Jorge Tovar

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Los Andes University (Colombia)

A number of soccer officials have long debated whether to ban soccer games played at high altitudes above sea level. This paper explores soccer player’s performance when playing at high elevations using data obtained from the Copa Libertadores. I propose a range of direct indicators of player performance when playing at high altitudes: the number o...

Longer lives and fertility far below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman are leading to rapid population aging in many countries. Many observers are concerned that aging will adversely affect public finances and standards of living. Analysis of newly available National Transfer Accounts data for 40 countries shows that fertility well abov...

There is abundant empirical evidence showing that asymmetric price adjustments exist in a wide variety of markets. Prices tend to rise faster when costs rise, relative to the rate at which prices drop when costs fall. This paper argues that a common knowledge reference price—a government suggested retail price—eases the existence of asymmetric pric...

Public transfers are designed with the idea of reducing poverty and inequality among specific population groups. The National Transfers Account methodology suggests the use of household head education (HHE) as poverty proxy in the construction of profiles by socio-economic status. Considering the higher levels of inequality in developing countries...

New estimates of economic flows by age combined with population projections show that in the coming decades (1) global GDP growth could be slower by about 1 percentage point per year, declining more sharply than population growth; (2) GDP will shift toward sub‐Saharan Africa more than population trends suggest; (3) living standards of working‐age a...

This chapter draws together the main arguments and results. There is a relative consensus that injustice exists in society. Soccer, an integral part of society, also survives with some level of injustice embedded in it. Accepting that a controversy-free sport is unachievable implies that the VAR instrument should be adjusted. Design to help referee...

This chapter draws from the theory of justice to explore the role of justice and fairness in soccer. Reviewing the writings of a variety of prominent thinkers, it seeks to understand the evolution of soccer’s institutions and the role of an arbitrator within a maximizing welfare objective. It uses controversial historical situations in the history...

This chapter debates about the use of VAR, drawing from the discussion in previous chapters. It shows, using several cases, that although the quest for justice and fairness is a natural objective in any society, fully achieving it is not possible. Although VAR was a relative success in Russia 2018 and France 2019, its use should be adjusted because...

This chapter uses detailed event-level data to determine and review every VAR intervention during the men's 2018 and the women's 2019 World Cup. Quantitatively, it examines the number of interventions, the causes, and outcomes of the VAR, as well as the referee's decision changes. It also checks the impact on the number of minutes played, on refere...

There are two significant innovations in soccer refereeing in the last decade. The history behind the approval of the goal-line technology and the video assistant referee allows the reader to understand the intrinsic difficulties in implementing new technologies in the conservative world of soccer. This chapter also reviews the relevant literature...

(This paper has OPEN ACCESS) In 2020 the world faces an unprecedented challenge consequence of the coronavirus pandemic. Soccer, arguably, one of the most globalized industries, has reacted to the event by closing down much of its operations. This paper reviews the speed and breadth of such closures and compares it to another major event in history...

The increasing national diversity of coworkers has no consensus on its impact on performance. Using a team's predominant nationality as a proxy for national diversity and national identity, there is robust evidence that it affects team and individual performance. Detailed worker‐level data from a highly globalized industry, association football, sh...

This chapter studies the time use patterns by age and sex in Colombia using the 2012 time use survey. Over the past three decades, Colombia experienced a fast demographic transition with a spectacular increase in educational coverage for primary and secondary levels, regardless of gender. However, the Time Transfers Accounts portrait a double burde...

This book provides a comparison of the measurement in time and monetary units of unpaid domestic work in Colombia, Costa Rica, Uruguay, and the Hispanic ethnicity in the United States. A standardized technique allows the development of comparable estimates across countries per age and gender which reveal specific behavioral patterns over the life c...

The increasing national diversity of co-workers has no consensus on its impact on performance. Using a team’s predominant nationality as proxy for national diversity and national identity, there is robust evidence that it affects performance. Detailed worker-level data from a highly globalized industry, association football, shows a non-linear rela...

Impreso en Colombia-Printed in Colombia La serie de Documentos de Trabajo CEDE se circula con propósitos de discusión y divulgación. Los artículos no han sido evaluados por pares ni sujetos a ningún tipo de evaluación formal por parte del equipo de trabajo del CEDE. El contenido de la presente publicación se encuentra protegido por las normas inter...

