Academic literature on the topic 'Principal agent problem'

Problems of conflict, motivation and motive are traditionally studied by social psychology and rational choice theory. One can decide whether to cooperate with others. In other case, person will act independently. When people decide to cooperate, they start a specific social interaction, known as a game. That game is familiar with a phenomenon named principal - agent problem. The core of this problem is linked to gradual drift between motives of principal and agent. Over time, agent will stop working for the principal's interest. Principal and agent roles are found in all systems with hierarchy and in social relations that incorporate specific positions in which one person delegates tasks to another. Principal also controls, evaluates and rewards agents' performance. From a power of rewarding perspective, relationship between principal and agent is particularly interesting in corporate sector, given its meritocratic nature. Besides that, disproportion in power of information is present as well. This type of power works in favor of the agent. We find this to be the center of the principal - agent problem. Like similar conflicts, this one can be resolved either by compromise, state of silent conflict, or by termination of cooperation. Principal - agent problem is specific in the social aspect of spillover effect where second-order participants are affected by two person conflict. False consensus effect and future discounting that shape principal - agent problem represent cognitive distorsion influenced by social perception, with function to satisfy basic motives.

We consider the dynamic contract model with time inconsistency preference of principal-agent problem to study the influence of the time inconsistency preference on the optimal effort and the optimal reward mechanism. We show that when both the principal and the agent are time-consistent, the optimal effort and the optimal reward are the decreasing functions of the uncertain factor. And when the agent is time-inconsistent, the impatience of the agent has a negative impact on the optimal contract. The higher the discount rate of the agent is, the lower the efforts provided; agents tend to the timely enjoyment. In addition, when both the principal and the agent are time-inconsistent, in a special case, their impatience can offset the impact of uncertainty factor on the optimal contract, but, in turn, their impatience will affect the contract.

Progressively stricter requirements of labor division have led to the blossom of the principal-agent model, where differences in objective functions between the principal and the agent, as well as information asymmetry, often hinder the principal from maximizing their utility and can result in potential harm to both parties and social welfare. This paper aims to analyze the endogenous causes and issues resulting from the principal-agent model and proposes solutions. Additionally, the shareholder-CEO relationship in finance is applied as a specific case of the principal-agent model for further analysis. Through the construct of a simple model and a signaling mechanism pondering more realistic elements, the negative effect of information asymmetry can be weakened. Lastly, based on the findings of this paper and existing empirical research, the article proposes specific schemes for the above-mentioned mechanism and discusses their implementation and implications. The investigation of principal-agent issues and the proposal of appropriate countermeasures are of great significance and are always frontier concerns for both academia and society.

The problem that principal can effectively supervise the agent has not been solved. Based on principal-agent relationship, mathematical game model is constructed and backward induction method in game theory is used to obtain the equilibrium between the principal and agent. Discussion of the equilibrium solution will reveal some features of the principals about monitoring behavior. The supervision of the principal will be increased with the strength of institutional constraints. When the institutional constraints are complete, principal will choose complete supervision to the agent. But when the institutional constraints are not fully complete, the principal's supervision is not entirely complete. The principal and agent tend to choose collusion to some extent. Therefore, certain measures should be taken to improve the supervision motive from principal and reduce the degree of collusion.

We consider discrete‐time dynamic principal–agent problems with continuous choice sets and potentially multiple agents. We prove the existence of a unique solution for the principal's value function only assuming continuity of the functions and compactness of the choice sets. We do this by a contraction mapping theorem and so also obtain a convergence result for the value function iteration. To numerically compute a solution for the problem, we have to solve a collection of static principal–agent problems at each iteration. As a result, in the discrete‐time setting solving the static problem is the difficult step. If the agent's expected utility is a rational function of his action, then we can transform the bi‐level optimization problem into a standard nonlinear program. The final results of our solution method are numerical approximations of the policy and value functions for the dynamic principal–agent model. We illustrate our solution method by solving variations of two prominent social planning models from the economics literature.

This paper will introduce the reader to the issues of moral hazard in a principal-agent setting, with the primary focus on the incentive pay models of moral hazard. Firstly, with an introduction and analysis of various microeconomic models designed to alleviate the problems of moral hazard, and secondly, with an analyses of these models in the context of a specific company, the aim of this thesis is to offer a comprehensive understanding of the specific problems caused by moral hazard in the principal-agent problem, as well as the mechanisms used to lessen such problems in the real business environment and their connection to the theoretical microeconomic models.

