Individual Decision-Making and Inflation Persistence

The traditional task of a central bank is to preserve price stability and, in doing so, not to impair the real economy more than necessary. To meet this challenge, it is of great relevance whether inflation is only driven by inflation expectations and the current output gap or whether it is, in addition, influenced by past inflation. In the former case, as described by the New Keynesian Phillips curve, the central bank can immediately and simultaneously achieve price stability and equilibrium output, the so-called ‘divine coincidence’ (Blanchard and Galí 2007). In the latter case, the achievement of price stability is costly in terms of output and will be pursued over several periods. Similarly, it is important to distinguish this latter case, which describes ‘intrinsic’ inflation persistence, from that of ‘extrinsic’ inflation persistence, where the sluggishness of inflation is not a ‘structural’ feature of the economy but merely ‘inherited’ from the sluggishness of the other driving forces, inflation expectations and output. ‘Extrinsic’ inflation persistence is usually considered to be the less challenging case, as policy-makers are supposed to fight against the persistence in the driving forces, especially to reduce the stickiness of inflation expectations by a credible monetary policy, in order to reestablish the ‘divine coincidence’. The scope of this dissertation is to contribute to the vast literature and ongoing discussion on inflation persistence: Chapter 1 describes the policy consequences of inflation persistence and summarizes the empirical and theoretical literature. Chapter 2 compares two models of staggered price setting, one with a fixed two-period duration and the other with a stochastic duration of prices. I show that in an economy with a timeless optimizing central bank the model with the two-period alternating price-setting (for most parameter values) leads to more persistent inflation than the model with stochastic price duration. This result amends earlier work by Kiley (2002) who found that the model with stochastic price duration generates more persistent inflation in response to an exogenous monetary shock. Chapter 3 extends the two-period alternating price-setting model to the case of 3- and 4-period price durations. This results in a more complex Phillips curve with a negative impact of past inflation on current inflation. As simulations show, this multi-period Phillips curve generates a too low degree of autocorrelation and too early turnings points of inflation and is outperformed by a simple Hybrid Phillips curve. Chapter 4 starts from the critique of Driscoll and Holden (2003) on the relative real-wage model of Fuhrer and Moore (1995). While taking the critique seriously that Fuhrer and Moore’s model will collapse to a much simpler one without intrinsic inflation persistence if one takes their arguments literally, I extend the model by a term for inequality aversion. This model extension is not only in line with experimental evidence but results in a Hybrid Phillips curve with inflation persistence that is observably equivalent to that presented by Fuhrer and Moore (1995). In chapter 5, I present a model that especially allows to study the relationship between fairness attitudes and time preference (impatience). In the model, two individuals take decisions in two subsequent periods. In period 1, both individuals are endowed with resources and are able to donate a share of their resources to the other individual. In period 2, the two individuals might join in a common production after having bargained on the split of its output. The size of the production output depends on the relative share of resources at the end of period 1 as the human capital of the individuals, which is built by means of their resources, cannot fully be substituted one against each other. Therefore, it might be rational for a well-endowed individual in period 1 to act in a seemingly ‘fair’ manner and to donate own resources to its poorer counterpart. This decision also depends on the individuals’ impatience which is induced by the small but positive probability that production is not possible in period 2. As a general result, the individuals in the model economy are more likely to behave in a ‘fair’ manner, i.e., to donate resources to the other individual, the lower their own impatience and the higher the productivity of the other individual. As the (seemingly) ‘fair’ behavior is modelled as an endogenous outcome and as it is related to the aspect of time preference, the presented framework might help to further integrate behavioral economics and macroeconomics.

Small and Closed vs. Large and Open: Some Lessons from Comparing Cuban to Colombian Agricultural Development

Comparing the experiences of selected Latin America and the Caribbean countries and their trajectories over the past 15 years offers rich insights into the dynamics and causes for not meeting the 2015 MDGs. They also offer clues for post-MDG strategies. Central to achieving sustainable growth are government policies able to support small and medium-sized farms and peasants, as they are crucial for the achievement of several goals, centrally: to achieve food security; to provide a sound and stable rural environment able to resist external (financial) shocks; to secure healthy food; to secure local food; and to protect vibrant and culturally rich local communities. This paper analyses and compares the most successful government policies to the least successful policies carried out over the last 15 years in selected Latin American and Caribbean countries and based on this analysis, offers strategies for more promising post-MDG politics, able to reduce poverty, reduce inequality, fight back informality, and achieve more decent work in poor countries.