This paper develops for the first time the National Transfers Accounts for Colombia. It estimates the age profiles for all income and expenses in the economy flowing from the government to households and vice versa, as well as flows within and across households. The methodology allows us to describe each age group’s production and consumption level...

This paper studies the use of time distribution between paid and unpaid activities across age and gender in Colombia's households. Using the National Time Transfer Account methodology, we generate age profiles for paid and unpaid activities, as well as household time produced, consumed and transferred per gender. We find that male devote more time...

The global shift towards diets high in sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) is linked to higher prevalence of obesity, diabetes and most other non-communicable diseases. In Colombia, one out of every two people was overweight or obese by 2010. This study estimates price-elasticities from a Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System model, using the 2006–2007...

Uncompensated elasticities from QUAIDS censored model (low SES group). (PDF)

Uncompensated elasticities from QUAIDS uncensored model. (PDF)

Uncompensated elasticities from QUAIDS censored model (mid-high SES group). (PDF)

Este artículo estima empíricamente el efecto que el impuesto al valor agregado (IVA) tiene en los precios al consumidor. La estrategia de estimación aprovecha la frecuencia de las reformas tributarias en Colombia, que generan abundante variación en las series de tiempo del IVA. La identificación de los efectos del IVA en los precios se realiza util...

This paper seeks to understand and quantify how social safety net programs impact household savings in developing countries, considering the case of Colombia using two complementary approaches. The first approach explores how the health regime affects savings in the country. The second evaluates the impact on savings of familias en acción, a major...

A number of soccer officials have long debated whether to ban soccer games played at high altitude above sea level. This paper explores soccer player's passing behavior when playing at high elevations using Copa Libertadores data. For this, I propose a range of direct indicators when playing at high altitude: the number of total passes, the number...

This paper evaluates the importance of tobacco cultivation in Latin America. To this end the main variables of the sector will be analyzed, such as the quantity and value of production, the number of cultivated hectares and crop yields. The value of the sector as export strength is also studied. In addition, a comparison of direct employment genera...

Government intervention in the construction sector as a way to boost the economy has been a constant in Colombia for the past 90 years. This paper explicitly tests the impact of the most recent of such interventions: a subsidy to the mortgage interest rate. The results show that the subsidy boosted mortgage loans by around 38 percent. However, it i...

There is abundant empirical evidence testing models where comparative advantage arises from firm heterogeneity. As of today it is relatively clear who exports and why a firm decides to export. But, what determines the survival of a firm in the export market? This paper exploits a detailed developing economy monthly firm-level dataset for the period...

There is abundant empirical evidence showing that asymmetric price adjustments exist in a wide variety of markets. Prices tend to rise faster when costs rise, relative to the rate at which prices drop when costs fall. This paper argues that a common knowledge reference price—a government suggested retail price—eases the existence of asymmetric pric...

RobinsonJames and UrrutiaMiguel, eds. Economía Colombiana del Siglo XX. Un análisis cuantitativo. Bogota, Colombia: Banco de la República and Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2007. 678 pp. ISBN: 978-958-38-0139-6 $22.00 (paper). - Volume 11 Issue 3 - Jorge Tovar

The title of the book, The Colombian Economy in the Twentieth Century: A Quantitative Analysis, is a very precise description of its contents. In an introduction and twelve chapters, James Robinson and Miguel Urrutia bring together nineteen Colombian experts to study, in Spanish, the evolution of the Colombian economy during the twentieth century....

El proceso de manumisión en Colombia

This paper empirically estimates the pass-thought of the value-added tax (VAT) on Colombian consumer prices. The identification strategy uses the consumer price index and takes advantage of the relatively frequent tax reforms that have taken place recently in Colombia. The results suggest that the pass-through for the consumer basket s about one at...

Este trabajo cuantifica el impacto del IVA sobre el gasto de los hogares utilizando la enorme variación relativa del IVA en Colombia como estrategia de identificación. Para tal efecto se correlaciona el IVA con el gasto de los hogares según se reporta en la Encuesta Continua de Hogares (ECH). La estimación se realiza para tres rubros de gasto prese...