Titel: Relationen mellan chefer och medarbetare - Ett principal-agent-perspektiv Universitet: Malmö Universitet Kurs: TR128C – Företagsekonomi: Examensarbete i Transport Management Författare: Jens Andersson, Olle Karlsson & Mattias Pettersson Handledare: Benedikte Borgström Nyckelord: Agentteori, agentproblem, måldivergens, informationsasymmetri, moral hazard, adverse selection, programmerbarhet Syfte: Att utifrån ett principal-agent-perspektiv studera hur relationen mellan chefer och medarbetare i den studerade miljön påverkas av förekomsten av informationsasymmetri och skilda målbilder, samt hur motivationen att prestera på arbetsplatsen kan påverkas av incitamentsstrukturer kopplade till kontraktsupplägget och olika nivåer av övervakning. Metod: Studien har genomförts via en kvalitativ ansats där data insamlats genom intervjuer, observationer och textanalys. Teori: Studiens teoretiska ramverk bygger på principal-agent-teorin och dess komponenter med fokus på informationsasymmetri och skilda målbilder. Slutsatser: I den studerade miljön där relationen mellan principal och agent kännetecknas av hög informationsasymmetri, hög programmerbarhet och parterna motiveras av olika målbilder står principalen inför valet att antingen komplettera ett beteendebaserat kontrakt med tillräckliga övervakningsmekanismer för att utröna agentens beteende, eller försöka upprätta ett resultatbaserat kontrakt. Hög informationsasymmetri kopplat till ett beteendebaserat kontrakt riskerar att lägga grunden för problem kopplade till moral hazard då agenterna blir helt fria att agera efter sina egna målbilder.
Title: The relationship between managers and workers - An agency perspective University: Malmö Universitet Course: TR128C – Business Administration: Bachelor thesis in Transport Management Writers: Jens Andersson, Olle Karlsson & Mattias Pettersson Mentor: Benedikte Borgström Keywords: Agency theory, agency problem, goal divergence, information asymmetry, moral hazard, adverse selection, programmability Purpose: From an agency perspective study how the relationship between managers and workers in the studied environment is affected by the existence of information asymmetry and diverging goals, and also how the motivation to perform at the workplace can be affected by different incentive structures related to the contract form and different levels of surveillance. Methods: The study has been conducted via a qualitative approach and the data has been collected through interviews, observations and text analysis. Theories: The studies theoretical framework is based on the agency theory and its components with a focus on information asymmetry and diverging goals. Conclusion: In the studied environment the relationship between principal and agent is characterized by asymmetrical information flows, high programmability, and diverging goals. This leaves the principal to either reinforce a behavioral based contract with sufficient surveillance to uncover the agent’s behavior, or to try and establish a contract based on results. A high degree of information asymmetry in combination with a behavioral based contract runs the risk of laying the foundation for problems related to moral hazard as the agents are free to act according to their own personal goals.

Becker's discrimination theory predicted that the discrimination by employers on competitive markets should cease to exist. However, in past decades, it was shown that discrimination on the labour market is a prevalent phenomenon. In this thesis I analyse what is the impact of agency problem on the theory of discrimination. I show that when an agent (in the thesis called 'agent employer') is deciding whether to employ or not to employ a worker, his motivation is different compared to principal's. The outcome of the analysis is such that under certain assumptions, the agent employer with non-zero taste for discrimination will always choose to discriminate.

The aim of this paper is twofold: 1) to examine the determinants of residential energy expenditures and compare them on a regional level; and, 2) attempt to identify and measure the effect of possible principal-agent (PA) problems on residential energy efficiency in Austria. The results of this paper are partially based on findings from a master's thesis, which focused more directly on the PA problem. This paper expands on those results to include regional aspects in energy expenditures. A conditional demand model is regressed on a large number of variables representing housing characteristics, socioeconomic factors, occupancy type, and regional characteristics sourced from the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions dataset. The analysis indicates that significant regional differences exist in the determinants of residential energy expenditures and that PA problems appear to be an unimportant factor in energy efficiency in Austria, even at the regional level. The paper concludes with some possible explanations as to why this is the case.

