Simulating heterogeneous multinational firms

This paper develops a micro-simulation framework for multinational entry and sales activities across countries. The model is based on Eaton, Kortum, and Kramarz's (2010) quantitative trade model adapted towards multinational production. Using micro data on Japanese manufacturing firms, we first stylize the empirical regularities of multinational entry and sales activity and estimate the model's structural parameters with simulated method of moments. We then demonstrate that our adapted model is able to replicate important dimensions of the in-sample moments conditioned in our estimation strategy. Importantly, it is able to replicate activity under an economic period with a far different level of FDI barriers than was conditioned upon in our estimation sample. Overall, our research highlights the richness of the simulation framework for performing counterfactual analysis of various FDI policies.

Outward FDI from developing countries : a case of Chinese firms in South Africa

Outward foreign direct investment (FDI) from developing countries is increasing. In the research on FDI, it has been considered that only competitive and productive firms can invest in foreign countries. However, since the differences in competitiveness and productivity between multinational enterprises (MNEs) from developed and developing countries have not been explicitly investigated, we cannot say whether MNEs from developing countries can or cannot survive in competition with MNEs from developed countries as well as against competitive and productive indigenous firms in host countries. To examine the activities of MNEs from developing countries, this study investigates Chinese firms in South Africa. It reveals that in order to compensate for the weak brand recognition of Chinese products and to expand sales, Chinese firms have mainly been making products that are sold under the brand names of indigenous South African firms. Chinese firms have expanded their business in South Africa relying on the business resources of indigenous firms in the host country. This indicates that business with indigenous firms is significant for MNEs from developing countries in boosting competitiveness.

Sistema Integrado de Gestión Académica

El Sistema Integrado de Gestión Académica consiste en una plataforma software modular orientada a apoyar la labor del profesorado en la gestión docente de las asignaturas impartidas por el Departamento de Mecánica de la Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería y Diseño Industrial de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Durante los últimos 5 años se ha trabajado en la creación de esta plataforma que se encuentra ahora en su recta final. Es necesario aclarar que toda la plataforma desde su inicio ha sido creada por el mismo autor y que debido al tiempo disponible para la realización del TFG, éste se ha centrado en realizar mejoras sobre lo ya desarrollado y en implementar uno de los módulos. El trabajo desarrollado comienza con un estudio de plataformas educativas online. Se han valorado las alternativas de Moodle y ATutor como posibles soluciones a los requisitos planteados llegando a la conclusión de que era necesario realizar un desarrollo a medida. La plataforma consta de 3 módulos principales:  Plataforma de Gestión Docente en Internet (PGDNet)  Aplicación de Notas (AdN)  Plataforma de Entrega de Prácticas Académicas (PEPA) PGDNet está orientado a la realización de pruebas de evaluación online. El profesor tiene a su alcance un conjunto de opciones que le permiten la creación de actividades y ejercicios de diferente índole, gestionar alumnos y establecer periodos de evaluación. El sistema recoge los resultados y corrige automáticamente permitiendo además exportar los resultados, manteniendo de esta manera la compatibilidad con otros sistemas informáticos de la UPM. PGDNet ofrece además un servicio de correo electrónico para realizar comunicaciones con grupos predefinidos de alumnos, un gestor documental enlazado con las diferentes actividades y un gestor de encuestas programable a medida. AdN se integra en la plataforma como un sistema para la gestión de calificaciones y permite mantener un historial del alumno. Las materias pueden dividirse en diferentes evaluaciones con un determinado peso sobre la calificación final. La nota total se calcula en tiempo real y de forma automática. El alumno puede entrar a consultar sus calificaciones en cualquier momento. El módulo ofrece a los profesores acceso simultáneo a introducir las calificaciones e importar notas guardadas de convocatorias pasadas. PEPA es el nuevo módulo que se añade a la plataforma y el que concentra los esfuerzos de desarrollo de este TFG. Se trata de un sistema de entrega de prácticas online que permite al profesor centralizar la recogida de documentación para su posterior corrección. PEPA dispone de un sistema de plantillas de respuestas fijas utilizadas en los laboratorios que son corregidas de forma automática en la entrega. Los 3 módulos se complementan entre sí compartiendo datos y permitiendo realizar importaciones y exportaciones de información con las aplicaciones actuales de Secretaría de alumnos como puede ser la introducción de listas de alumnos.---ABSTRACT---Academic Management Framework (Sistema Integrado de Gestión Académica) is a module‐oriented software application that aims to help teachers from ETSIDI Department from UPM to manage all information related to graduate courses. The software, which has been in continuous developing during the last 5 years, is now about to be finished. It must be pointed out the fact that the entire application has been designed and implemented by the same author. However, due to time schedule restrictions in this TFG (spanish acronym for “Graduation Project”), it has been focused on developing a few improvements in the software already implemented and creating a specific new module. In the beginning, this TFG includes an educational software comparative study. Moodle and ATutor have been selected as plausible assembled solutions that would fit the requirements given. Nonetheless, the conclusion ends up with rejecting both possibilities and moving the project towards a custom‐developed software. The application is divided in 3 modules:  Network Based Academic Management Platform (Plataforma de Gestión Docente en Internet ‐ PGDNet)  Evaluation Aid Tool (Aplicación de Notas ‐ AdN)  Academic Lab‐Work Delivery Platform (Plataforma de Entrega de Prácticas Académicas ‐ PEPA) PGDNet main purpose is handling online tests for students. There are a bunch of tools available for teachers that allow them to create activities and different types of exercises, manage students and set examination schedules. The system gathers the results and marks exercises automatically. Moreover, the teacher is able to export this information which is compatible with other UPM systems. PGDNet offers a mail service, a document management system and a survey application among others. AdN adds new features to the system. It helps teachers to manage student marks by keeping a history over the years. Subjects can be divided into little parts with a different weight in the final mark. Eventually, the mark is automatically calculated and published. The application can be accessed by both students and teachers simultaneously. This module is also ready to import old marks into the current course and allow all teachers to fill in the results at the same time. PEPA, which is a new module added from scratch, concentrate this TFG efforts. It consists of a practice delivery system that gathers all student documentation in a single site for easy correction. Besides, PEPA deploys an answer template repository for laboratory training. Students fill the templates and PEPA corrects them automatically on sending. These 3 modules are integrated in a single system that allows them to share data and import information such as student lists from the Administration Department.

