Poverty impacts of agricultural policy adjustments in an opening economy: the case of Colombia

We aim to contribute to the assessment of poverty impacts on the rural sector arising from agricultural policy adjustments in Colombia. For this we use an agriculture specialized static CGE model, jointly (sequentially) with a microsimulation model that allows for effective job relocation. Results indicate that the sectoral impact of the program implemented tends to be small and has considerable variability across crops. They also show that the highest impacts come from the irrigation and land improvements component of the program. Lastly, although it reduces poverty, poverty impacts are small and tend to concentrate in rural households toward the middle of the income distribution ladder.

The cyclical behavior of bank capital buffers in an emerging economy: size do matters

Using a panel of Colombian banks and quarterly data between 1996:1 and 2010:3, we study the relationship between short-run adjustemnts in bank capital buffers and the business cycle. We follow a partial adjustment framework and control for several variables that have been identified as important determinants of bank capital buffers in previous studies, and find that bank capital buffers vary over the business cycle. We are able to identify a negative co-movement of capital buffers and and the business cycle. However, we also find that capital buffers of small and large banks behave asymmetrically during the business cycle. While the former appear to be constant over time, once the appropriate set of control variables is used, the latter present a countercyclical behavior. Our results suggest the possible need of the implementation of regulatory policy measures in developing countries