The international economic crisis and the colombian economy

The purpose of this research is to provide an approximation to the likely effects of the crisis on the Colombian economy and to the effectiveness of policy response. For this, the most relevant transmission channels and policy measures are simulated in the setting of a static computable general equilibrium model (CGE). The results obtained are interesting in their own right and are in line with what could be expected given the information available on the behavior of the Colombian economy. Furthermore, they call into question the effectiveness of governmental intervention as judged by its intended countercyclical effects.

The persistent colombian conflict bubnational analysis of the duration of violence

The growing empirical literature on the analysis of civil war has recently included the study of conflict duration at the cross-country level. This paper presents, for the first time, a within-country analysis of the determinants of violence duration. I focus on the experience of the Colombian armed conflict. While the conflict has been active for about five decades, local violence ebbs and flows and areas experiencing continuous conflict coexist with places that have been able to resile and where violence is mostly absent. I examine a wide range of factors potentially associated with violence duration at the municipal level, including scale variables, geographical conditions, economic and social variables, institutions and state presence, inequality, government intervention, and victimization variables. I characterize a few variables robustly correlated with the persistence of localized conflict, both across specifications and using different econometric models of duration analysis.

Cartoons and economics: general analysis based on colombian economic cartoons

May cartoons be considered as a viable and credible source for the study of economics? There is hardly any research on the subject, even though there is a quite significant amount of cartoons with economic content. This suggests that economics (and economists) have not paid enough attention and do not incorporate in their analysis a relevant primary source. The present paper aims to explore the value of using cartoons as a complementary primary source in economic analysis. We present a way of analyzing economic history through cartoons; first, reviewing cartoons which describe particular historical circumstances and second, examining cartoons that represent generic economic situations and are not necessarily linked to a historical period. We choose 17 cartoons, from different cartoonist, especially Colombian cartoonists that may give us an idea of economic matters and economic history.

A firm-level analysis of ICT adoption in an emerging economy: evidence from the colombian manufacturing industries

This study examines ICT adoption among 3,759 Colombian manufacturing firms, and attempts to identify the factors that are conducive to the adoption and usage of ICT at the firm level. Our major findings are (i) that the adoption of a given information and communication technology is better facilitated when a firm is relatively large, has large human capital, engages in more innovative activities, and when a firm’s organizational structure is better aligned with the given technology; (ii) that positive associations between the key determinants and ICT adoptions are more pronounced for small and medium-sized firms than for large ones, and (iii) that information spillovers within industries is also a determinant of ICT adoptions by the firms.

Do Colombian students underestimate higher education returns?

We analyze the determinants of subjective returns of higher education in Colombia. The information on expectations has been collected in categories, motivating the use of interval regression and an ordered probit approaches for modeling the relationship between beliefs and measures of ability, conditioning on individual, school and regional covariates. The results suggest that there are considerable differences in the size of the expected returns according to some population groups and a strong dominance of college against technical education. Gender gaps disappear in college education but it is found that girls tend to believe that professional wages are more concentrated into higher income categories than boys. Finally, it seems that Colombian students overestimate the pecuniary returns to education.

Echoes of the crises in Spain and US in the Colombian labor market : a differences-in-differences approach

This paper presents evidence of the effect of the recent phases of the business cycle in Spain and United States, proxied by their respective unemployment rates, on the labor market of Colombian cities with high migration tradition. These countries are the main destination for labor Colombian migrants. Using information from the household survey between 2006 and 2011 for urban areas in Colombia and a differences-in-differences approach we find that unemployment rates of those countries negatively affect the probability and the amount of remittances received by Colombian households living in areas with high and moderate migration tradition. At a second stage we provide evidence that unemployment rates of those countries positively affect the labor force participation decisions in Colombian regions with the highest migration tradition.

Health insurance as a strategy for access : Streamlined facts of the Colombian Health Care Reform

La reforma colombiana al sistema de salud (Ley 100 de 1993) estableció, como estrategia para facilitar el acceso, la universalidad de un seguro de salud que se adquiere mediante la cotización en el régimen contributivo o mediante la afiliación gratuita al régimen subsidiado, con la meta de cubrir a toda la población con un plan de beneficios único que comprende servicios de todos los niveles de atención. En el documento se analizan los principales hechos estilizados de la reforma en cuanto a cobertura del seguro y acceso y, mediante modelos logit, se estiman los determinantes de la afiliación y del acceso, con datos de las encuestas de calidad de vida de 1997 y 2003. Se destaca que la cobertura pasó del 20% de la población en 1993 al 60% en 2004, aunque parece imposible alcanzar la universalidad; la estructura y evolución de la cobertura muestran que los dos regímenes son complementarios, de modo que mientras el contributivo tiene mayor presencia en las ciudades y entre la población con empleo formal, el subsidiado tiene mayor peso entre la población rural y con bajos niveles de ingresos; por otra parte, el seguro tiene ventajas para la población subsidiada, con una mayor probabilidad de utilización de servicios, aunque el plan es inferior al del contributivo y existen barreras para el acceso.

