El presente documento busca evidencia de los efectos dinámicos de la política fiscal colombiana sobre variables como PIB real, precios y tasas de interés, teniendo en cuenta de manera explícita el efecto que tiene la deuda sobre las variables fiscales, vía restricción presupuestaria intertemporal del gobierno. Para tal fin, se emplea un modelo VAR estructural (SVAR), utilizando datos trimestrales durante el período 1990:2-2007:1, mediante el cual se identifican claramente choques exógenos sobre las variables fiscales; asimismo, se estiman los efectos de política fiscal sobre las variables a través de las funciones impulso-respuesta. La incidencia de la deuda sobre las variables fiscales se estima en dos modelos: un modelo SVAR base, en el cual se omite el efecto de la deuda sobre las variables fiscales y otro en el cual se incluye explícitamente, con el ánimo de “rastrear” los efectos dinámicos sobre estas variables.

This paper aims to demonstrate empirically the effects of fiscal policy on output and income distribution in Colombia for the period 1990-2006. It sought to establish whether fiscal policy has been effective in achieving stabilization of the economy and reducing distributive gaps. In order to carry out it uses a VAR model with quarterly reporting of spending and taxes from national government, real GDP and the Gini coefficient. This issue is relevant for at least two reasons. First, there appears to be no consensus among economist about the magnitude and the sign of the effects of fiscal policy, which is a good opportunity to provide evidence, marginally, on the subject for a developing country. Secondly, fiscal policy has been viewed as a good instrument to directly affect both in economic cycle as the inequality. Therefore, the inclusion of this latter variable in these models is a valuable manner to assess fiscal policy both from standpoint of their effectiveness in accomplishing this objective as to establish which instruments achieve this objective better.

La evidencia internacional muestra que la actividad económica se ve afectada por los choques de la política fiscal. En este trabajo se caracterizan los efectos dinámicos del gasto y los ingresos del Gobierno nacional colombiano sobre el producto interno bruto (PIB) y la demanda agregada para el periodo 1990-2007. Para ello se utiliza un modelo estructural de vectores autorregresivos (SVAR) con información trimestral. Los resultados evidencian los efectos keynesianos tanto de la tributación como del gasto gubernamental y de sus componentes (consumo e inversión), aunque sus efectos son de baja persistencia.

This paper seeks evidence on the presence of partisan or opportunistic political cycles with regard to the management of tax policy in Colombia and the effect on income distribution. In order to do this an econometric model is used taking into account variables such as total tax revenue, direct and indirect, the real GDP cycle and inflation, by means of annual data for the period 1905- 2006. We also used dummy variables to represent the presidential periods, by political party and periods close to elections. These variables also represent election periods to Congress. Once the political cycles are studied, we analyze the impact this has on the distribution of income for the period from 1976 to 2006. The results show an opportunistic management with regard to tax policy, but changes in income distribution are due more to a partisan court management