Hurwicz y el juez de última instancia

When receiving the Nobel Prize, Hurwicz took up the question “who is watching the guards?” and considered two approaches. One pessimistic, inspired by Juvenal, which leads to an infinite sequence of guards, and one idealistic, derived from the Platonic dialogues. The guard cannot get drunk, and if he does, he should resign. Although this closure of first instance does not happen in the real world, neither does Juvenal’s pessimism make sense. Society always finds a reasonable closure instance, but this solution is suboptimal and is plagued with impurities and illegalities. The leading strategy may be part of a set of illegal alternatives. Implementation is successful if the equilibrium corresponds to the legislator’s purposes. Every implementation can be improved and it is never entirely successful. Implementation mechanisms determine how the social welfare function is reached, which affects at the same time the private property prices and the consumption structure, so the market configuration depends on the kind of implementation and how the close of the last instance is made.social welfare function, human relations, suboptimal equilibrium

Economía y equidad en el Plan Nacional de desarrollo 2010-2014: prosperidad para todos. más empleo, menos pobreza y más seguridad.

El artículo analiza las Bases del Plan de Desarrollo 2010-2014 teniendo como referente tres nociones de equidad: intergeneracional, social y regional. Los alcances de cada una de ellas son limitados. La equidad intergeneracional ve el ahorro únicamente desde la perspectiva financiera, desconociendo que la inversión presente quizá sea una mejor forma de protección frente al futuro. La equidad social da excesiva importancia a la competitividad y a la productividad, desconociendo el potencial de la generación keynesiana de empleo y, sobre todo, del impacto favorable de la distribución del ingreso y de la riqueza en la lucha contra la pobreza. Por su parte, la equidad regional, la parte más novedosa del Plan, se queda corta porque conforme a la definición de las regiones desconoce el potencial gravitacional de las interacciones entre las grandes ciudades y sus entornos.equidad, desarrollo regional, convergencia

La ilegalidad, los metaordenamientos y la metapreferencias

This paper parts from the work developed by Sen about metaorders and metapreferences to explain illegality as a rational problem. After showing the scope of this categories, the author exposes some limits of the benefit cost analysis of illegality. He continues suggesting that the concept of metapreferences contributes to understanding the fuzzy space that exists between legal and illegal frontiers, and between legitimacy and illegitimacy. González point out the necessity of a more detailed analysis of the way in which beliefs and desires shape individual and social preferences, if we don’t want to fall in simplistic explanations of illegality based on an arbitrary criteria of the good. He concludes too that the inconsistency of metapreferences can explain why more expenditures in security and justice don’t result in a reduction of impunity.illegality, collective rationality, wide rationality, metapreferences, metaorders

La dicotomía micro-macro no es pertinente

Professor González criticizes the separation of the microeconomic and the macroeconomics, he considers this inadequate not only from the theoretical point of view, but also from a pedagogical perspective. The first part of the article shows how economic theory has been built without differentiating micro from macro. For he the great authors do not separate them. The next part of the article shows the intrinsic fragilities of micro and it questions the pertinence of the microfoundation of macro; if micro is weak, then it cannot support the macro. The article ends by mentioning some important areas in contemporary economic discussion that could be studied without making such distinction.dichotomy micro-macro, microfoundation, Walras, Edgeworth, Keynes

Economía doméstica y volatilidad financiera

El artículo analiza la situación de la economía colombiana en la segunda mitad de los noventa que generó una crisis económica acompañada de una agudización de la pobreza y una mayor concentración de la riqueza.  Argumenta el autor, que en lascondiciones actuales es fundamental que la recuperación económica vaya a la par con un mejoramiento de los indicadores relacionados con la pobreza y la desigualdad. Por tanto no puede darsele prioridad al crecimiento y marginar las metas socialescomo la reducción de la pobreza y la equidad, es decir, deben tener la misma trascendencia tanto las metas económicas como las sociales