Quantifying Latin American firms'exposure to external factors

This is the last of a series of three working papers analyzing the basic characteristics of the economic environment in which Latin American firms operate and the optimal design of incentive programs compatible with such environment. Executive pay-for-performance compensation schemes are usually based on stock returns. However, stock returns change in response to forces beyond management control (e.g., market crushes). The economic environment in which Latin American firms operate is highly unstable, which means that this is a very important limitation for Latin American firms. In the present paper, we present a procedure to decompose variability in stock returns in order to identify and measure components that respond to external factors beyond management control. For this, we have created indices that capture statistically the external influences that affect stock returns. We show how such indices can be used to construct a risk profile that allows management to know to what extent observed outcomes depend on external factors, versus their own actions. In addition, these indices can be used as a basis to develop "indexed options": financial instruments designed to factor out the effects of external risks, making it possible for executives to be evaluated only on the basis of the value they generate. We show that these indices can be developed out of purely local information, but that the solutions tend to be moderately unstable, which implies that compensation instruments developed with this methodology should be of relatively short maturity.

Internal and External Factors of Motivation of Health Cadres in Implementing Alert Village in District of Ogan Ilir in 2011

Background : Role of a health cadre is very important in supporting alert village program . The task of a health cadre is very complex and diverse in developing alert village. Therefore a health cadre is expected to have high motivation in performing everyday tasks. Method : This research is a descriptive qualitative approach. The number of samples in this study as many as 6 people informants include 2 key informants and 4 informants comparison. The instruments used are the guidelines for indepth interviews, observation sheets and conducted document review. Result : The internal factors that influence the work motivation of cadres were education and training for self-development, the recognition of local government and the award given by the health department to the cadre if the achievements in carrying out their duties and responsibilities. In addition, in performing their duties, relations with superiors or with coworkers are good and coupled with the lack of concern from the health department through supervision activities. Conclusion : Most of the village health volunteers standby has responsibility plays an important role in the management of idle rural programs, help develop and manage UKBM, as well as helping to identify and report on events in the community that may have an impact on society

Differential effects of internal and external factors on the development of vocabulary, tense morphology and morpho-syntax in successive bilingual children

The present study investigates the effects of child internal (age/time) and child external/environmental factors on the development of a wide range of language domains in successive bilingual (L2) Turkish-English children of homogeneously low SES. Forty-three L2 children were tested on standardized assessments examining the acquisition of vocabulary and morpho-syntax. The L2 children exhibited a differential acquisition of the various domains: they were better on the general comprehension of grammar and tense morphology and less accurate on the acquisition of vocabulary and (complex) morpho-syntax. Profile effects were confirmed by the differential effects of internal and external factors on the language domains. The development of vocabulary and complex syntax were affected by internal and external factors, whereas external factors had no contribution to the development of tense morphology. These results are discussed in light of previous studies on the impact of internal and external factors in child L2 acquisition

EXTERNAL FACTORS INFLUENCE ON INFLATION: THE CASE OF ROMANIA

In this paper we try to assess the main external determinants of inflation dynamics in Romania. The literature in the field of measuring inflation dynamics is wealthy and various. There are many developing country - level studies that examine inflation dynamics: Blavy (2004) - Guinea, Duma (2008) - Sri Lanka, Gottschalk et al (2008) - Sierra Leone, Moriyama (2008) - Sudan, Mwase (2006) - Tanzania, Williams and Adedeji (2004) - Dominican Republic, Hossain (2005) - Indonesia, Almounsor (2010) - Yemen. The issue of Romanian inflation dynamics is present in many and various studies, like Hammermann (2007), Pelinescu and Dospinescu (2006), Budina et al (2006) etc. There are no other recent studies that analyze the external determinants on Romanian inflation dynamics. In our paper we estimate an OLS single equation model, using a methodology derived from Almounsor (2010). The empirical analysis uses monthly data from August 2005 to January 2011. The start point of the data series is the moment of a major change in the National Bank of Romania (NBR) monetary policy: adoption of the inflation targeting regime. The independent variables used in our research are: harmonized consumer price index of EU-25 countries, EUR/RON exchange rate, crude oil price index (for analyzing the external shocks effect) and M2 monetary aggregate (intermediate money supply) as a control variable. The outcomes suggest that inflation in Romania is driven mainly by international price shocks - harmonized consumer price index of EU-25 countries. The EUR/RON exchange rate depreciation has a small influence on domestic inflation. In the short run, the effect of the international oil price is insignificant. Money supply, used here as a control variable, is shown to have a very small effect on inflation in Romania when using OLS regressions. The results show that 66% of the domestic inflation variance is explained by the independent variables in our model.inflation dynamics, external shock, international prices, exchange rate, Romania

Maintenance or loss of dialect Andalusian features: Internal and external factors