This paper explores the evolution of the agricultural sector in Colombia between the early 1970s and 2007. Considering both productivity and harvested areas as sources of growth, we find that the latter has fallen 25% while the former has remained constant over the last 16 years. Therefore, due to various protection measures the agricultural sector...

This paper includes a thorough descriptive and analytical study of household savings in Colombia. For this purpose, a household savings variable is constructed based on the 1997 and 2003 Living Standards Measurement Survey (Encuesta de Calidad de Vida) for Colombia. The study concludes that the capacity for savings is concentrated, almost exclusive...

this paper quantifies the impact of VAT on household expenditures by taking advantage of the relative variation of VAT in Colombia; this variation is usually used as identification strategy. To this end, we use data drawn from the Encuesta Continua de Hogares (Continuous Household Survey) and we correlate the VAT and household expenditures. In doin...

This paper discusses the way in which the Colombian Tax Code determines the taxable base of the value added tax (VAT). Our analysis shows that the Colombian legislation fails to exploit some of the theoretical advantages of the tax, as it induces cascading and distortions of input prices in production. We carry out a numerical simulation to illustr...

This paper examines the relationship between risk, concentration and the exercise of market power by banking institutions. We use monthly balance-sheet and interest rate data for the Colombian banking system from 1997 to 2006. The evidence shows that, in the face of high risk, banks transfer a larger share of risk to customers through higher interm...

Este trabajo discute, a la luz de la teoría tributaria, la manera de calcular el impuesto al valor agregado (IVA) de acuerdo con el Artículo 447 del Estatuto Tributario colombiano. El análisis teórico muestra que la implementación del IVA en Colombia no permite explotar todas las ventajas que el impuesto tiene en la teoría. En particular, la prácti...

Este trabajo se centra en estimar el impacto que el impuesto al valor agregado (IVA) tiene sobre los precios al consumidor en Colombia. La estrategia de estimación aprovecha la frecuencia de las reformas tributarias, que generan abundante variación en las series de tiempo de tasas de impuestos. La identificación de los efectos del IVA sobre los pre...

There is abundant empirical evidence showing that asymmetric price adjustments exist in a wide variety of markets. Prices tend to grow faster when costs rise relative to the rate at which prices drop when costs fall. The objective of this paper is to empirically test whether asymmetric price adjustments exist in a scenario where costs are increasin...

Se trata de un documento dedicado a revelar los principales rasgos del mercado de cr�dito para Vivienda de Inter�s Social, VIS, para la poblaci�n pobre en Colombia y a analizar los resultados de la pol�tica durante lo corrido del presente milenio. La primera mitad del estudio estudia la oferta VIS sobre los resultados de 70 encuestas aplicadas a of...

Un diagnóstico de suelo y vivienda para las ciudades de Cartagena y su área de influencia, así como para Bucaramanga y su área metropolitana, que da cuenta de los incentivos que tienen los hogares y promotores de vivienda para optar por el mercado formal o informal de suelo y de vivienda y los mecanismos institucionales existentes para afrontar el...

The objective of this paper is to measure the impact of trade on the sectoral labor markets. Using the Colombian National Household Survey and comparable trade-related data, we study how changes in trade policy affect the sectoral demands for labor, as measured by the change in wages and employment. We develop a structural model and estimate its re...

De allí que este informe se encuentre estructurado en ocho secciones. La presente introducción es la primera sección. A continuación, una sección por entera dedicada a entender el funcionamiento y estructura de la cadena petroquímica, partiendo del actual complejo de Mamonal y de la cadena productiva que de allí se deriva, los fundamentos técni...

In this paper I examine the effects of trade liberalization on firms’ performance and consumers’ welfare. Using product level data, I study firms’ performance in the Colombian automobile industry. Given my disaggregated data I can estimate pre and post-reform price-cost margins, as well as calculate the results by origin of production. Before the r...

This paper discusses the way in which the Colombian Tax Code determines the taxable base of the value added tax (VAT). Our analysis shows that the Colombian legislation fails to exploit some of the theoretical advan- tages of the tax, as it induces cascading and distortions of input prices in production. We carry out a numerical simulation to illus...