The Bogota – sabana region : the political economy behind the struggle to implement a sustainable urban development model

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La construcción de sentido del inicio de un cambio estratégico en las organizaciones: el caso de la Universidad del Rosario

A través de un caso de estudio se explora cómo la construcción de sentido de un grupo de directivos, bajo una misma inspiración, generó el inicio de un cambio estratégico en una prestigiosa y reconocida universidad colombiana, la Universidad del Rosario. Una institución que en un momento determinado notó que estaba siendo percibida dentro del sector de la educación superior como pequeña, estática en el avance de algunas disciplinas del conocimiento y conservadora; en otras palabras, que estaba perdiendo el reconocimiento que usualmente la había acompañado. A través del estudio de este caso se utilizó la técnica de análisis de discurso para comprender la construcción de sentido del inicio de un cambio estratégico en las organizaciones. Esta técnica permitió analizar la información cualitativa derivada de las entrevistas que se realizaron en profundidad a la cúpula de directivos de la institución y a algunos destacados representantes del sector de la Educación Superior en Colombia. Los resultados sugieren que se hicieron presentes, efectivamente, algunas condiciones específicas que marcaron el inicio de un cambio estratégico en la institución y un viraje en su identidad e imagen. Hechos que se sustentaron en los miembros de un equipo que procuró interpretar y comprender los cambios existentes en el entorno global y local, y asimilar, igualmente, algunos destacados retos que se planteaban por aquella época, al interior de la propia Universidad

Credit Default Swaps (CDS) y Collateral Debt Obligation (CDO) derivados financieros responsables de la crisis sub-prime de 2008 en Estados Unidos y una guía para el desarrollo del mercado de derivados exóticos en Colombia

La crisis financiera hipotecaria de 2008 en la que se declaró en quiebra el banco de inversión Lehman Brothers, se desarrolló en un ambiente que contemplaba apalancamientos financieros excesivos y el uso de derivados financieros de crédito innovadores. Razón por la cual, a partir del estudio de caso de quiebra de este banco de inversión y el análisis de las causas y consecuencias del ambiente desregulatorio que surgió en Estados Unidos desde la década de los 30 hasta el 2000, se orienta la investigación a indagar sobre lo que sucede en términos regulatorios y empresariales en el mercado de valores colombiano y así lograr definir objetivos que permitan el crecimiento del mercado de derivados exóticos en Colombia bajo un marco de responsabilidad financiera y ética empresarial.

Análisis del impacto del tamaño de los activos en la cuenta de resultados mediante la utilización de espacios de fase y análisis de recurrencia

Los resultados financieros de las organizaciones son objeto de estudio y análisis permanente, predecir sus comportamientos es una tarea permanente de empresarios, inversionistas, analistas y académicos. En el presente trabajo se explora el impacto del tamaño de los activos (valor total de los activos) en la cuenta de resultados operativos y netos, analizando inicialmente la relación entre dichas variables con indicadores tradicionales del análisis financiero como es el caso de la rentabilidad operativa y neta y con elementos de estadística descriptiva que permiten calificar los datos utilizados como lineales o no lineales. Descubriendo posteriormente que los resultados financieros de las empresas vigiladas por la Superintendencia de Sociedades para el año 2012, tienen un comportamiento no lineal, de esta manera se procede a analizar la relación de los activos y los resultados con la utilización de espacios de fase y análisis de recurrencia, herramientas útiles para sistemas caóticos y complejos. Para el desarrollo de la investigación y la revisión de la relación entre las variables de activos y resultados financieros se tomó como fuente de información los reportes financieros del cierre del año 2012 de la Superintendencia de Sociedades (Superintendencia de Sociedades, 2012).

El papel del modelo económico chaebol en la participación de Corea del Sur en la OCDE

La presente investigación busca dilucidar el papel del modelo económico del chaebol en la participación de Corea del Sur en la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económico OCDE. Las investigaciones en torno al modelo chaebol y sus privilegios en Corea del Sur no han sido enfocadas directamente hacia el ámbito internacional y la influencia que puede tener allí dicho modelo. La investigación busca demostrar que el éxito del modelo económico del chaebol sirvió como incentivo para su entrada y participación activa en la OCDE, consiguiendo de esta forma no solo el establecimiento de una cooperación económica con sus miembros, sino un prestigio y reconocimiento frente a la Comunidad Internacional. Para el desarrollo de esta investigación de tipo cualitativo, se utilizarán fuentes de segundo y tercer grado para llevar a cabo un análisis documental de textos, pertinente para su desarrollo.