Dans cette thèse, les aspects théoriques et les applications en économie du modèle Principal-Agent sont étudiés.La première partie de la thèse présente deux applications du modèle. Dans la première, un fournisseur d’électricité détermine le tarif de consommation optimal pour ses clients. La population est hétérogène et le fournisseur observe parfaitement la consommation des clients. Cela conduit à une sélection adverse sans aléa moral. Le problème du Principal s’écrit commeun problème variationnel non standard, qui peut être résolu sous certaines formes particulières de l’utilité de réservation de la population. Les contrats optimaux obtenus sont linéaires ou polynomiaux par rapport à la consommation et le fournisseur d’électricité ne contracte que les consommateurs avec un faible ou un fort appétit pour l’électricité.Dans la deuxième application, une banque surveille un pool de prêts identiques soumis à une contagion Markovienne. La banque collecte des fonds auprès d’un investisseur, qui ne peut pas observer les actions de la banque et ne sait pas sa capacité à faire son travail. Ces travaux c’est une extension du modèle de Pagès et Possamaï [84] au cas du aléa moral avec sélection adverse. Suivant l’approche de Cvitanić, Wan et Yang [31] à ces problèmes, l’ensemble crédible est calculé explicitement et la fonction valeur de l’investisseur est obtenue au moyen de un système récursif d’inégalités variationnelles. Les propriétés des contrats optimaux sont discutées en détail.Dans la deuxième partie de la thèse, le problème d’un Agent contrôlant le drift d’un processus de diffusion sous incertitude de volatilité est étudié. On suppose que le Principal et l’Agent ont une approche pessimiste du problème et ils agissent comme si un troisième joueur, la Nature, choisissait la pire volatilité possible. Ce travail est une extension à Mastrolia et Possamaï [64] et Sung [125] à un cadre plus général. Il est prouvé que la fonction valeur de l’Agent peut être représentée comme la solution à un EDSR de second ordre, et aussi que la fonction valeur du Principal correspond à la solution de viscosité unique de l’équationassociée Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman-Isaacs, étant donné que celle-ci satisfait un résultat de comparaison
In this thesis, theoretical aspects and applications in economics of the Principal-Agent model are studied.The first part of the thesis presents two applications of the model. In the first one, an electricity provider determines the optimal tariff of consumption for its clients. Population is heterogeneous and the provider observes perfectly the consumption of the clients. This leads to a setting of adverse selection without moral hazard. The problem of the Principal writes as a non-standard variational problem, which can be solved under certain particular forms of the reservation utility of the population. The optimal contracts obtained are either linear or polynomial with respect to the consumption and the electricity provider contractsonly consumers with either low or high appetite for electricity.In the second application, a bank monitors a pool of identical loans subject to Markovian contagion. The bank raises funds from an investor, who cannot observe the actions of the bank and neither knows his ability to do the job. This is an extension of the model of Pagès and Possamaï [84] to the case of both moral hazard and adverse selection. Following the approach of Cvitanić, Wan and Yang [31] to these problems, the dynamic credible set is computed explicitly and the value function of the investor is obtained through a recursive system of variational inequalities. The properties of the optimal contracts are discussed in detail.In the second part of the thesis, the problem of an Agent controlling the drift of a diffusion process under volatility uncertainty is studied. It is assumed that the Principal and the Agent have a worst–case approach to the problem and they act as if a third player, the Nature, was choosing the worst possible volatility. This work is an extension to Mastrolia and Possamaï [64] and Sung [125] to a more general framework. It is proved that the value function of the agent can be represented as the solution to a second–order BSDE, and also that the value function of the Principal corresponds to the unique viscosity solution of the associated Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman-Isaacs equation, given that the latter satisfies a comparison result

The expansion and diffusion of mobile phones globally has resulted in the provision of financial transactional services over the existing mobile phone platforms, generally referred to as mobile money. The supply end of mobile money services is an important factor in the success of the financial transactions offering. This research assessed vulnerabilities in the mobile money supply network that are inherently related to the existence of the principal – agent problem and their implications on availability and access to the services. The research study was conducted using a qualitative approach. Qualitative information was collected through interviews guided by open – ended questionnaires. Thematic analysis approach was followed to systematically analyse the data and generate findings of the study. Agent transactional data was analysed to complement the findings from qualitative analysis The findings suggest that the principal agent problem permeates the mobile money delivery network mainly after businesses joining as agents and manifests as moral hazard. Moral hazard is the dominant feature of the principal – agent problem, with adverse selection very low. Drivers of moral hazard are demonstrated by the influences and demands of agents’ core businesses and challenges in agent monitoring and training. The existence of the principal – agent problem has limited or no implications on access and availability of services. However, overtime the combined vulnerabilities identified related to the principal agent problem are likely to manifest into risks that are likely to affect access and availability of mobile money services. Regulators, Mobile Network Operators and agent enterprises must collectively review monitoring approaches for mobile money service providers to address challenges identified and increase the effectiveness of monitoring. Service provision standards should be reviewed to suit the various business environments the services are provided within. Mobile Network Operators and agent enterprises need to institute stronger partnership arrangements that enhance ownership and obligations for all parties, in particular agent enterprises. Agreements must enable application of different mobile money delivery models suitable to meet the demands and requirements of the agents’ core businesses. Innovations such as Near Field Communication (NFC) can be integrated with Point of sale (POS) applications and mobile money platforms to reduce the administration burden on agents and human error. Such applications must consider the cost implications of adoption from the agents’ business perspective.

"Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration from the Naval Postgraduate School, December 2007."
Advisor(s): Melese, Francois ; Laverson, Alan J. "December 2007." "MBA professional report"--Cover. Description based on title screen as viewed on January 10, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-114). Also available in print.

MBA Professional Report
Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited
This paper offers a path for Iraqis to provide for their own security by ensuring each Iraqi citizen has a stake in Iraq's oil wealth. The hypothesis is that private, individual oil ownership provides dual incentives. First, each Iraqi citizen would have an interest in contributing to the security of Iraq's oil infrastructure and in monitoring the quality of investments, since they and their family would directly benefit. Second, if each Iraqi had the ability to convert some of their stake in Iraq's nonrenewable oil resources into renewable financial capital, then they would make entrepreneurial investments that could help diversify Iraq's economy and contribute to economic development. This report evaluates several alternatives that might be offered for consideration by Iraqi policy makers to distribute Iraq's oil wealth directly to the Iraqi people. The Alaska Permanent Fund dividend offers one potential model for Iraq. Other models explored in this study include the experience of Chad and various privatizations that took place in Eastern Europe. The advantages and disadvantages of alternative oil distribution schemes are explored in an effort to offer new insights and opportunities to policy makers. Several criteria were developed to evaluate the proposed alternatives. These criteria were an outgrowth of three main questions asked of each alternative: First, how efficiently would the model distribute oil ownership to the Iraqi people? Second, how effective is it likely to be in encouraging individuals to support increased security and stability? And finally, how effective is it likely to be in contributing to future economic development?

Real Estate Agencies compensation consists of commissions and a part of the commission corresponds to what the real estate agent gets as salary. This incentive-based commission system is usually covered by an agreed fixed amount, a variable commission model or a combination of both depending on the brokerage object's final selling price. Commission system can lead to adverse consequences when the real estate agent abuses their position and exploits an information advantage to gain a financial benefits. Based on completed questionnaires, that have been posted for this study, directed to consumers and real estate agents, it is recognized that the parties in the Swedish real estate agent industry has experienced or is experiencing a certain unethical behavior because of commission-based pay structures. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how asymmetric information affects the real estate industry brokerage contract negotiations regarding the commission and whether conflicts of interest may occur due to this. Because of asymmetric information in contract situations, there may be situations in which agreements will contradict societal norms and ethical principles, because the broker abuses his advantage. The essence of this thesis is to convey a discussion in order to associate the legal application of contracts with normative ethics. The essay writers propose for instance based on ethical approaches to create a complement to the existing law and further to come up with practical solutions to limit the possibility of unreasonable commission models in real estate brokerage. The essay writers argue that the introduction of a stricter supervision of the commission procedure would create stronger assurance and reduce the abuse of the information asymmetry in the industry.
Fastighetsmäklarbranschens ersättningssystem utgörs av provision och motsvarar en del av vad en fastighetsmäklare får i lön. Detta incitamentbaserade provisionssystem brukar omfattas av ett avtalat fast belopp, en rörlig provisionsmodell eller en kombination av båda som beror på förmedlingsobjektets slutliga försäljningspris. Provisionssystemet kan föranleda negativa följder om fastighetsmäklaren missbrukar sin ställning och utnyttjar ett informationsövertag till att skapa sig en finansiell fördel. Utifrån genomförda enkätundersökningar i denna studie riktade till konsumenter och fastighetsmäklare medges det att parterna inom den svenska fastighetsmäklarbranschen har upplevt eller upplever ett visst oetiskt beteende på grund av provisionsbaserade lönestrukturer. Syftet med denna uppsats är därför att undersöka hur asymmetrisk information påverkar fastighetsmäklarbranschens avtalsförhandlingar avseende provisionen och huruvida intressekonflikter kan uppstå till följd av detta. På grund av asymmetrisk information i avtalssammanhang kan det förekomma situationer där avtalen strider mot samhällsnormer och etiska principer när mäklaren missbrukar sitt övertag. Kärnan i denna uppsats är att föra en samlad diskussion som avser att koppla den rättsliga tillämpningen av avtalslagen med den normativa etiken. Uppsatsförfattarna resonerar bland annat utifrån etiska synsätt för att skapa ett komplement till gällande lag och vidare komma fram till praktiska lösningar till hur eventuellt oskäliga provisionsmodeller kan begränsas. Uppsatsförfattarna hävdar att ett införande av en starkare tillsyn över provisionsförfarandet skulle skapa större förtroende och minska asymmetrin i branschen.

Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att testa sambandet mellan en koncentrerad aktieägarandel och låg utdelning bland aktieföretag på den svenska börsen. Vad som är unikt för just denna studie är att den genomförs på den svenska börsen samt den skattesats som skiljer sig mellan Sverige och exempelvis Finland där tidigare studier av samma karaktär genomförts. Metod: Studien har genomförts med en kvantitativ metod och en deduktiv ansats. Den finansiella data som används i studien har hämtats via databasen ”Retriever”, information om aktieägande har manuellt hämtats från ”Ägarna och makten” (Sundqvist, 2015). Resultat och slutsats: Slutsatsen innefattar en saknad av direkt samband mellan koncentrerat ägande och låg utdelningsnivå vilket besvarar syftet. Vad som kan lyftas fram som en eventuell förklaring är den skattemässiga aspekten gällande utdelning och kapitalvinst. Tidigare forskning som påträffat samband i andra länder har en skattesats som skiljer sig mellan utdelning och kapitalvinst vilket innebär skattemässiga fördelat att välja det ena framför det andra. Detta var en av de aspekter som var av stort intresse innan studien startade. Studiens bidrag: Denna studies teoretiska bidrag påvisar att sambandet mellan ägarkoncentrationen och företagens utdelning inte är självklart på den svenska börsen. Istället finner vi att det är huvudsakligen företagens finansiella nyckeltal som ligger till grund för företagens utdelning. Förslag till vidare forskning: Resultatet av denna studie föder ytterligare nyfikenhet kring möjligheter att forska vidare. Exempel på intressanta ämnen är Agnblads (2001)teori om det utländska ägandets påverkan på det framtida ägandet i Sverige. Även agentteorin och dess olika påverkan på företagen går att fördjupa sig i och studera på den svenska marknaden då ägandet är koncentrerat och en stor del maktfördelning sker.
Aim: The aim of this study is to test the relationship between ownership concentration and dividends in listed Swedish firms. Method: This study has a quantitative method and a deductive approach. The financial data has been collected via the database ”Retriever”, information about the ownership of the companies was manually collected from the book ”Ägarna och makten” (Sundqvist, 2015). Result and conclusions: The result of the study is that dividends may variate due to the independent variables. However, there is not a significant relationship between ownership concentration and dividends. Contribution of the thesis: The contribution of this study provides further information regarding ownership concentration and dividends, we find that the financial ratios of the companies have a larger impact on the dividends than the ownership concentration. Suggestions for future research: The result of this study adds alot of curiosity to the future studies about this subject. Our suggestions to future research is to elaborate Agnblads (2001) theory about foreign ownership and how it might affect companies in Sweden. We also propose to research further about the Agency-theory and which effects it has on the Swedish listed firms since we have a concentrated ownership.

We introduce and study a computational version of the principal-agent problem -- a classic problem in Economics that arises when a principal desires to contract an agent to carry out some task, but has incomplete information about the agent or their subsequent actions. The key challenge in this setting is for the principal to design a contract for the agent such that the agent's preferences are then aligned with those of the principal. We study this problem using a variation of Boolean games, where multiple players each choose valuations for Boolean variables under their control, seeking the satisfaction of a personal goal formula. In our setting, the principal can only observe some subset of these variables, and the principal chooses a contract which rewards players on the basis of the assignments they make for the variables that are observable to the principal. The principal's challenge is to design a contract so that, firstly, the principal's goal is achieved in some or all Nash equilibrium choices, and secondly, that the principal is able to verify that their goal is satisfied. In this paper, we formally define this problem and completely characterise the computational complexity of the most relevant decision problems associated with it.

We study the environment design problem for biased decision makers. In an environment design problem, an informed principal aims to update the decision making environment to influence the decisions made by the agent. This problem is ubiquitous in various domains, e.g., a social networking platform might want to update its website to encourage more user engagement. In this work, we focus on the scenario in which the agent might exhibit biases in decision making. We relax the common assumption that the agent is rational and aim to incorporate models of biased agents in environment design. We formulate the environment design problem under the Markov decision process (MDP) and incorporate common models of biased agents through introducing general time-discounting functions. We then formalize the environment design problem as constrained optimization problems and propose corresponding algorithms. We conduct both simulations and real human-subject experiments with workers recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to evaluate our proposed algorithms.