An approximation to the standard of living index: the Colombian case

El documento busca mostrar las principales propiedades de un indicador de estándar de vida dentro del enfoque teórico de Amartya Sen. Establecemos un puente entre conceptos tales como: bienestar económico, bienestar, logro de agencia y estándar de vida. La metodología del Optimal scaling fue usada para probar las propiedades de Monotonicidad, No independencia de alternativas irrelevantes, Concavidad, informatividad y sustituibilidad.

The determinants of the health status in a developing country: results from the Colombian case

El artículo busca encontrar evidencia empírica de los determinantes de la salud, como una medición de capital salud en un país en desarrollo después de una profunda reforma en el sector salud. Siguiendo el modelo de Grossman (1972) y tomando factores institucionales, además de las variables individuales y socioeconómicas. Se usaron las encuestas de 1997 y 2000 donde se responde subjetivamente sobre el estado de salud y tipo de afiliación al sistema de salud. El proceso de estimación usado es un probit ordenado. Los resultados muestran una importante conexión entre las variables individuales, institucionales y socioeconómicas con el estado de salud. El efecto de tipo de acceso al sistema de salud presiona las inequidades en salud.

Leadership and performance in multicultural business environments a qualitative study in German-Colombian teams

Multicultural leadership is a topic a great interest in nowadays globalized work environment. Colombia emerges as an attractive marketplace with appealing business opportunities, especially for German enterprises. After presenting Colombia’s current political, social and economic situation, the thesis elaborates the complex subject of cultural differences while focusing on the peculiarities of German and Colombian national cultures. The resulting implications for a team’s collaboration and leader effectiveness are theoretically supported with reference to the landmark studies of Hofstede and GLOBE. By utilizing semi-structured interview techniques, a qualitative research enriches the previous findings and gives an all-encompassing insight in German-Colombian teamwork. The investigation identifies distinctive behavioral patterns and relations, which imply challenges and factors of success for multicultural team leaders. Finally, a categorical analysis examines the influence of cultural traits on team performance and evaluates the effectiveness of the applied leadership style.

An Empirical Examination of the Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment: A Firm-Level Analysis for the Colombian Economy

We use a large firm level data set to investigate the determinants of foreign direct investment(FDI) in Colombia. We estimate econometric models for the determinants of the probabilitythat a firm receives FDI, as well as for the factors that help to explain the foreign share in afirm’s capital. The results show that firms listed on the stock market, involved in foreign tradeactivities, and operating in sectors with greater capital intensity are more likely to be recipientsof FDI. Also, the probability of a firm receiving FDI is directly related to its size.

Competencies in understanding statistical information in primary and secondary school levels : an inter-cultural empirical study in Germany and Colombian students

Resumen en espa??ol, portugu??s y franc??s

Influence of aluminum hydroxide on potassium release from two Colombian soils

The effect of sesquioxides on the mechanisms of chemical reactions that govern the transformation between exchangeable potassium (Kex) and non-exchangeable K (Knex) was studied on acid tropical soils from Colombia: Caribia with predominantly 2 : 1 clay minerals and High Terrace with predominantly 1 : 1 clay minerals and sesquioxides. Illite and vermiculite are the main clay minerals in Caribia followed by kaolinite, gibbsite, and plagioclase, and kaolinite is the major clay mineral in High Terrace followed by hydroxyl-Al interlayered vermiculite, quartz, and pyrophyllite. The soils have 1.8 and 0.5% of K2O, respectively. They were used either untreated or prepared by adding AlCl3 and NaOH, which produced aluminum hydroxide. The soils were percolated continuously with 10mM NH4OAc at pH 7.0 and 10 mM CaCl2 at pH 5.8 for 120 h at 6 mL h(-1) to examine the release of Kex and Knex. In the untreated soils, NH4+ and Ca-2(+) released the same amounts of Kex from Caribia, whereas NH4+ released about twice as much Kex as Ca2+ from High Terrace. This study proposes that the small ionic size of NH4+ (0.54nm) enables it to enter more easily into the K sites at the broken edges of the kaolinite where Ca2+ (0.96 nm) cannot have access. As expected for a soil dominated by 2 : 1 clay minerals, Ca2+ caused Knex to be released from Caribia with no release by NH4+. No Knex was released by either ion from High Terrace. After treatment with aluminum hydroxide, K release from the exchangeable fraction was reduced in Caribia due to the blocking of the exchange sites but release of Knex was not affected. The treatment increased the amount of Kex released from the High Terrace soil and the release of Knex remained negligible although with Ca2+ the distinction between Kex and Knex was unclear. The increase in Kex was attributed to the initially acidic conditions produced by adding AlCl3 which may have dissolved interlayered aluminum hydroxide from the vermiculite present, thus exposing trapped K as exchangeable K. The subsequent precipitation of aluminum hydroxide when NaOH was added did not interfere with the release of this K, and so was probably formed mostly on the surface of the dominant kaolinite. Measurement of availability of K by standard methods using NH4 salts could result in overestimates in High Terrace and this may be a more general shortcoming of the methods in kaolinitic soils.