La dimensión transnacional del movimiento feminista marroquí: génesis, desarrollo e impacto social (1980-2008)

Esta monografía busca explicar cómo han incidido el contexto internacional y las relaciones transnacionales en el movimiento feminista de Marruecos. De este modo, este estudio defiende que las Conferencias Mundiales sobre la Mujer de la ONU crearon una estructura de oportunidad política que favoreció el surgimiento y el desarrollo de este movimiento. Asimismo, dicho contexto construyó un espacio para que las activistas feministas marroquíes crearan y se insertaran en Redes de Defensa Transnacional, las cuales contribuyeron a cambiar la condición de la mujer en Marruecos, a través de reformas a los Códigos de Familia y Nacionalidad y el levantamiento de las reservas a la CEDAW. Para esto se hará un estudio interdisciplinario haciendo uso de la teoría de los movimientos sociales y del activismo transnacional. Igualmente, se utilizará una metodología cualitativa, principalmente a través de las herramientas del análisis de contenido y el trabajo de campo de la autora.

Ciencias de la complejidad: estado actual

Los aportes teóricos y aplicados de la complejidad en economía han tomado tantas direcciones y han sido tan frenéticos en las últimas décadas, que no existe un trabajo reciente, hasta donde conocemos, que los compile y los analice de forma integrada. El objetivo de este proyecto, por tanto, es desarrollar un estado situacional de las diferentes aplicaciones conceptuales, teóricas, metodológicas y tecnológicas de las ciencias de la complejidad en la economía. Asimismo, se pretende analizar las tendencias recientes en el estudio de la complejidad de los sistemas económicos y los horizontes que las ciencias de la complejidad ofrecen de cara al abordaje de los fenómenos económicos del mundo globalizado contemporáneo.

Natural resource windfalls and efficiency of local government expenditures: evidence from Peru

We study the role of natural resource windfalls in explaining the efficiency of public expenditures. Using a rich dataset of expenditures and public good provision for 1,836 municipalities in Peru for period 2001-2010, we estimate a non-monotonic relationship between the efficiency of public good provision and the level of natural resource transfers. Local governments that were extremely favored by the boom of mineral prices were more efficient in using fiscal windfalls whereas those benefited with modest transfers were more inefficient. These results can be explained by the increase in political competition associated with the boom. However, the fact that increases in efficiency were related to reductions in public good provision casts doubts about the beneficial effects of political competition in promoting efficiency.

The simple macroeconomics of North and South in EMU. Bruegel Working Paper 2012/12, 30 July 2012

The euro area today consists of a competitive, moderately leveraged North and an uncompetitive, over-indebted South. Its main macroeconomic challenge is to carry out the adjustment required to restore the competitiveness of its southern part and eliminate its excessive public and private debt burden. This paper investigates the relationship between fiscal and competitiveness adjustment in a stylised model with two countries in a monetary union, North and South. To restore competitiveness, South implements a more restrictive fiscal policy than North. We consider two scenarios. In the first, monetary policy aims at keeping inflation constant in the North. The South therefore needs to deflate to regain competitiveness, which worsens the debt dynamics. In the second, monetary policy aims at keeping inflation constant in the monetary union as a whole. This results in more monetary stimulus, inflation in the North is higher, and this in turn helps the debt dynamics in the South. Our main findings are: •The differential fiscal stance between North and South is what determines real exchange rate changes. South therefore needs to tighten more. There is no escape from relative austerity. •If monetary policy aims at keeping inflation stable in the North and the initial debt is above a certain threshold, debt dynamics are perverse: fiscal retrenchment is self-defeating; •If monetary policy targets average inflation instead, which implies higher inflation in the North, the initial debt threshold above which the debt dynamics become perverse is higher. Accepting more inflation at home is therefore a way for the North to contribute to restoring debt sustainability in the South. •Structural reforms in the South improve the debt dynamics if the initial debt is not too high. Again, targeting average inflation rather than inflation in the North helps strengthen the favourable effects of structural reforms.

Household Debt in Europe’s Periphery: The dangers of a prolonged recession. ECRI Commentary No. 12, 22 November 2012

The second-dip recession in Europe’s periphery has created a poisonous mix, which risks threatening further the financial system and the economy. Against this background, this ECRI Commentary argues that time matters in the household deleveraging cycle and that a swift recovery is one of its most vital parts. The paper also assesses the extent to which self-feeding phenomena related to household debt have already materialised and evaluates the risks for countries that have so far been spared their full effects. It also offers a theoretical policy response towards a more sustainable household credit sector and overall economic recovery.

Stakeholder-defined corporate responsibility for a pre-credit-crunch financial service company: lessons for how good reputations are won and lost

This paper presents a study that identifies a stakeholder-defined concept of Corporate Responsibility (CR) in the context of a UK financial service organisation in the immediate pre-credit crunch era. From qualitative analysis of interviews and focus groups with employees and customers, we identify, in a wide-ranging stakeholder-defined concept of CR, six themes that together imply two necessary conditions for a firm to be regarded as responsible— both corporate actions and character must be consonant with CR. This provides both empirical support for a notable, recent theoretical contribution by Godfrey (in Acad Manag Rev 30:777–798, 2005) and novel lessons for reputation management practice.

