Editor´s Note
Ana María Iregui

The present issue of this journal contains six articles. In the first one, Andrés Felipe Londoño, Jorge Andrés Tamayo and Carlos Alberto Velásquez analyze the dynamics of monetary policy on real economic activity and prices in Colombia during the period 2001-2009. The authors´ methodology combines VAR models with recent developments in the field of dynamic factor analysis (FAVAR) and they develop different models to show the reaction of macroeconomic variables as an innovation in the monetary policy instrument. The results show that the FAVAR model adequately captures the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. In particular, they find that official interest rate decisions have their fullest effect on real variables with a lag of one year and a half, and their fullest effect on nominal variables (price index) with a lag of around two years.

The next article by Carlos Felipe Prada examines whether formal employment in Colombia deteriorated during the nineteen-nineties. The author uses the analysis of job transitions to determine whether the labor market is segmented. With this methodology he analyzes changes in the composition within the workforce; moreover, labor flows were studied and their determinants estimated. The results indicate that there was a massive and sustained change from the formal employment sector to the self-employed informal sector, mainly as a result of involuntary exit from a previous job.

In the third article, Leonardo Bonilla and Luis Armando Galvis assess the impact of teachers’ professionalization on the quality of schools, measured by the academic performance of students on the standardized test Saber 11. The authors find that the degree of teachers’ professionalization has a positive effect on student performance on the aforementioned test, even after controlling for effects associated with the individual, the family and the school, as well as with the municipality where the school is located. They also find that teachers´ professionalization tends to have a greater effect on maths than on language. Moreover, public spending on education has asserted a positive impact on the professionalization of teachers, whereas the adoption of the New Public Education Statute of 2002 has produced a negative effect.

In the article that follows Juan David Barón quantifies the existence of gaps in academic performance for students in Barranquilla relative to students in Bogota, which for many years have performed better on the Saber tests at different stages of the educational process (fifth, ninth and eleventh grades). The author also investigates the source of the gap using the Saber 11 test. The results show that the achievement gaps are sizeable, varying from 2% to 8%, depending on the level of education analyzed. The results also show that the determinants of academic performance in Barranquilla and Bogotá differ by city, achievement level and gender. In terms of the decomposition analysis, the author finds that differences in student and family characteristics explain from 30% to 100% of the achievement gap between these cities, depending on achievement level and gender.

In the fifth article, Andrés González, Sergio Ocampo, Diego Rodríguez and Norberto Rodríguez analyze the relationship between output and employment over time, since positive cycles in the product may be or not accompanied by positive changes in employment levels. The authors use VAR models to address this relationship as well as a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model for a small open economy that endogenously incorporates equilibrium unemployment and labor force changes. The results show that the relationship between output and employment depends on the driving force of the economic cycle. In particular, the authors find that technological shocks, which improve factor productivity, induce a negative correlation between output and employment, while non-technology shocks induce the opposite correlation.

Lastly, Martha López, Fernando Tenjo and Héctor Zárate present empirical evidence on the risk-taking channel of monetary policy using detailed information on commercial and consumer loans in the Colombian banking system during the period 2000-2011. Their results show that the banking system takes on more risk when interest rates are too low. They also find that the response for interest rates on commercial loans is higher than that for consumer loans.