Minimum Wages in Colombia: Holding the Middle With a Bite on the Poor

This paper exploits the long history of the minimum wage in a relatively stable developing economy like Colombia in order to see whether it may alleviate the living conditions of low income families and reduce income inequality. The paper does not only explore how the minimum wage may serve these purposes, but also how it may distort market outcomes to do so. We found significant negative minimum wage effects on both the likelihood of being employed and hours worked for all family members, being it stronger for women, and the young and less educated people. We also found a positive effect on non-head participation especialilly in families with low human capial. But, more important, we found evidence that the minimum wage ends up being regressive, improving the living conditions of families in the middle and the upper part of the income distribution with net losses for those at the bottom.Minimum wage, income distribution,income inequality, public policy.

Percolation for the stable marriage of Poisson and Lebesgue with random appetites

Let $\Xi$ be a set of centers chosen according to a Poisson point process in $\mathbb R^d$. Consider the allocation of $\mathbb R^d$ to $\Xi$ which is stable in the sense of the Gale-Shapley marriage problem, with the additional feature that every center $\xi\in\Xi$ has a random appetite $\alpha V$, where $\alpha$ is a nonnegative scale constant and $V$ is a nonnegative random variable. Generalizing previous results by Freire, Popov and Vachkovskaia (\cite{FPV}), we show the absence of percolation when $\alpha$ is small enough, depending on certain characteristics of the moment of $V$.Comment: 12 pages. Final versio

Political Institutions and Policy Outcomes in Colombia: the Effects of the 1991 Constitution

Abstract: The 1991 Colombian constitution strengthened the checks and balances of the political system by enhancing the role of Congress and the Constitutional Court, while somewhat limiting the powers of the president (who nonetheless remains extremely powerful even for Latin American standards). As a consequence of the larger number of relevant players, and the removal of barriers that restricted political participation, the political system gained in terms of representation. However, political transaction costs increased, making cooperation harder to achieve. We show that this has been typically the case of fiscal policy, where the use of rigid rules, the constitutionalization of some policies, and reduction in legislative success rates -due to the presence of a more divided and fragmented congress- have limited the adaptability and flexibility of policies. In contrast, in other areas of policy -such as monetary policy and regulation of public utilities- that were formally delegated to the technocracy, policies have been more adaptable to economic shocks, delivering better outcomes.Instituciones políticas, Política fiscal, Participación política.Political institutions, policymaking, policy outcomes

Political Institutions and Policy Outcomes in Colombia: The Effects of the 1991 Constitution

The 1991 Colombian Constitution strengthened the checks and balances of the political system by enhancing the role of Congress and the Constitutional Court, while somewhat limiting the powers of the President (who nonetheless remains extremely powerful even by Latin American standards). As a consequence of the larger number of relevant players, and the removal of barriers that restricted political participation, the political system has gained in terms of representation. However, political transaction costs have increased, making cooperation harder to achieve. We show that this has been typically the case in fiscal policy, where the use of rigid rules, the constitutionalization of some policies, and a reduction in legislative success rates-due to the presence of a more divided and fragmented Congress-have limited the adaptability and flexibility of policies. In contrast, in other areas of policy that were formally delegated to the technocracy, such as monetary policy and regulation of public utilities, policies have been more adaptable to economic shocks, delivering better outcomes.

Introducció

Cada vez más se hace necesario reflexionar sobre el actual sistema de servicios de atención y de intervención socioeducativa.Tanto por parte de las adminsitraciones públicas, como de las entitades privadas que trabajan con sectores de poblalción que presentan dificultades se reconoce la necesidad y urgencia de incidir sobre políticas coordinadas y más eficientes y adecuadas a la nueva realidad social.Reflection on the current care services system and socio-educational intervention is a growing need. Both public administrations as well as the private organisations that work with population sectors with difficulties recognise the need and urgency of insisting on a more efficient, coordinated policy adapted to our new social times