Explaining deviations from NAV in UK property companies: rationality and sentimentality

One of the most vexing issues for analysts and managers of property companies across Europe has been the existence and persistence of deviations of Net Asset Values of property companies from their market capitalisation. The issue has clear links to similar discounts and premiums in closed-end funds. The closed end fund puzzle is regarded as an important unsolved problem in financial economics undermining theories of market efficiency and the Law of One Price. Consequently, it has generated a huge body of research. Although it can be tempting to focus on the particular inefficiencies of real estate markets in attempting to explain deviations from NAV, the closed end fund discount puzzle indicates that divergences between underlying asset values and market capitalisation are not a ‘pure’ real estate phenomenon. When examining potential explanations, two recurring factors stand out in the closed end fund literature as often undermining the economic rationale for a discount – the existence of premiums and cross-sectional and periodic fluctuations in the level of discount/premium. These need to be borne in mind when considering potential explanations for real estate markets. There are two approaches to investigating the discount to net asset value in closed-end funds: the ‘rational’ approach and the ‘noise trader’ or ‘sentiment’ approach. The ‘rational’ approach hypothesizes the discount to net asset value as being the result of company specific factors relating to such factors as management quality, tax liability and the type of stocks held by the fund. Despite the intuitive appeal of the ‘rational’ approach to closed-end fund discounts the studies have not successfully explained the variance in closed-end fund discounts or why the discount to net asset value in closed-end funds varies so much over time. The variation over time in the average sector discount is not only a feature of closed-end funds but also property companies. This paper analyses changes in the deviations from NAV for UK property companies between 2000 and 2003. The paper present a new way to study the phenomenon ‘cleaning’ the gearing effect by introducing a new way of calculating the discount itself. We call it “ungeared discount”. It is calculated by assuming that a firm issues new equity to repurchase outstanding debt without any variation on asset side. In this way discount does not depend on an accounting effect and the analysis should better explain the effect of other independent variables.

Price discovery of credit spreads in tranquil and crisis periods

In this paper we investigate the price discovery process in single-name credit spreads obtained from bond, credit default swap (CDS), equity and equity option prices. We analyse short term price discovery by modelling daily changes in credit spreads in the four markets with a vector autoregressive model (VAR). We also look at price discovery in the long run with a vector error correction model (VECM). We find that in the short term the option market clearly leads the other markets in the sub-prime crisis (2007-2009). During the less severe sovereign debt crisis (2009-2012) and the pre-crisis period, options are still important but CDSs become more prominent. In the long run, deviations from the equilibrium relationship with the option market still lead to adjustments in the credit spreads observed or implied from other markets. However, options no longer dominate price discovery in any of the periods considered. Our findings have implications for traders, credit risk managers and financial regulators.

Financial services for the poor within the formal/informal nexus in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper draws upon fieldwork undertaken across Kenya, Zambia, Mozambique and South Africa to present a reflective overview of the use of financial services amongst the poorest members of society. It considers the role that access to a portfolio of financial products and services may have as a contributory factor in poverty alleviation, but also how inappropriate use of these mechanisms may exacerbate a descent into poverty. This work draws upon the notions of poverty pools and the rise of fall of low income households in and out of poverty, alongside the contributory nature of vicious cycles of economic and political poverty. Drawing on fieldwork experiences it presents a synopsis of the types of financial mechanisms commonly in use on the African continent, as well as examples of public, private and civil society partnerships that are producing services specifically tailored for those in extreme and absolute poverty.

For the public without the public

How is the notion of public interest operationalised in the regulatory practices of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB)? A fundamental objective in setting international accounting standards for both the private and public sector is to serve the ‘public interest’. Who or what constitutes ‘public interest’ however remains a highly complex and controversial issue. Private sector financial reporting research posits that users (of financial information) are used as a proxy for the ‘public’ and users are further refined to current and potential investors - a small proportion of the public. The debates surrounding public interest are even more contentious in public sector financial reporting which deals with ‘public’ (tax payers’) money. In our study we use Bourdieu’s notion of semi-homogenous fields to show how autonomous and heteronomous pressures from the epistemic community of the accounting profession and political/government interests compete for the right to define the public interest and determine how (by what accounting solutions) this interest is best served. This is a theoretical study grounded in the analysis of empirical data from interviews with the board members of the IPSASB. The main contribution of the paper is to further our understanding of the perceptions of the main decision makers from the ‘inner regulatory circle’ with regards to the problematic construct of public interest. The main findings suggest a paternal and un-reflexive attitude of the board members leading to the conclusion that the public have no real voice in these matters.