Documentos CEDE
Accede a las publicaciones que reúnen trabajos de profesores/as e investigadores/as de la Facultad de Economía, basados en información del Centro de Datos CEDE. Presentan análisis económicos y resultados preliminares que aportan evidencia y abren discusiones académicas sobre temas relevantes para el país.
Documento CEDE 2025-20
JEL: F13, F15
This article presents a simplified model to compile and synthesize in a formal - and hopefully clear- way, some of the most important trade policy results of the literature, in what can be thought of as a Fundamental Theorem of Trade Policy. It shows that ceteris paribus, when other externalities and other distortions are not considered, optimal import tariffs and optimal taxes on exports are: positive for large countries; “beggar thy neighbor” and “beggar thy world” policies when applied by a large country; and examples of a dominant strategy for each large country, a Nash Equilibrium in trade policy and a Prisoner´s Dilemma, when applied simultaneously by several large countries. Import and export subsidies are shown to be “beggar thyself”, “benefit thy neighbor”, and “beggar thy world” policies. Optimal import tariffs and export taxes are zero for small countries. Consequently, retaliation by small countries when large countries use tariffs and/or export taxes exacerbates their own welfare losses. Enforceable and verifiable commitment technologies, through a multilateral institution such as a credible WTO, are required to avoid undesired outcomes.
20-07-2025
Documento CEDE 2025-19
JEL: E62, F34, F41, F64, H63, H68
This paper provides a first theoretical approach to the optimal thresholds for triggering escape clauses in fiscal rules, using a simple sovereign-debt model with default risk. In a three-period setting, a representative government chooses its borrowing level under uncertainty about future income. The model imposes a fiscal rule that caps debt and allows welfare comparisons under regimes with and without the rule. Results show that fiscal flexibility improves welfare when shocks are severe or persistent, whereas the rule can be beneficial in moderate-recovery scenarios by containing overborrowing. We identify a critical income threshold after a shock: when income falls about 1.6 standard deviations below its mean, it is optimal to abandon the rule. This offers a quantitative guideline for designing observable-based escape clauses.
19-06-2025
Documento CEDE 2025-18
JEL: J24, J63, J64
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly accelerated the transformation in the demand for technological skills in the Colombian labor market, generating a structural and persistent shift. This document estimates the dynamic effect of the economic recession caused by the pandemic on such demand, analyzing how automation processes and task reallocation intensified within companies. Using an event study model, it is found that, in the 18 months following the onset of the pandemic, technological job postings increased by 50% compared to non-technological ones, with up to 2,000 additional postings in the long term. Using a database built from job advertisements published between 2018 and 2023 on the most important online job board in the country, the study shows a sustained increase in the demand for specialized technological skills, particularly in web development, programming, and database management. Moreover, it is observed that job postings requiring higher educational levels and more work experience are less numerous, reflecting greater specialization in the labor market within an increasingly digitalized environment.
18-06-2025
Documento CEDE 2025-17
JEL: H71, H72, H83, P11
¿Cómo responden los esfuerzos de recaudación tributaria subnacional a los ingresos extraordinarios procedentes de regalías de recursos naturales? ¿Y, por el contrario, cuáles son las implicaciones fiscales cuando estos ingresos disminuyen? Este artículo investiga los efectos de la reforma de 2012 en Colombia, que reestructuró sustancialmente la asignación de regalías mineras entre los municipios. Al analizar este cambio legal, evaluamos las modificaciones en el comportamiento de la recaudación municipal. Los municipios que experimentaron una reducción de regalías intensificaron sus esfuerzos de cobro de impuestos; sin embargo, estos esfuerzos no compensaron completamente
las pérdidas de ingresos. En contraste, los municipios que se beneficiaron de un aumento de regalías redujeron sus actividades de recaudación tributaria, resultando en ningún cambio neto en los ingresos municipales totales. Estos hallazgos contribuyen a la literatura sobre la maldición de los recursos al ofrecer una perspectiva subnacional de la dinámica fiscal de los ingresos inesperados de recursos.
17-06-2025
Documento CEDE 2025-16
JEL: C45, C52, C53, E32, E37
Las decisiones económicas se toman en condiciones de alta incertidumbre sobre la actividad económica actual y reciente, debido a la limitada e imperfecta información ecónomica disponible. Por lo tanto, surge la siguiente pregunta: ¿cómo se puede mejorar la fiabilidad del nowcasting de la actividad económica colombiana en comparación con los métodos tradicionales de pronóstico? Este artículo demuestra que: (a) utilizar una función de pérdida personalizada con aversión al riesgo, que considera la desutilidad del agente y penaliza discrepancias en la dirección de las predicciones, constituye una alternativa útil para evaluar el desempeño del modelo al garantizar pronósticos más fiables, maximizando tanto la precisión como la relevancia económica. Y (b) durante periodos de choques abruptos y alta volatilidad, como el COVID-19 (2020—2021) y los años posteriores (2022—2023), los modelos de aprendizaje automático superan a los modelos tradicionales de nowcasting.
16-06-2025
Documento CEDE 2025-15
JEL: E43, E44, F30, F41
This paper investigates the granular transmission of U.S. monetary policy shocks to deviations from the uncovered interest rate parity (UIPDs) in emerging economies. Using a comprehensive dataset from Chile that accounts for firm-bank relationships and the time-variant characteristics of both firms and banks, we uncover several key findings: (1) Shocks to the federal funds rate (FFR) increase banks’ costs of foreign borrowing; (2) these higher credit costs disproportionately affect small firms, raising their UIPDs more than for large firms; (3) this size-differentiated impact stems from the relatively higher interest rates on domestic currency loans faced by small firms; (4) in contrast, interest rates on dollar-denominated loans respond homogeneously across all firms; (5) we find no differential effect on loan quantities, suggesting an active role of credit supply and demand. We rationalize these findings with a small open economy model of corporate default that incorporates heterogeneous firms borrowing from domestic banks in both foreign and domestic currencies. In our model, a higher FFR reduces the marginal cost of defaulting on domestic-currency debt for small firms more than for large firms.
15-06-2025
