The purpose of this article is to improve the empirical evidence on commodity prices in various dimensions. First, we attempt to identify the extent of comovements in 44 monthly nonenergy commodity price series in order to ascertain whether the increase in comovement is a recent term phenomenon. Second, we attempt to determine the role of uncertainty in determining comovements among nonenergy prices in the short run. We diagnose the overall comovement using a dynamic factor model estimated by principal components. A factor-augmented vector autoregressive approach is used to assess the relationship of fundamentals, financial and uncertainty variables with the comovement in commodity prices. We find a greater synchronization among raw materials since December 2003. Since that date, uncertainty has played an important role in determining short-run fluctuations in nonenergy raw material prices.

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The study developed by Stock and Watson (1991) has served as a catalyst for the construction of monthly indicators of economic activity. However, its application has been focused on national statistics. In this article we develop a new empirical strategy of three steps to build regional economic indicators on a monthly basis that can be replicated in provinces or municipalities in Latin America. We apply this empirical strategy to develop the Monthly Indicator of Economic Activity (in Spanish, IMAE) for one of the main regions of Colombia: Valle del Cauca.El estudio desarrollado por Stock y Watson (1991) ha servido de catalizador para la construcción de indicadores mensuales de la actividad económica. Sin embargo, su aplicación se ha centrado en las estadísticas nacionales. En este artículo desarrollamos una estrategia empírica de tres pasos para la construcción de indicadores de actividad económica mensuales regionales que pueden ser replicados en provincias o municipios de América Latina. Dicha estrategia empírica la empleamos en la construcción del Indicador Mensual de Actividad Económica (IMAE) en una de las principales regiones de Colombia: Valle del Cauca.At the international level, the study developed by Stock and Watson (1991) has served as a catalyst for the construction of monthly indicators of economic activity. Such indicators enable the monitoring of general economic conditions before gross domestic product (GDP) data are published because statistical offices typically record GDP on a quarterly basis and publish the first results after several weeks.However, the application of this methodology has been focused on national statistics. There are very few examples of monthly indicators of economic activity for a region within a country. We did not find any regional indicators that were constructed using Stock and Watson's (1991) methodology in Latin America. In international literature, we identified only two applications, both in the United States: the work by Megna and Xu (2003,(701)(702)(703)(704)(705)(706)(707)(708)(709)(710)(711)(712)(713) This article applies a version of this methodology that is adjusted on the basis of the characteristics of the data that are usually present at regional level. The contributions of this study are twofold; first, we develop a three-step empirical strategy to build regional economic indicators on a monthly basis that can be replicated in provinces or municipalities in Latin America; that is, we add two more steps to the conventional methodology of Stock and Watson (1991). Second, we apply this empirical strategy to develop the Monthly Indicator of Economic Activity (in Spanish, IMAE) for one of the main regions of Colombia: Valle del Cauca. However, the interest of the study goes beyond the specific case of the Valle del Cauca, which is presented as an example of the viability and applicability of the empirical strategy that we propose.Valle del Cauca occupies a strategic geographic position for Colombia, because it is the gateway to trade with Asia and the entir...

This paper employs a multivariate constant conditional correlation (CCC) GARCH model and the VAR-AGARCH model to examine whether the U.S. equity and money market have a volatility spillover effect on the returns of the most important agricultural export products of Latin America over the turbulent 2005–2016 period. These results indicate the strengthening of crossmarket linkages between U.S. equity and money market and agricultural raw material commodities (notably sugar and soy) during the period of an upward trend and financial turmoil.

This paper identifies and assesses the economic value of the main natural benefits relating to the complex system of wetlands (CSW) belonging to the San Juan River in the Colombian Magdalena Medio. This is a region rich in biodiversity and natural resources, which in the past was hit by violence and the actions of different armed groups. Benefit estimation takes into account diverse monetary valuation techniques, such as market prices for direct wetland uses and the transfer of benefits, for the assessment of indirect use and non-use values. The results reveal that the most important values relate to ecotourism (60.1%) as a possible future use of the CSW, the benefit of preventing flooding (28.4%), and the biodiversity that inhabits the area (6.7%). All three values represent the total economic value of the CSW. This research also finds that the benefits of the ecosystems currently provided by the CSW exceed the opportunity cost, represented by the total conversion of the area to livestock. Lastly, the net present value (NPV) of 25 and 75 years, relating to the benefits of the CSW, exceeds the income from the conversion of land to livestock, revealing profitable investments in conservation and ecotourism projects.

Este artículo analiza el impacto de la política monetaria en la tasa de desempleo no aceleradora de la inflación (NAIRU), o equilibrio de los mercados de trabajo para los países que pertenecen a la Alianza del Pacífico (Chile, Colombia, Perú y México). Los movimientos NAIRU se determinan para cada país. Además, se estiman modelos de vectores autorregresivos para evaluar el impacto de la política monetaria en el mercado laboral de cada uno de los países de la Alianza del Pacífico. Los resultados muestran que la política monetaria impacta la NAIRU de Chile, Colombia y Perú, mientras que los shocks de tal política no tienen repercusión significativa en la NAIRU de México.

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Impacto del tipo de cambio real en los sectores industriales de Colombia: una primera aproximación Lya Paola Sierra y Karina Manrique L. RESUMENSe ha hablado mucho sobre posibles síntomas del síndrome holandés en Colombia, luego de un pronunciado aumento de los precios de los productos básicos y una apreciación real significativa de la moneda nacional. En este estudio se examina si el tipo de cambio efectivo real tuvo un impacto en la industria entre 2000 y 2010. En particular, se evalúa el efecto de la apreciación del tipo de cambio real en el valor agregado de 63 sectores industriales colombianos, utilizando el estimador del método generalizado de momentos (mgm) de Arellano y Bond (1991). En general, los resultados confirman la existencia de una relación negativa entre la apreciación del tipo de cambio real y la industria. El análisis mostró que la apreciación del tipo de cambio real repercutió significativamente en el valor agregado de 21 sectores: con un efecto negativo en 18 sectores y un efecto positivo en 3 de ellos. PALABRAS CLAVEInestabilidad monetaria, industria, desarrollo industrial, competitividad, modelos econométricos, datos estadísticos, Colombia CLASIFICACIÓN JEL O24, L60, F31AUTORAS