Banco de la República is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2023. This is a very significant anniversary and one that provides an opportunity to highlight the contribution the Bank has made to the country’s development. Its track record as guarantor of monetary stability has established it as the one independent state institution that generates the greatest confidence among Colombians due to its transparency, management capabilities, and effective compliance with the central banking and cultural responsibilities entrusted to it by the Constitution and the Law. On a date as important as this, the Board of Directors of Banco de la República (BDBR) pays tribute to the generations of governors and officers whose commitment and dedication have contributed to the growth of this institution.1 Banco de la República’s mandate was confirmed in the National Constitutional Assembly of 1991 where the citizens had the opportunity to elect the seventy people who would have the task of drafting a new constitution. The leaders of the three political movements with the most votes were elected as chairs to the Assembly, and this tripartite presidency reflected the plurality and the need for consensus among the different political groups to move the reform forward. Among the issues considered, the National Constitutional Assembly gave special importance to monetary stability. That is why they decided to include central banking and to provide Banco de la República with the necessary autonomy to use the instruments for which they are responsible without interference from other authorities. The constituent members understood that ensuring price stability is a state duty and that the entity responsible for this task must be enshrined in the Constitution and have the technical capability and institutional autonomy necessary to adopt the decisions they deem appropriate to achieve this fundamental objective in coordination with the general economic policy. In particular, Article 373 established that “the State, through Banco de la República, shall ensure the maintenance of the purchasing power of the currency,” a provision that coincided with the central banking system adopted by countries that have been successful in controlling inflation. In 1999, in Ruling 481, the Constitutional Court stated that “the duty to maintain the purchasing power of the currency applies to not only the monetary, credit, and exchange authority, i.e., the Board of Banco de la República, but also those who have responsibilities in the formulation and implementation of the general economic policy of the country” and that “the basic constitutional purpose of Banco de la República is the protection of a sound currency. However, this authority must take the other economic objectives of state intervention such as full employment into consideration in their decisions since these functions must be coordinated with the general economic policy.” The reforms to Banco de la República agreed upon in the Constitutional Assembly of 1991 and in Act 31/1992 can be summarized in the following aspects: i) the Bank was assigned a specific mandate: to maintain the purchasing power of the currency in coordination with the general economic policy; ii) the BDBR was designatedas the monetary, foreign exchange, and credit authority; iii) the Bank and its Board of Directors were granted a significant degree of independence from the government; iv) the Bank was prohibited from granting credit to the private sector except in the case of the financial sector; v) established that in order to grant credit to the government, the unanimous vote of its Board of Directors was required except in the case of open market transactions; vi) determined that the legislature may, in no case, order credit quotas in favor of the State or individuals; vii) Congress was appointed, on behalf of society, as the main addressee of the Bank’s reporting exercise; and viii) the responsibility for inspection, surveillance, and control over Banco de la República was delegated to the President of the Republic. The members of the National Constitutional Assembly clearly understood that the benefits of low and stable inflation extend to the whole of society and contribute mto the smooth functioning of the economic system. Among the most important of these is that low inflation promotes the efficient use of productive resources by allowing relative prices to better guide the allocation of resources since this promotes economic growth and increases the welfare of the population. Likewise, low inflation reduces uncertainty about the expected return on investment and future asset prices. This increases the confidence of economic agents, facilitates long-term financing, and stimulates investment. Since the low-income population is unable to protect itself from inflation by diversifying its assets, and a high proportion of its income is concentrated in the purchase of food and other basic goods that are generally the most affected by inflationary shocks, low inflation avoids arbitrary redistribution of income and wealth.2 Moreover, low inflation facilitates wage negotiations, creates a good labor climate, and reduces the volatility of employment levels. Finally, low inflation helps to make the tax system more transparent and equitable by avoiding the distortions that inflation introduces into the value of assets and income that make up the tax base. From the monetary authority’s point of view, one of the most relevant benefits of low inflation is the credibility that economic agents acquire in inflation targeting, which turns it into an effective nominal anchor on price levels. Upon receiving its mandate, and using its autonomy, Banco de la República began to announce specific annual inflation targets as of 1992. Although the proposed inflation targets were not met precisely during this first stage, a downward trend in inflation was achieved that took it from 32.4% in 1990 to 16.7% in 1998. At that time, the exchange rate was kept within a band. This limited the effectiveness of monetary policy, which simultaneously sought to meet an inflation target and an exchange rate target. The Asian crisis spread to emerging economies and