence among these markets is expressed in their offset system and in secondary markets.

Sectoral investment composition, capital services measurement and growth in Colombia

This is mainly a discussant paper on measurement criteria upon sector’s investment and capitalservices and the way these composition and measurement issues come to have an impact ongrowth figures for some major sectors of the Colombian economy. The main focus is on distinctionmatters regarding the measurement of capital stock and capital services in the productionprocess. The availability of appropriate data, widely discussed throughout the document, impliesthat major affirmations are more hypothetic than indicative or descriptive in style. Moststatements are established as a motivation device for studies on sector’s activities with a focus onconsistency with aggregate figures.