MARKETING E CRÍTICA PROFÉTICA NA AÇÃO EVANGELIZADORA DA IGREJA CATÓLICA

A proposta de utilização do marketing na ação evangelizadora da Igreja Católica provoca debates entre os diversos segmentos da instituição. Por um lado, setores favoráveis defendem que a utilização do marketing religioso é uma alternativa disponível para Igreja Católica buscar a eficácia na realização de seus objetivos. Por outro lado, setores contrários ao marketing religioso afirmam que há incompatibilidade entre a lógica do marketing e a lógica profética da tradição judaico-cristã. Estes setores assumem a visão de que a lógica do marketing está articulada à lógica da sociedade do consumo, e, portanto, à lógica do capitalismo. Como são críticos ao capitalismo, passam a ser, também, contrários ao uso do marketing na ação eclesial. Diante desta controvérsia, esta dissertação tem o objetivo de mostrar que não há contradição na utilização de algumas técnicas de marketing na ação evangelizadora dos setores católicos comprometidos com a crítica profética à cultura do consumo, a fim de que sua ação profética seja mais eficaz. Nesse sentido, pretendemos mostrar que, de fato, há contradição entre a lógica do marketing e a lógica profética, mas que não existe, necessariamente, contradição entre o uso de algumas técnicas de marketing e a missão profética do cristianismo. Como procedimentos metodológicos, optamos por uma pesquisa bibliográfica a partir dos seguintes referenciais teóricos: Peter Drucker e Philip Kotler foram importantes para fundamentar o significado do marketing nas áreas de Marketing e de Administração. No campo das Ciências da Religião os referenciais teóricos foram Jung Mo Sung, que contribuiu com o estudo das relações entre lógica do mercado, lógica profética e evangelização, e Afonso Murad, que foi importante para articular os conceitos de gestão e de estratégia na ação evangelizadora.(AU)