significantly affected the Colombian economy. The exchange rate came under strong pressure to depreciate as access to foreign financing was cut off under conditions of a high foreign imbalance. This, together with the lack of exchange rate flexibility, prevented a countercyclical monetary policy and led to a 4.2% contraction in GDP that year. In this context of economic slowdown, annual inflation fell to 9.2% at the end of 1999, thus falling below the 15% target set for that year. This episode fully revealed how costly it could be, in terms of economic activity, to have inflation and exchange rate targets simultaneously. Towards the end of 1999, Banco de la República announced the adoption of a new monetary policy regime called the Inflation Targeting Plan. This regime, known internationally as ‘Inflation Targeting,’ has been gaining increasing acceptance in developed countries, having been adopted in 1991 by New Zealand, Canada, and England, among others, and has achieved significant advances in the management of inflation without incurring costs in terms of economic activity. In Latin America, Brazil and Chile also adopted it in 1999. In the case of Colombia, the last remaining requirement to be fulfilled in order to adopt said policy was exchange rate flexibility. This was realized around September 1999, when the BDBR decided to abandon the exchange-rate bands to allow the exchange rate to be freely determined in the market.Consistent with the constitutional mandate, the fundamental objective of this new policy approach was “the achievement of an inflation target that contributes to maintaining output growth around its potential.”3 This potential capacity was understood as the GDP growth that the economy can obtain if it fully utilizes its productive resources. To meet this objective, monetary policy must of necessity play a countercyclical role in the economy. This is because when economic activity is below its potential and there are idle resources, the monetary authority can reduce the interest rate in the absence of inflationary pressure to stimulate the economy and, when output exceeds its potential capacity, raise it. This policy principle, which is immersed in the models for guiding the monetary policy stance, makes the following two objectives fully compatible in the medium term: meeting the inflation target and achieving a level of economic activity that is consistent with its productive capacity. To achieve this purpose, the inflation targeting system uses the money market interest rate (at which the central bank supplies primary liquidity to commercial banks) as the primary policy instrument. This replaced the quantity of money as an intermediate monetary policy target that Banco de la República, like several other central banks, had used for a long time. In the case of Colombia, the objective of the new monetary policy approach implied, in practical terms, that the recovery of the economy after the 1999 contraction should be achieved while complying with the decreasing inflation targets established by the BDBR. The accomplishment of this purpose was remarkable. In the first half of the first decade of the 2000s, economic activity recovered significantly and reached a growth rate of 6.8% in 2006. Meanwhile, inflation gradually declined in line with inflation targets. That was how the inflation rate went from 9.2% in 1999 to 4.5% in 2006, thus meeting the inflation target established for that year while GDP reached its potential level. After this balance was achieved in 2006, inflation rebounded to 5.7% in 2007, above the 4.0% target for that year due to the fact that the 7.5% GDP growth exceeded the potential capacity of the economy.4 After proving the effectiveness of the inflation targeting system in its first years of operation, this policy regime continued to consolidate as the BDBR and the technical staff gained experience in its management and state-of-the-art economic models were incorporated to diagnose the present and future state of the economy and to assess the persistence of inflation deviations and expectations with respect to the inflation target. Beginning in 2010, the BDBR established the long-term 3.0% annual inflation target, which remains in effect today. Lower inflation has contributed to making the macroeconomic environment more stable, and this has favored sustained economic growth, financial stability, capital market development, and the functioning of payment systems. As a result, reductions in the inflationary risk premia and lower TES and credit interest rates were achieved. At the same time, the duration of public domestic debt increased significantly going from 2.27 years in December 2002 to 5.86 years in December 2022, and financial deepening, measured as the level of the portfolio as a percentage of GDP, went from around 20% in the mid-1990s to values above 45% in recent years in a healthy context for credit institutions.Having been granted autonomy by the Constitution to fulfill the mandate of preserving the purchasing power of the currency, the tangible achievements made by Banco de la República in managing inflation together with the significant benefits derived from the process of bringing inflation to its long-term target, make the BDBR’s current challenge to return inflation to the 3.0% target even more demanding and pressing. As is well known, starting in 2021, and especially in 2022, inflation in Colombia once again became a serious economic problem with high welfare costs. The inflationary phenomenon has not been exclusive to Colombia and many other developed and emerging countries have seen their inflation rates move away from the targets proposed by their central banks.5 The reasons for this phenomenon have been analyzed in recent Reports to Congress, and this new edition delves deeper into the subject with updated information. The solid institutional and technical base that supports the inflation targeting approach under which the monetary policy strategy operates gives the BDBR the necessary elements to face this difficult challenge with confidence. In this regard, the BDBR reiterated its commitment to the 3.0% inflation target in its November 25 communiqué and expects it to be reached