Demokratie und Dekolonisierung in Bolivien

Ausgehend von den fortdauernden Ausschlüssen und strukturellen Benachteiligungen der indigenen Bevölkerung Lateinamerikas kritisiert die vorliegende Arbeit die begrenzten Möglichkeiten gesellschaftlicher Teilhabe innerhalb von liberalen Wahldemokratien. Neben materiellen Ungleichheiten stehen immaterielle Formen der Ungleichheit, wie kulturelle und symbolische Barrieren politischer sowie sozialer Teilhabe im Fokus der Analyse. Das Forschungs- und Erkenntnisinteresse zielt darauf, Demokratie nicht länger nur anhand liberal-repräsentativer Normen und Verfahren zu erfassen und zu werten. Es geht um die Reflexion anderer demokratischer Praxen, wie indigener und indigen-gewerkschaftlicher Formen lokaler Selbstregierung in Bolivien. Denn im bolivianischen Transformationsprozess mündete die Kritik der liberal-repräsentativen Demokratie in einer doppelten Forderung: Zum einen wird die Demokratisierung der liberalen Demokratie und zum anderen ihre Dekolonisierung gefordert. Die Dekolonisierung und Institutionalisierung unterschiedlicher Praxen und Vorstellungen wird empirisch am Beispiel des indigenen Autonomieprozesses untersucht. Auf nationaler Ebene werden die Demokratisierungsfortschritte u. a. anhand von Wahlrecht, der Entwicklung der Partizipation und Repräsentation bilanziert und die materielle Dimension von Teilhabe auf Grundlage der sozial- und wirtschaftspolitischen Reformen der Regierung Morales geprüft.

Institutions, Behavior and Evolution

The three articles constituting this thesis are for reasons of content or method related to the following three fields in economics: Behavioral Economics, Evolutionary Game Theory and Formal Institutional Economics. A core element of these fields is the concept of individual preferences. Preferences are of central importance for the conceptional framework to analyze human behavior. They form the foundation for the theory of rational choice which is defined by the determination of the choice set and the selection of the most preferred alternative according to some consistency requirements. The theory of rational choice is based on a very simplified description of the problem of choice (object function and constraints). However, that choices depend on many more factors is for instance propagated by psychological theories and is supported by many empirical and experimental studies. This thesis adds to a better understanding of individual behavior to the extent that the evolution of certain characteristics of preferences and their consequences on human behavior forms the overarching theme of the dissertation. The long-term effect of evolutionary forces on a particular characteristic of importance in the theoretical, empirical and experimental economic literature, the concept of inequality aversion, is subject of the article “The evolution of inequality aversion in a simplified game of life” (Chapter 4). The contribution of the article is the overcoming of a restriction of former approaches to analyze the evolution of preferences in very simple environments. By classifying human interaction into three central economic games, the article provides a first step towards a simplified and sufficiently complete description of the interaction environment. Within such an environment the article characterizes the evolutionary stable preference distribution. One result shows, that the interaction of the aforementioned three classes can stabilize a preference of inequality aversion in the subpopulation which is favored in the problem of redistribution. The two remaining articles are concerned with social norms, which dissemination is determined by medium-run forces of cultural evolution. The article “The impact of market innovations on the evolution of social norms: the sustainability case.“ (Chapter 2) studies the interrelation between product innovations which are relevant from a sustainability perspective and an according social norm in consumption. This relation is based on a conformity bias in consumption and the attempt to avoid cognitive dissonances resulting from non-compliant consumption. Among others, it is shown that a conformity bias on the consumption side can lead to multiple equilibria on the side of norm adoption. The article “Evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas: signaling internalized norms.” (Chapter 3) studies the emergence of cooperation in social dilemmas based on the signaling of social norms. The article provides a potential explanation of cooperative behavior, which does not rely on the assumption of structured populations or on the unmotivated ability of social norms to restrict individual actions or strategy spaces. A comprehensive result of the single articles is the explanation of the phenomenon of partial norm adaption or dissemination of preferences. The plurality of the applied approaches with respect to the proximity to the rational choice approach and regarding the underlying evolutionary mechanics is a particular strength of the thesis. It shows the equality of these approaches in their potential to explain the phenomenon of cooperation in environments that provide material incentives for defective behavior. This also points to the need of a unified framework considering the biological and cultural coevolution of preference patterns.

La formación de actividades ilegales en la ciudad de Cartagena a partir de la concentración de la gestión distrital en el sector del turismo. Análisis del periodo : 2002-2006

Colombia durante los últimos años ha intentado cambiar el estigma que tiene, en cuanto a su imagen internacional. Por lo tanto, el país ha tratado de explotar y potenciar las zonas que ha considerado con mayores fortalezas destacándose entre ellas la región de la costa, especialmente la ciudad de Cartagena, permitiéndose el fortalecimiento notable del sector del turismo en esta ciudad. En esa medida, este sector se ha preocupado por mantenerse en una competencia permanente en cuanto a la captación de turistas. Sin embargo, la ciudad de Cartagena se encuentra dentro de una dualidad enmarcada por la desigualdad social que ha polarizado su población. Abriendo paso a la generación actividades que se encuentran determinadas como indeseables. De acuerdo con lo anterior, podría hablarse de que en virtud del turismo se generan unas actividades, que no se encuentran propiamente bajo el marco de lo deseable como en el caso de la prostitución, la venta de estupefacientes y el comercio informal, que sumados a la mala planeación, se han convertido en los mayores problemas que atacan a esta ciudad.

