IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/pugtwp/332849.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Plunge in Oil Prices: Sectoral and Employment Dynamics in Colombia

Author

Listed:
  • Arguello, Ricardo

Abstract

From the first half of the 2000s until 2012 the Colombian economy was under the influence of an oil and mining production and export boom that triggered the potential for Dutch disease effects and led the government to implement policies for facing them. Concurrently with the phasing in of the policy intervention, an abrupt fall in oil prices ensued and the economy faced an important balance of payments shock. As a consequence it is relevant to ask what the effects of the plunge in oil prices and of policy intervention could be on sectoral and employment dynamics, as the shock essentially reverses the process that the economy was following until 2012 in a typical boom and boost fashion. For this, we use a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model, calibrated to a 2011 Social Accounting Matrix of the Colombian economy, in which activities are differentiated in terms of their formal and informal components, and suitable details are included to account for the stream of income the government receives from the oil sector. The model has a rich representation of the labor market as it differentiates between the formal and informal segments, allowing for unemployment in the formal segment and limited migration of labor from the formal to the informal segment. We find that the oil price plunge decreases the economy’s growth rate in a significant manner and lowers demand for labor in general with a bias against formal activities and skilled labor. Furthermore, we find that the policy intervention makes matters worse and suggest that the government should consider temporarily suspending operation of the policy or implementing alternative policies that help prevent the relative informalization of the labor market.

Suggested Citation

  • Arguello, Ricardo, 2017. "The Plunge in Oil Prices: Sectoral and Employment Dynamics in Colombia," Conference papers 332849, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:pugtwp:332849
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/332849/files/8731.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Spatafora, Nikola & Warner, Andrew, 1995. "Macroeconomic effects of terms-of-trade shocks : the case of oil-exporting countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1410, The World Bank.
    2. Diana Marcela Jiménez, 2012. "La informalidad laboral en América Latina: ¿explicación estructuralista o institucionalista?," Revista Cuadernos de Economia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, FCE, CID, December.
    3. Xavier Sala-i-Martin & Arvind Subramanian, 2013. "Addressing the Natural Resource Curse: An Illustration from Nigeria," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 22(4), pages 570-615, August.
    4. Harris, John R & Todaro, Michael P, 1970. "Migration, Unemployment & Development: A Two-Sector Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 126-142, March.
    5. Corden, W Max & Neary, J Peter, 1982. "Booming Sector and De-Industrialisation in a Small Open Economy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(368), pages 825-848, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arguello, Ricardo & Jimenez, Dora, 2015. "Dutch Disease, Informality, and Employment Intensity in Colombia," Conference papers 332597, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    2. Olivier Cadot & Jaime de Melo & Patrick Plane & Laurent Wagner & Martha Tesfaye Woldemichael, 2016. "Industrialisation et transformation structurelle : l’Afrique subsaharienne peut-elle se développer sans usines ?," Revue d’économie du développement, De Boeck Université, vol. 24(2), pages 19-49.
    3. Brahmbhatt, Milan & Canuto, Otaviano & Vostroknutova, Ekaterina, 2010. "Dealing with Dutch Disease," World Bank - Economic Premise, The World Bank, issue 16, pages 1-7, June.
    4. Cappelli, Federica & Carnazza, Giovanni & Vellucci, Pierluigi, 2023. "Crude oil, international trade and political stability: Do network relations matter?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    5. Steinberg, Daniel, 2017. "Resource shocks and human capital stocks – Brain drain or brain gain?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 250-268.
    6. Sharri Byron, 2012. "Examining Foreign Aid Fungibility in Small Open Economies," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 675-712, September.
    7. Badeeb, Ramez Abubakr & Lean, Hooi Hooi & Clark, Jeremy, 2017. "The evolution of the natural resource curse thesis: A critical literature survey," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 123-134.
    8. Bo Zhou & Lei Jiang, 2022. "Unsustainable Urban Development Based on Temporary Workers: A Study on the Changes of Immigration in Macau between 1992 and 2019," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-19, November.
    9. Joya, Omar, 2015. "Growth and volatility in resource-rich countries: Does diversification help?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 38-55.
    10. Hailu, Degol & Kipgen, Chinpihoi, 2017. "The Extractives Dependence Index (EDI)," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 251-264.
    11. Nouf Alsharif & Sambit Bhattacharyya & Maurizio Intartaglia, 2016. "Economic Diversification in Resource Rich Countries: Uncovering the State of Knowledge," Working Paper Series 09816, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    12. Hiroyuki Taguchi & Ni Lar, 2016. "The Resource Curse Hypothesis Revisited: Evidence from Asian Economies," Bulletin of Applied Economics, Risk Market Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 31-42.
    13. Alberola, Enrique & Benigno, Gianluca, 2017. "Revisiting the commodity curse: A financial perspective," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(S1), pages 87-106.
    14. Beck, Thorsten & Poelhekke, Steven, 2023. "Follow the money: Does the financial sector intermediate natural resource windfalls?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    15. van der Ploeg, Frederick & Venables, Anthony J., 2013. "Absorbing a windfall of foreign exchange: Dutch disease dynamics," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 229-243.
    16. Aqib Aslam & Samya Beidas-Strom & Mr. Rudolfs Bems & Oya Celasun & Zsoka Koczan, 2016. "Trading on Their Terms? Commodity Exporters in the Aftermath of the Commodity Boom," IMF Working Papers 2016/027, International Monetary Fund.
    17. Segal, Paul, 2012. "How to spend it: Resource wealth and the distribution of resource rents," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 340-348.
    18. Carrington, Sarah J. & Herrero Olarte, Susana & Urbina, Gabriel, 2023. "Commodity cycle management in Latin America: The importance of resilience in face of vulnerability," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    19. Anne D. Boschini & Jan Pettersson & Jesper Roine, 2007. "Resource Curse or Not: A Question of Appropriability," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 109(3), pages 593-617, September.
    20. Addisu A Lashitew & Michael L Ross & Eric Werker, 2021. "What Drives Successful Economic Diversification in Resource-Rich Countries? [“Blocking the Pathway out of the Resource Curse: What Hinders Diversification in Resource-rich Developing Countries?”]," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 36(2), pages 164-196.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:pugtwp:332849. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gtpurus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.