Output Gap and Neutral Interest Measures for Colombia
The series Working Papers on Economics is published by the Office for Economic Studies at the Banco de la República (Central Bank of Colombia). The works published are provisional, and their authors are fully responsible for the opinions expressed in them, as well as for possible mistakes. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Banco de la República or its Board of Directors.
In this paper two new measures of the Colombian output gap and the real neutral interest rate are proposed. Instead of relying only on statistical filters, the proposed measures use semi-structural New-Keynesian models, adapted for a small open economy. The output gap measures presented are in line with previous works for Colombia and capture all the turning points of the Colombian business cycle, as measured by Alfonso et al. (2011). They are also strongly correlated with inflation and precede its movements along the sample. The neutral interest rate computed indicates that the monetary policy stance has been overall countercyclical, but has failed to anticipate the output gap’s movements, or at least react strongly enough to them.
A previous version of this paper was presented as a thesis to obtain a master’s degree in economics from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Of course, any remaining errors are the sole responsability of the authors. The results and opinions expressed in this document do not compromise in any way the Banco de la República, its board of governors or the Inter-American Development Bank.
