Central goverment deficit: Economic costs and central bank independence in Colombia since 1991

Since 1991, public finance of the Colombian Central Government reveals an explosive pattern in the burden in terms of GDP of interest payments of public debt, reaching levels over 4%. This behavior is deeply connected with a debt financing public policy based on issuing public debt in the private fi...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Parada-Corrales, Jairo, Albor-Cepeda, Cristina
Formato: Revistas
Lenguaje:Español
Publicado: Universidad de Cartagena 2011
Acceso en línea:https://revistas.unicartagena.edu.co/index.php/panoramaeconomico/article/view/347
Descripción
Sumario:Since 1991, public finance of the Colombian Central Government reveals an explosive pattern in the burden in terms of GDP of interest payments of public debt, reaching levels over 4%. This behavior is deeply connected with a debt financing public policy based on issuing public debt in the private financial market subjected to oligopolistic rates determined by a small group of financial agents that are price makers. This work is oriented to establish the macroeconomic effects of the reorientation of public debt financing policy in Colombia since the Constitution of 1991 was implemented, developing a theoretical, institutional and empirical inquiry regarding the causes of the explosive growth of the domestic public debt observed, based on orthodox recommendations inspired on the Washington consensus and the so called new consensus in Macroeconomics. These assumptions privileged inflation targeting and the almost absolute impossibility of using primary emission as a less expensive central government deficit financing, which forced the government to lend in private financial markets with higher social and economic costs compared with the same variables in previous decades.