Following a sudden stop, real exchange rates can adjust through a nominal exchange rate depreciation, lower domestic prices, or a combination of both. This paper makes three contributions to understand how the type of adjustment shapes the response of macroeconomic variables, in particular productivity, to such an episode. First, using Spanish micro data during the two episodes, it documents that in a currency union unproductive firms exit more than in a floating regime.

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We develop a simple methodology to estimate the heterogeneous welfare effects of any small shock to residents within a city. The methodology relies only on modest assumptions regarding residents’ choice of where to consume and work and delivers an expression that shows that the welfare elasticity to any small shock can be written as a function of (1) the spatial patterns of consumption and income; and (2) the price and wage effects of the shock. We then apply this methodology to ask the question: Is tourism good for locals?

Is there an optimal alternative to a global carbon tax? We study this question in a standard neoclassical growth model with a carbon emissions externality using both the Pigouvian and Ramsey motives for taxation. We show that the social optimum is implementable with taxes widely used in countries worldwide – such as consumption, energy, income taxes – and no carbon taxation. We theoretically characterize and quantitatively estimate the optimal tax rates, and we find that they are well within existing tax rates.

En este trabajo evaluamos el impacto del Programa Vivienda Gratuita (PVG) sobre las condiciones de vida, de bienestar y de habitabilidad de los hogares beneficiados. Este programa fue una iniciativa del Gobierno colombiano iniciada em 2012 para entregar gratuitamente viviendas nuevas de interés prioritario (VIP) a los hogares más vulnerables del país. Para estimar impactos del programa de manera causal, el presente trabajo aprovecha que el 39% de los beneficiarios del programa fueron seleccionados mediante sorteos de vivienda.

En este trabajo se hace una revisión de la literatura sobre la efectividad de las principales medidas tomadas por los gobiernos, tanto en Colombia como en otros países, para amortiguar la magnitud de la crisis del COVID-19 sobre el empleo y reactivar la demanda laboral. El artículo analiza la efectividad de las intervenciones realizadas a la luz de la evidencia empírica existente.

We estimate the causal effect of the Colombian land restitution program on access to microcredit for agriculture. We use the timing of the restitution as the source of identification in an event study approach. Using administrative data from the program and all formal credit transactions, we show a significant increase in access to agricultural microcredit. The effects are stronger two years after the restitution when individuals acquire full property rights.

La Política para la Reactivación y el Crecimiento Sostenible e Incluyente tiene por objetivo desarrollar capacidades en los hogares, el aparato productivo el marco institucional y el desarrollo digital para que, en el corto plazo, el país pueda retomar la ruta de desarrollo que estaba recorriendo cuando fue golpeado por el COVID-19 y que, en el largo plazo, transite hacia un crecimiento más sostenible e incluyente que además tenga la habilidad para responder adecuadamente a choques futuros de gran impacto.

Governments across the developing world rely on their armed forces for domestic policing operations. Advocates of these “mano dura” (iron fist) policies view them as necessary to control crime, while detractors claim they undermine human rights. We experimentally evaluate a military policing intervention in Cali, Colombia, the country’s third largest city and among its most violent. The intervention involved recurring, intensive military patrols targeting crime hot spots, randomly assigned at the city block level.