núm. 10 (2008)

The change in the theoretical ways to understand the phenomena is coupled with the complexity that they develop by themselves. At the same time, instrumental ways needed to measure are being developed. So it is possible to see substantive changes in the way to measure the demand for residential electric power. It will move from large aggregates to the use of microdata. From a functional log-linear form to the incorporation of the asymmetries, through the binary choice and design that made that the power is equivalent to an intermediate service as it serves to produce goods or services at home. It was also reported a widespread use of time series and co integration analysis. But even at the time this state of art is described, many of the themes of this type of demand are not solved and developments after 1994, in Colombia will give another meaning to the use of electricity.

This paper compares the monetary policy in the cases of the Federal Reserve in the American Economy and the Central Bank in Colombia that follows an inflation policy, by analyzing the effects of the shocks produced by movements in the rate of interest, essential instrument of the policy, over inflation, credit and financial markets by using a structural VAR. From the results, it concludes that the monetary policy transmission is faster in the American case. In the Colombian case, the monetary policy effect works slowly and generates an important volatility in the credit demand and the rates of interest of the public debt too. The control of the demand inflationary pressures is more complicated in the Colombian case respect to America. It requires from the Central Bank in Colombia a less accommodating policy in order to get a long term price stability, which in an open economy is subject to the development of the financial and credit markets, notwithstanding the policy adopted by the central bank.

The increasing degradation of natural resources, due to conventional agriculture in the Andean zone, forces to restructure agriculture towards sustainable agro ecosystems. In Colombia, people are worried about the negative effects of man-made actions on water, soils and biodiversity. Therefore, there are a large number of institutions working from different approaches to preserve these resources and to promote sustainable agriculture activities. However, in spite of the large amount of human resources, appropriate budgets and physical and virtual tools, they are not significantly contributing in the sustainable agricultural changes due to a complete lack of connections and of institutional networks. An exploration of this institutional system was made with emphasis in the Andean central region of Colombia. Weaknesses and opportunities were found. We believe that political support may allow the formulation of strategies that will contribute to the optimization of resources and research, constituting real innovation networks in order to promote the institutional contribution to the sustainable agricultural restructuring processes.

This paper aims to review the causes of international migration and the potential impact of FTAs (Free TradeAgreements) on latin american migrations. The first part describes the economic and non-economic causes for migration. The second one shows the potential impact of FTAs in the economy (job creation/destruction by sectors) in CAFTA countries and Colombia.The last part shows that there is little correlation between the commercial openness (FTAs) and the reduction of poverty. Poverty seems to be increasing in the studied countries –even more in those with the most open commercial regimens, than in those with the most closed ones. Data proves that openness doesn’t reduce the poverty automatically; on the contrary, in some (regional or subregional) cases it increases and causes a major determinant of international migration in latin american countries.

The housing construction sector has historically been one of the most important ones from the social and economic point of view, especially in Colombia. Many impacts are created from the process of house building, principally on the GDP and the variables related to it. The first part of this paper shows how important this sector is for the Colombian economy from a review of statistical data, then, different applications of input-oputput model for the construction sector in Colombia are developed, verifying how important this sector has been on the economic activity; finding that there is a great participation on employment and also an increase in exploiting raw surplus, along with a decrease in the wage levels in the added value.

This article makes an exploration of microcredit from its beginning with the Grameen Bank and the methodology used by Muhammad Yunus. It presents a theoretical approximation of what the credit market is and the problems it has. It also analyses the model of solidarity groups and how they allow eliminating the asymmetries of the credit market and, finally, it presents an analysis of the Microcredit in Colombia regarding the amounts of placement and rates of interest since it has been formalized as Opportunities Banking policy.

The purpose of this article is to carry out an analysis of theoretical debate that has been raised around the determination of the social rate of discount used inthe projects appraisal with long term environmental impacts. Thus, it describes the evolution of the debateand the concept of the discount and its role inthe models of economic growth and the maximization of the social welfare are reviewed. Also, this paper analyzes diverse critics raised to the traditional approach of determination of the discount used inthe cost-benefit analysis. Subsequently, three mainalternative proposals for the determination of thelong term discount rate are studied. From the empirical evidence, raised by diverse studies that favor the use of low discount rates, it is concluded that the social rate of discount used to evaluate projects with impact in the long term should be a declining rate inthe time and not a constant rate of discount.