MARKETING E CRÍTICA PROFÉTICA NA AÇÃO EVANGELIZADORA DA IGREJA CATÓLICA

A proposta de utilização do marketing na ação evangelizadora da Igreja Católica provoca debates entre os diversos segmentos da instituição. Por um lado, setores favoráveis defendem que a utilização do marketing religioso é uma alternativa disponível para Igreja Católica buscar a eficácia na realização de seus objetivos. Por outro lado, setores contrários ao marketing religioso afirmam que há incompatibilidade entre a lógica do marketing e a lógica profética da tradição judaico-cristã. Estes setores assumem a visão de que a lógica do marketing está articulada à lógica da sociedade do consumo, e, portanto, à lógica do capitalismo. Como são críticos ao capitalismo, passam a ser, também, contrários ao uso do marketing na ação eclesial. Diante desta controvérsia, esta dissertação tem o objetivo de mostrar que não há contradição na utilização de algumas técnicas de marketing na ação evangelizadora dos setores católicos comprometidos com a crítica profética à cultura do consumo, a fim de que sua ação profética seja mais eficaz. Nesse sentido, pretendemos mostrar que, de fato, há contradição entre a lógica do marketing e a lógica profética, mas que não existe, necessariamente, contradição entre o uso de algumas técnicas de marketing e a missão profética do cristianismo. Como procedimentos metodológicos, optamos por uma pesquisa bibliográfica a partir dos seguintes referenciais teóricos: Peter Drucker e Philip Kotler foram importantes para fundamentar o significado do marketing nas áreas de Marketing e de Administração. No campo das Ciências da Religião os referenciais teóricos foram Jung Mo Sung, que contribuiu com o estudo das relações entre lógica do mercado, lógica profética e evangelização, e Afonso Murad, que foi importante para articular os conceitos de gestão e de estratégia na ação evangelizadora.(AU)

Early termination of R&D projects

Early project termination is one of the most difficult decisions to be made by Research and Development managers. While there is the risk of terminating good projects, there is also the opposite risk of not terminating bad projects and overspend resources in unproductive research. Criteria used for identifying these projects are common subject of research in Business Administration. In addition, companies might take important lessons from its interrupted projects that could improve their overall portfolio technical and commercial success. Finally, the set and weight of criteria, as well as the procedures companies use for achieve learning from cancelled projects may vary depending on the project type. This research intends to contribute to the understanding of policies applied to projects that were once considered attractive, but by some reason is not appreciated anymore. The research addressed the question: How companies deal with projects that become unattractive? More specifically, this research tried to answer the following questions: (1) Are projects killed or (otherwise) they die naturally by lack of resources? (2) What criteria are used to terminate projects during development? (3) How companies learn from the terminated projects to improve the overall portfolio performance? (4) Are the criteria and learning procedures different for different types of projects? In order to answer these questions, we performed a multiple case study with four companies that are reference in business administration and innovation: (1) Oxiteno, considered the base case, (2) Natura, the literal replication, (3) Mahle and (4) AES, the theoretical replications. The case studies were performed using a semi-structured protocol for interviews, which were recorded and analyzed for comparison. We found that the criteria companies use for selecting projects for termination are very similar to those anticipated by the literature, except for a criteria related to compliance. We have evidences to confirm that the set of criteria is not altered when dealing with different project types, however the weight they are applied indeed varies. We also found that learning with cancelled projects is yet very incipient, with very few structured formal procedures being described for capturing learning with early-terminated projects. However, we could observe that these procedures are more common when dealing with projects labeled as innovative, risky, big and costly, while those smaller and cheaper derivative projects aren\'t subject of a complete investigation on the learning they brought to the company. For these, the most common learning route is the informal, where the project team learns and passes the knowledge though interpersonal information exchange. We explain that as a matter of cost versus benefit of spending time to deeply investigate projects with little potential to bring new knowledge to the project team and the organization

