Quantitative methods applied to agricultural, environmental, and transport economics in Colombia

Abstract

The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to apply quantitative techniques to demonstrate results aimed at showing different effects with an impact on decision-making for the agricultural, environmental and transport sectors in Colombia and to contribute to the design of policies that help to advance the path of sustainable economic growth in Colombia. The methodological tools used include the implementation and estimation of the two- stage Stochastic Production Frontier (SPF) approach to correct endogeneity problems in order to determine returns to scale and technical efficiency for coffee production in Colombia. The interaction of techniques combined with geographic information systems, spatial econometrics, clustered data, non-linear functions (Box-Cox transformations) and structural change over time to demonstrate the implication of positive externalities derived from investments made in mass public transport infrastructure in the cities of Bogotá and Barranquilla. Based on Bellman equations (dynamic programming), a sustainable dynamic is established without affecting the business model was determined the behaviour of open-pit coal mining once the costs of the negative externalities (environmental, economic and social) caused by the activity are internalised in the cost functions of the multinational companies dedicated to this exploitation. The ceiling prices were implemented to regulate the tariff of the formal public parking service in Bogotá through advanced econometric techniques (generalised method of moments in dynamic panel data) and Ramsey prices, whose value should be paid by the users of this service without harming the profitability of the activity in order to improve mobility in the city.