Remove vertical space between text and equations in column alignment

Question

Is there a way to remove this large vertical space between my text and equations. I think this problem is a result of my aligning the equations into two columns.This is the code that I am using

by the following CES aggregators:
\begin{multicols}{2}
\begin{equation}
C_{O,t}
\end{equation}\break
\begin{equation}
C_{Z,t}
\end{equation}
\end{multicols}

Answer 1

I would just use minipages. For example:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
by the following CES aggregators:

\noindent
\begin{minipage}{.5\textwidth}
  \begin{equation}
    C_{O,t}
  \end{equation}
\end{minipage}%
\begin{minipage}{.5\textwidth}
  \begin{equation}
    C_{Z,t}
  \end{equation}
\end{minipage}
\end{document}