Modelos de desarrollo y sistemas de gestión pública: el SNIP peruano, 2000-2014

Esta Tesis tiene dos partes. La Primera Parte es Teórica y Metodológica y trata de la actual crisis de paradigma en las Ciencias Sociales, y de cómo se puede remontar con la Teoría del Pensamiento Complejo, siempre que sus propuestas se centren en modelos empíricos de Análisis de Redes Sociales debidamente matematizados y estadísticamente refrendados. La propuesta del tesista propone enriquecer el actual homo economicus, incorporando la importancia de las relaciones con el grupo (coactivas, coercitivas o motivacionales), a través de un nuevo objeto de estudio: los Proyectos. Es mediante los Proyectos, donde los individuos y los grupos en los que interactúan, transan y organizan sus esfuerzos. El problema reside en que, no existe hasta la fecha, una sistematización y modelización de los Proyectos como objeto de estudio en las Ciencias Sociales. Sin embargo, hay una amplia experiencia de análisis y sistematización de Proyectos tanto en la Economía de la Empresa (Management, Business Administration), como en la Economía Pública. En esta Tesis se estudia todo lo publicado recientemente sobre los Proyectos de Inversión Pública (PIPs) y su eficiencia en Latinoamérica. En la Segunda Parte, centrada en un Trabajo Empírico y su modelización, el tesista crea una Base de Datos (BdD) primaria, a partir del Banco de Proyectos (BdP) del Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas (MEF) del Perú (2001-2014), que recoge todos los Proyectos de Inversión Pública (PIP), cerca de 400.000 PIPs Iniciales, los tabula en 48 categorías y posteriormente, “deja hablar a los datos” jugando a relacionar, correlacionar, inducir hipótesis y verificarlas mediante un sistema que se centra en la operativa tipo “Big Data”. A esto le denomina “triangular” porque mezcla en el esfuerzo, herramientas de Estadística Descriptiva, Estadística Inferencial y Econometría para poder refrendar el conocimiento inducido, que siempre en ciencia, es una mera certeza probabilística. El tesista concluye que en el caso del Sistema Nacional de Inversión Pública del Perú (SNIP) y más específicamente, de los procesos administrativos que emplea -denominados “Ciclo PIP”-, queda claro que se está trabajando con “fenómenos emergentes” cuyo comportamiento no se adapta a una Distribución Normal. Y que dicho comportamiento errático se debe a que la Inversión Pública es cíclica (Ecuación Evolutiva de Price) y a que el “Ciclo PIP” opera a todo nivel (GN, GR, GL) en función de las relaciones entre los miembros que componen su red. Ergo, es un tema a Analizar con Social Network Analysis (Análisis Social de Redes, ARS). El tesista concluye que las redes de “Ciclo PIP” en el Perú fallan principalmente por problemas de escasez de personal técnico multisectorial debidamente cualificado. A manera de conclusión, propone la creación de una Plataforma Web 3.0 (metadatos), que utilice un Sistema de Razonamiento Basado en Casos (SRBC) para aprovechar el conocimiento que dimana de los éxitos y fracasos de los propios PIPs, con el fin de facilitar las gestiones de los miembros de la red que formulan, evalúan y ejecutan los PIPs en el Perú, tanto a nivel Municipal (GP) como Regional (GR) y Nacional (GN).

Examining retirement housing preferences among international retiree migrants

Housing demand models based on individual consumer’s utility function reflect preferences about the structure and lot, neighborhood, and location as related to socioeconomic characteristics of the occupants. As a growing proportion of aging residents in many countries are undertaking late life moves, their preferences will have an influence on destination housing markets. We examine the characteristics, attitudes and preferences about retirement housing among immigrant retirees currently living in traditional housing in a retirement destination in Alicante, Spain. Using results from a survey of German and British retirees living in the region, we find through logistic regression that preference for retirement housing is associated with aging and gaining access to in-home support services.

Reflections on the Nature of Preferentialism in Services Trade

The Graduate Institute organized an academic workshop and roundtable on the occasion of EFTA's 50th Anniversary in Geneva under the chairmanship of H.E. Doris Leuthard, President of the Swiss Confederation. Pierre Sauve, Deputy Managing Director and Director of Studies, WTI and Co-leader, NCCR-Trade work programme on preferentialism and Anirudh Shingal, Senior Research Fellow, WTI and Co-leader, NCCR-Trade work programme on impact assessment of trade, co-authored a paper on the nature of preferentialism in services trade, which Anirudh presented at the workshop. The event was extremely well-attended by high profile dignitaries and academics including President Leuthard; Director General of the WTO, Pascal Lamy; trade ministers of Brazil and Finland; Jan Kubis, Executive Secretary of the UNECE and several current and former ambassadors. The academic workshop, moderated by Theresa Carpenter (Graduate Institute, Geneva), began in the morning with Prof. Victor Norman's (Norwegian School of Economics & Business Administration) presentation on the future of EFTA. Other presentations included those by Prof. Peter Egger (ETH Zurich) on the structural estimation of gravity models with market entry dynamics and by Prof. Richard Baldwin (Graduate Institute, Geneva) on 21st century regionalism. The high-profile Panel in the afternoon, moderated by Prof. Richard Baldwin, was led by President Leuthard who spoke on free trade agreements and the multilateral trading system in 2020. The keynote address at the Panel was delivered by Prof. Jagdish Bhagwati (Coulmbia University), who spoke on strengthening defences against protectionism and liberalizing trade.

Marketing in Mexico /

Supersedes OBR 74-58.

Counseling Hispanic college-bound high school students /

Distributed to depository libraries in microfiche.

Memoria.

Memoria for 1932/33 also has title: La educación y la justicia en los años .

Food industries data sources.

Mode of access: Internet.

Smoke detectors : moving the public.

Vol. 2 of a series of smoke detector public education manuals.

Household decision making : an exploratory study /

"This study is designed to gain insights into various aspects of family decision making. Specifically, the study examines the prevalance of autonomous versus joint decision making, the incidence of conflict in joint decision making, and the tactics used by individual household members in resolving conflict."