In the last sixty years a steadily maintained process of convergence towards the Castilian national standard has been occurring in Southern Spain affecting urban middle-class speakers’ varieties, particularly phonology and lexis. As a consequence, unmarked features characterising innovative southern pronunciation have become less frequent and, at the same time, certain standard marked features have been adapted to the southern phonemic inventory. Then, urban middle-class varieties have progressively been stretching out the distance separating them from working-class and rural varieties, and bringing them closer to central Castilian varieties. Intermediate, yet incipient koineised varieties have been described including also transitional Murcia and Extremadura dialects (Hernández & Villena 2009, Villena, Vida & von Essen 2015). (1) Some of the standard phonologically marked features have spread out among southern speakers exclusively based on their mainstream social prestige and producing not only changes in obstruent phoneme inventory –i.e. acquisition of /s/ vs. /θ/ contrast, but also standstill and even reversion of old consonant push- or pull-chain shifts –e.g. /h/ or /d/ fortition, affricate /ʧ/, etc. as well as traditional lexis shift (Villena et al. 2016). Internal (grammar and word frequency) and external (stratification, network and style) factors constraining those features follow similar patterns in the Andalusian speech communities analysed so far (Granada, Malaga) but when we zoom in on central varieties, which are closer to the national standard and then more conservative, differences in frequency increase and conflict sites emerge. (2) Unmarked ‘natural’ phonological features characterising southern dialects, particularly deletion of syllable-final consonant, do not keep pace with this trend of convergence towards the standard. Thus a combination of southern innovative syllable-final and standard conservative onset-consonant features coexist. (3). The main idea is that this intermediate variety is formed through changes suggesting that Andalusian speakers look for the best way of accepting marked prestige features without altering coherence within their inventory. Either reorganisation of the innovative phonemic system in such a way that it may include Castilian and standard /s/ vs. /θ/ contrast or re-syllabification of aspirated /s/ before dental stop are excellent examples of how and why linguistic features are able to integrate intermediate varieties between the dialect-standard continuum.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

External factors in emerging market recoveries: an empirical investigation.

We estimate conditional duration models to analyse recovery processes in emerging market economies. Our reduced fonn specification is parsimonious, as we focus on the effect of growth in the US, EU, and Japan on the prospects for recovery in emerging market economies experiencing recessions. In order to assess the robustness and forecasting capability of our results, we perfonned out-of-sample predictions using recently available data pertaining to the economies hit by the Asis crisis. The model successfully predicts the bouncing back of most emerging market economies hit by the Asian crisis, and confinns the importance of external factor in recovery processes.Emerging markets; Recessions; Duration; IS-LM;

External Factors in Emerging Market Recoveries: An Empirical Investigation

We estimate conditional duration models to analyse recovery processes in emerging market economies. Our reduced form specification is parsimonious, as we focus on the effect of growth in the US, EU, and Japan on the prospects for economic recovery in emerging markets experiencing recessions. In order to assess the robustness and forecasting capability of our results, we performed out-of-sample predictions using recently available data pertaining to the economies hit by the Asian crisis. The results of this exercise show that external factors beyond the control of the authorities can sucessfully explain the bouncing back of most emerging markets economies hit by the Asian crisis.

Externalities in North-South technology transfer: the case of CNG engines in Iran

This contribution focuses on illuminating the challenges and difficulties of North-South technology transfer. The central message of this paper is that North-South technology transfer is not simply a contract between two transacting firms and does not depend only on intra-firm and inter-firm factors. The process may also be influenced by a number of external factors, beyond the control or power of project managers. However, understanding of these external factors greatly influences the success of firms' technological development. These externalities could arise from North-South contexts variances, international atmosphere and even by different levels of both sides' actors involved in the process. Using an in-depth case study analysis for collaboration between Iranian and German companies, this article develops a clearer understanding of external factors which affect the cross-border technology transfer process

Effects of External Factors on the Small and Medium Enterprises in South Sumatera Province, Indonesia

Small and medium enterprises are known to be major contributors to the economy of South Sumatra. However, the support they receive from government and other stakeholders are insufficient to the size of the sector. This paper examines the effects of external macroeconomic and social factors such as credit, education, tax and inflation on small and medium enterprises employment in South Sumatra. Secondary time series data from 1995 to 2014 was used for this research. The data was stabilized by first differencing then ordinary least squares method was applied to analyze the data. The results show that tax had strong negative influence on the SMEs employment at five percent significance level. Credit and education also had some impact on SMEs at ten percent significance level. However, their coefficients showed negative signs reflecting the negative growth of SMEs over the period. This meant that, despite the increases in credit received by SMEs and the primary and secondary school graduates entering the SME sector, the SME employment declined over the period. There was no significant influence on the SMEs by inflation over the period studied though the coefficient of inflation showed a positive sign disclosing that inflation had no negative impact on SME employment over the period covered

Pass-Through of External Factors into Price Indicators In Turkey

This study analyzes the pass-through of exchange rate and US Dollar denominated import prices into consumer and producer prices in Turkey. To this end, pricing along a distribution chain framework is utilized and it is estimated by Vector Auto Regression (VAR) for the pre-inflation targeting and the inflation targeting periods. Results show that the pass-through of both external factors into producer prices is higher than it is for consumer prices. In addition, the degree of pass-through is significantly lower in the inflation targeting period compared to the previous period. The cumulative exchange rate and import price pass-through coefficients into consumer prices for the recent period are found similar to each other while import price shocks are reflected much faster. For the producer prices, import price shocks are found to be reflected more than the exchange rate shocks. An exercise based on these estimation results shows that during 2007-2009 external factors were influential on consumer prices. Furthermore simultaneous counter movements of exchange rate and import prices at that period limited and sometimes offset the impact of each other on consumer prices.Inflation, Pass-through, Exchange rate, Import prices, VAR analysis