by the end of 2024.6 Monetary policy will continue to focus on meeting this objective while ensuring the sustainability of economic activity, as mandated by the Constitution. Analyst surveys done in March showed a significant increase (from 32.3% in January to 48.5% in March) in the percentage of responses placing inflation expectations two years or more ahead in a range between 3.0% and 4.0%. This is a clear indication of the recovery of credibility in the medium-term inflation target and is consistent with the BDBR’s announcement made in November 2022. The moderation of the upward trend in inflation seen in January, and especially in February, will help to reinforce this revision of inflation expectations and will help to meet the proposed targets. After reaching 5.6% at the end of 2021, inflation maintained an upward trend throughout 2022 due to inflationary pressures from both external sources, associated with the aftermath of the pandemic and the consequences of the war in Ukraine, and domestic sources, resulting from: strengthening of local demand; price indexation processes stimulated by the increase in inflation expectations; the impact on food production caused by the mid-2021 strike; and the pass-through of depreciation to prices. The 10% increase in the minimum wage in 2021 and the 16% increase in 2022, both of which exceeded the actual inflation and the increase in productivity, accentuated the indexation processes by establishing a high nominal adjustment benchmark. Thus, total inflation went to 13.1% by the end of 2022. The annual change in food prices, which went from 17.2% to 27.8% between those two years, was the most influential factor in the surge in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Another segment that contributed significantly to price increases was regulated products, which saw the annual change go from 7.1% in December 2021 to 11.8% by the end of 2022. The measure of core inflation excluding food and regulated items, in turn, went from 2.5% to 9.5% between the end of 2021 and the end of 2022. The substantial increase in core inflation shows that inflationary pressure has spread to most of the items in the household basket, which is characteristic of inflationary processes with generalized price indexation as is the case in Colombia. Monetary policy began to react early to this inflationary pressure. Thus, starting with its September 2021 session, the BDBR began a progressive change in the monetary policy stance moving away from the historical low of a 1.75% policy rate that had intended to stimulate the recovery of the economy. This adjustment process continued without interruption throughout 2022 and into the beginning of 2023 when the monetary policy rate reached 12.75% last January, thus accumulating an increase of 11 percentage points (pp). The public and the markets have been surprised that inflation continued to rise despite significant interest rate increases. However, as the BDBR has explained in its various communiqués, monetary policy works with a lag. Just as in 2022 economic activity recovered to a level above the pre-pandemic level, driven, along with other factors, by the monetary stimulus granted during the pandemic period and subsequent months, so too the effects of the current restrictive monetary policy will gradually take effect. This will allow us to expect the inflation rate to converge to 3.0% by the end of 2024 as is the BDBR’s purpose.Inflation results for January and February of this year showed declining marginal increases (13 bp and 3 bp respectively) compared to the change seen in December (59 bp). This suggests that a turning point in the inflation trend is approaching. In other Latin American countries such as Chile, Brazil, Perú, and Mexico, inflation has peaked and has begun to decline slowly, albeit with some ups and downs. It is to be expected that a similar process will take place in Colombia in the coming months. The expected decline in inflation in 2023 will be due, along with other factors, to lower cost pressure from abroad as a result of the gradual normalization of supply chains, the overcoming of supply shocks caused by the weather, and road blockades in previous years. This will be reflected in lower adjustments in food prices, as has already been seen in the first two months of the year and, of course, the lagged effect of monetary policy. The process of inflation convergence to the target will be gradual and will extend beyond 2023. This process will be facilitated if devaluation pressure is reversed. To this end, it is essential to continue consolidating fiscal sustainability and avoid messages on different public policy fronts that generate uncertainty and distrust. 1 This Report to Congress includes Box 1, which summarizes the trajectory of Banco de la República over the past 100 years. In addition, under the Bank’s auspices, several books that delve into various aspects of the history of this institution have been published in recent years. See, for example: Historia del Banco de la República 1923-2015; Tres banqueros centrales; Junta Directiva del Banco de la República: grandes episodios en 30 años de historia; Banco de la República: 90 años de la banca central en Colombia. 2 This is why lower inflation has been reflected in a reduction of income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient that went from 58.7 in 1998 to 51.3 in the year prior to the pandemic. 3 See Gómez Javier, Uribe José Darío, Vargas Hernando (2002). “The Implementation of Inflation Targeting in Colombia”. Borradores de Economía, No. 202, March, available at: https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/5220 4 See López-Enciso Enrique A.; Vargas-Herrera Hernando and Rodríguez-Niño Norberto (2016). “The inflation targeting strategy in Colombia. An historical view.” Borradores de Economía, No. 952. https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/6263 5 According to the IMF, the percentage change in consumer prices between 2021 and 2022 went from 3.1% to 7.3% for advanced economies, and from 5.9% to 9.9% for emerging market and developing economies. 6 https://www.banrep.gov.co/es/noticias/junta-directiva-banco-republica-reitera-meta-inflacion-3