David Zavaleta

Diminishing commodity prices and increasing world interest rates are the two main expected outcomes from slowdown of emerging economies and growth recovery of advanced economies in the post financial crisis. A CGE model is used to analyze commodity shocks in a natural resource country framework with two export oriented resource sectors (gas & oil and minerals) and mainly two emerging tradable sectors (food and manufacturing) with dominant import substitution orientation. Positive shocks of unusual magnitude in the pre-crisis generate strong Dutch disease (DD) effects but also unusual levels of government income, savings and investment, giving rise to a growth opportunity. A negative shock to the mineral sector in the post-crisis does not reverse the growth opportunity as long as the gas & oil sector remains strong. However, policy would be required to help absorb the labor released and in the long-run structural reforms are needed to significantly diminish built-in DD effects in this sector. If in addition a significant negative shock hits the gas & oil sector, the economy can experience negative growth. Having a stabilization fund would help in this scenario, but to avoid it altogether sector policy is more important. Additionally, a DSGE model with tradable/non-tradable sectors and skilled/unskilled savers/not savers workers is calibrated to analyze the conditions under which capital flight might occur under increasing world interest rates in the post-crisis. These conditions require a significant degree of macroeconomic deterioration which is not being observed, but point to some key variables to follow, such as the level of net external assets held by the country.

Se utiliza un modelo de Equilibrio General Computable para analizar los impactos externos a los precios de los commodities, en el contexto de un país (Bolivia) abundante en recursos naturales, con dos sectores orientados a la exportación de recursos naturales (gas natural y petróleo y minerales), además de otros dos sectores emergentes de productos transables (alimentos y manufacturas básicas), con una orientación dominante hacia la sustitución de importaciones. El objetivo es estudiar cómo cambió la estructura económica de Bolivia en un periodo de altos precios internacionales de sus recursos naturales y anticipar cómo tendría que ajustarse dicha estructura en un nuevo periodo de menores precios internacionales. ¿Bajo qué condiciones se revertirá el periodo de auge? ¿Está Bolivia preparada?

A Computable General Equilibrium model is used to analyze commodity shocks in an abundant natural resource country (Bolivia), with two export oriented resource sectors (oil & gas and minerals), two emerging tradable sectors (food and manufacturing) with dominant import substitution orientation and several non-tradable sectors. The objective is to study how the structure of the economy changed in the period of high international resource prices and how that structure would change again in the new period of low prices. In the process, the Bolivian experience with dutch disease and resource blessing/curse is discovered which helps to understand the conditions and characteristics of the boom reversal. Is Bolivia prepared?

Se utiliza el enfoque de Segunda Generación de Descentralización Fiscal para establecer las características del diseño de la institucionalidad de la descentralización Boliviana. Luego se aplica el enfoque a los datos y contexto de las finanzas públicas subnacionales, estimándose modelos de panel que permiten identificar los incentivos implícitos contenidos en dicha institucionalidad, con el objeto de comprender el comportamiento de los gobiernos subnacionales y los resultados a los que dan lugar.