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REVISTA DE ECONOMÍA
INSTITUCIONAL No. 12, FIRST SEMESTER 2005
The Test of
Reasonability and Stable Rules of the Game 
María Mercedes Cuéllar [pdf] [html]
[Key words: test of reasonability, rules of the game,
constitutional decisions, jurisprudence; JEL: H89, K10, K20]
This article explores the implicit rationality of the
sentences of Colombia's Constitutional Court in cases
related to the wages of public servants, housing, value
added taxes, workers' rights and the central bank. It
emphasizes the legal system established by the Constitution
of 1991 and the meaning of the test of reasonability used in
sentences of the Constitutional Court. It faults Colombian
economists for not having fully understood and analyzed the
implications of the Constitution of 1991; and judges for
changes in judicial precedents that are not clearly
justified.
Have Tax Reforms
Increased Revenue in Colombia?
Mario García Molina and Ana Paola Gómez [pdf] [html]
[Key words: tax reforms, revenue, tax, Colombia; JEL: C22,
H23, H39, O23]
The efficacy of tax reforms is estimated for the period
1973-2000 using three
ARIMAX models for the real revenue and the revenue/GDP
ratio. The analysis, including only those reforms changing
tax bases and/or tariffs, or that aim to increase revenue or
reduce evasion, shows that only two out of the fifteen
reforms considered managed to have an impact upon revenue,
those of 1974 and 1990, whose effect is permanent.
Structural Reform, Wage Restraint
and Increased Profits: the Mexican Experience
Alicia Puyana and José Romero [pdf] [html]
[Key words: wage, profit, skills, technology,
liberalization; JEL: J21, J24, J31, O15, O32]
In Mexico, wages have stagnated and profits have increased
since 1980. This paper analyzes the causes of this
performance both at an aggregate and sectorial level.
Although in theory trade liberalization should have led to
increased wages and a reduction of profits, an unlimited
supply of labor prevented wages from increasing and
transformed productivity gains in higher returns on capital.
Growth of qualified employment was not the result of
generalized technological advances; it reflected changes in
the composition of labor supply. Higher investment in human
capital does not necessarily lead to higher productivity or
income. If the improvement in education of the labor force
is to generate higher productivity, a public policy of
stimulus for economic growth is required.
Neoclassical
Utility Theory: a Semantic Game of Strategic Interaction
Boris Salazar and Andrés Cendales [pdf] [html]
[Key words: neoclassical utility, semantic games, strategic
interaction, parlor games; JEL: C70, C79, D89]
This article suggests that the methodological strength of
what is known as the neoclassic utility theory (NCUT) comes
from the relationship between the parlor games, typical of
formal logic, and the seek and find games which are founded
in the modal logic. Through the use of the semantic games we
will establish two points: the conditions for the strategic
interaction between the neoclassic player, who seeks to
construct ideal utility functions, and an opponent who
proposes tough counter examples, as well as semantics for
the NCUT. In addition, we suggest that expansion of NCUT to
other possible worlds does depend on the transformations
carried out in the original model-set.
Dialectics in
Economic Argumentation
Fernando Estrada Gallego [pdf] [html]
[Key words: dialectics, argumentation, epistemology,
controversy; JEL: A10, A12, B49]
This paper presents a group of argument models with the
purpose of highlighting which debate characteristics should
be kept in mind when analyzing written texts or oral
speeches in different activities of daily life. It describes
the importance of controversies in conceptual change and
epistemology illustrated with a typical case of the debate
on the challenges of free trade. The authors elaborate an
interpretation of the explanation/understanding dualism in
the social sciences through argumentation models and
controversies.
Information in
Contemporary Societies
Gabriel Misas Arango [pdf] [html]
[Key words: information, journalism, democracy, cultural
production, mass media; JEL: A12, D80, Z13]
This essay addresses the effects of journalism on politics,
democracy and cultural production in Colombia during the
past decade. The first part describes the characteristics of
journalism and strategies used by mass media to increase
market participation, as well as journalism's influence in
other fields and its capacity distorting its own
environment. The second part analyzes the relationship
between democracy and the power of communication. Some
suggestions on how to control that power are made.
The Design and
Experience of Health Regulation in Colombia
Jairo Humberto Restrepo Zea and Sandra Rodríguez Acosta [pdf] [html]
[Key words: regulations, institutions, public choice, social
security, health care system; JEL: D43, I18, L51]
Colombia adopted a health care system with regulated
competition in the interaction of several markets:
insurance, medical services, hospitalization and drugs. In
this regulatory scheme, a collegiate body and two central
dependencies of the executive branch intervene. Overall, the
regulation design is appropriate; however, there are
problems both in the coordination and monitoring of the
norms. There are also critical aspects due to the lack of
strategy or long run planning and some inherent elements of
the collegiate body's structure and operation which puts in
doubt its autonomy and its search for general welfare in the
decision making processes.
Health Market
Failures in Colombia: the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Case
Liliana Chicaíza [pdf] [html]
[Key words: chronic renal insufficiency, demand induction,
oligopoly firm's incentives, high cost; JEL: D43, I11, I18]
Chronic renal insufficiency is one of the highest cost
pathologies of greater financial impact for the general
system of social security health care in Colombia. High-cost
case concentration in some health entities made it necessary
to distribute resources and patients to other entities in
order to counteract the financial unbalance. This paper
proposes that demand induction is the principal failure in
this case. It presents some hypotheses regarding incentives
facing firms in an oligopolic market and argues for the
necessity of regulatory intervention in prices and quality
and, especially, prevention.
Contractual Forms in Emergency
Services: An Economic Transaction Cost Perspective
Sergio Torres Valdivieso, Rafael Guillermo García
Cáceres and John Jairo Quintero [pdf] [html]
[Key words: contractual forms, emergency services,
transaction costs, production costs, JEL: C19, I11, I18,
L51]
This paper evaluates how third level of attention hospitals
in Bogotá choose between different contractual arrangements
with health maintenance organizations (HMO), using criteria
which seek to reduce transaction costs. Williamson's
theoretical framework is used as a basis for an empirical
test. Likert scales are used to operationalize the
independent variables and the stochastic multicriteria
acceptability analysis (SMAA) and multiple discriminant
analysis (MDA) for the test of the hypothesis. Results
indicate that both HMO's and third level of attention
hospitals in Bogotá seek to reduce production rather than
transactions costs.
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