Evaluación de reformas en la economía implementadas dentro del marco del Consenso de Washington : la década de los noventa

EconomistaPregrad

Severance payments and unemployment risk management: the case of Colombia

This paper discusses risk management tools for unemployment risk in Colombia and the necessity to implement an extensive social insurance program for this exposure. Particularly, it analyzes the determinants for the use of severance payments in low-income households to decrease vulnerability in spells of unemployment sells. Using the 2011 GEIH survey I found that only a small percentage of the low-income households use the severance payments with this purpose. Moreover, through a Heteroskedastic Probit methodology, I show that the determinants for the use of severance payments to deal with unemployment risk are: household income, financial literacy, indefinite formal labor contracts, length of employment spells, public service and household size. From the results, two public policy recommendations arise: i) severance payments are not used in the desired way suggesting a different scheme that should be implemented; ii) financial education is crucial to reduce vulnerability through optimal risk management

Mobile money and financial inclusion

El trabajo hace una evaluación de impacto del programa Ingreso Solidario sobre la inclusión financiera de los hogares vulnerables que recibieron ayuda económica durante la pandemia por COVID-19.This research paper evaluates the impact of social assistance payments in the form of mobile money on financial inclusion. Through digital wallets, we exploit the disbursement of monetary support for vulnerable people in Colombia. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) and administrative data on transactions, we test the effects of mobile money aid on transaction use, such as wire money transfers and cash-outs, and end-of-the-month balances. We find that (i) the program increased by 1.4 p.p. the average probability of using wire money transfers in the period analyzed. This represents an increase of 24% compared to the control group's average use of wire money transfers. (ii) The probability of cashing money out decreases by 76.6% when comparing the first semester to the fifth semester of continuous use. Finally, (iii) we find that eligible users increased their end-of-the-month balance by 27.6% compared to the non-eligible group's average end-of-the-month deposit account balance.Magíster en EconomíaMaestríaInclusión financieraDesarroll