Desigualdad, educación y crecimiento económico

Este documento plantea un modelo teórico de generales traslapadas en el que se resalta la importancia de la educación pública como instrumento para reducir las brechas salariales, asimismo, considera la relación inversa entre la desigualdad en la distribución del ingreso y el crecimiento económico de un país. Por último, resalta la importancia del capital humano como fuente del desarrollo de un país, en la medida que éste es un insumo para la producción y estimula la acumulación de capital físico.

An LMI approach to H∞ synchronization of second-order neutral master-slave systems

The H∞ synchronization problem of the master and slave structure of a second-order neutral master-slave systems with time-varying delays is presented in this paper. Delay-dependent sufficient conditions for the design of a delayed output-feedback control are given by Lyapunov-Krasovskii method in terms of a linear matrix inequality (LMI). A controller, which guarantees H∞ synchronization of the master and slave structure using some free weighting matrices, is then developed. A numerical example has been given to show the effectiveness of the method

Aproximación al discurso ético, a partir de la evidencia en la prensa nacional y la percepción de un grupo de ciudadanos en la ciudad de Bogotá

Esta investigación se desarrolla, bajo una hipótesis, la cual se quería comprobar, por la evidencia encontrada en dos fuentes externas. La hipótesis presentada es sí el discurso ético que profesan en los libros académicos y los maestros en el tema, difiere del comportamiento ético que demuestran los empresarios, especialmente los colombianos, bajo las siguientes evidencias: Los artículos publicados en 5 medios de publicidad, como son: periódicos diarios o semanales, revistas que sea distribuidas, por lo menos en la principales ciudades de Colombia, por lo que se escogieron los siguientes: Periódico El Tiempo, Periódico El Espectador, Periódico Portafolio, Revista Semana y Revista Cambios. Así mismo para unificar el lapso de tiempo estudiado se escogió para la investigación el segundo semestre del 2008 y se revisarían todos los artículos bajo la condición que tuvieran las siguientes palabras, sin ser entre ellas excluyentes, “ética”, “Responsabilidad Empresarial”, Desigualdad Laboral”, “Corrupción Laboral”, “Realidad Laboral”, “Inconformidad Laboral” y “Reforma Laboral”. Así mismo, se desarrolló una encuesta para que fuera el segundo medio de evidencia, en la que se quería medir era la percepción de la gente; por lo se diseñaron 10 preguntas, con respuestas cerradas, en la que la opción era “Si” o “No”, dejando únicamente la pregunta No. 10 combinada, con un espacio de interpretación, en la que cabe un “Porqué?”, sobre si ética es acción o no. Con las encuestas, se pretende, entender, comprender y comparar si lo que dicen los discursos éticos académicos, difieren con la realidad encontrada en la percepción de la gente del común, quienes son los que contestaron la encuesta.

Efectos de las estructuras impositivas y distributivas sobre los flujos de capital, la desigualdad y el crecimiento económico

En este documento se plantea un modelo de crecimiento económico con gobierno, agentes heterogéneos y flujos de capital. Los resultados del modelo evidencian que las estructuras fiscales, bien sea distribución de impuestos o tasas impositivas, pueden maximizar el crecimiento económico o reducir la desigualdad. Bajo el contexto de economía abierta se encuentra que bajas tasas de ahorro incentivan la entrada de capitales, la cual tiene un efecto positivo sobre la economía, sobretodo en términos de crecimiento económico.

MA167exam00pdf

Exam questions and solutions in PDF

MA167exam00

Exam questions and solutions in LaTex. Diagrams for the questions are all together in the support.zip file, as .eps files

Análisis de la violencia estructural en Sudáfrica (1994-2010)

A pesar de los visibles avances logrados después de la finalización del Régimen del Apartheid, Sudáfrica evidencia la continuación de una serie de formas de Violencia, (Violencia Cultural-Directa-Estructural) destacándose la Violencia Estructural del Sistema (Desigualdades sociales).

MA167exam01pdf

Exam questions and solutions in PDF

MA160exam00

Exam questions and solutions in LaTex. Diagrams for the questions are all together in the support.zip file, as .eps files

MA160exam01

Exam questions and solutions in LaTex. Diagrams for the questions are all together in the support.zip file, as .eps files