Does the Use of Foreign Currency Derivatives Affect Colombian Firms’ Market Value?

Classic financial theory relies on the absolute perfection of capital markets, which results in one of the milestones of theoretical corporate finance: the firm’s value is invariant to the choice of capital structure. As an extension to the aforementioned proposition by Modigliani and Miller (1958), corporate risk management is also futile. Nevertheless, it is clear that capital markets do not work with absolute perfection. There exist frictions which make risk management decisions essential for the firm’s value. Moreover, derivatives’ market vast importance is a good proxy of the relevance of hedging decisions for corporate finance. There is a remarkable volume of literature which tests the effects of risk management and hedging decisions for the value of the firm, mainly for the US corporate market. However, there is little effort on this subject for markets which work even farther from absolute perfection. This document undertakes such task for the Colombian market. Focused on non-financial firms and the local’s most liquid derivatives market, we find that for a panel of eight large Colombian corporations, the growth rate of Tobin´s Q depends significantly on firm´s size and hedging. Our results suggests that, after controlling for relevant financial variables such as firm´s profitability and leverage, and other variables such as firm´s age, an increase in hedging leads to a higher growth in the firm´s value.Modigliani-Miller, risk management, hedging, firm value, emerging market, Tobin´s Q. Classification JEL: G32, G30, L25.

Firm Failure and Relationship Lending:New Evidence from Small Businesses

We study the effect of relationship lending on small firms failure probability using a uniquely rich data set comprised of information on individual loans of a large number of small firms in Colombia. We control for firm-specific variables and find that small firms involved in long-term liaisons with commercial banks have a significantly lower probability of becoming bankrupt than otherwise identical firms not involved in a long-term credit relationship. We also find that small firms with multiple banking relationships face a lower failure hazard than otherwise identical firms involved in a unique long-term relationship.Firms, bank relationships, survival analysis. Classification JEL: G20, G21, C40.

Especificación de la Demanda por Dinero con Innovación Financiera

En esta nota se presentan los resultados de la estimación de la demanda por base monetaria-dinero de alto expansivo-en Colombia, introduciendo la relación entre depósitos sujetos a encaje y efectivo como proxy de la variable cambio tecnológico en el sistema financiero. Se muestra que hay tres vectores de cointegración, uno de los cuales puede interpretarse como la demanda por base monetaria, en la medida en que los signos de los coeficientes son los que implica la teoría económica. Además la prueba de exogeneidad débil, y la prueba conjunta de exogeneidad débil y homogeneidad, señalan que la variable endógena es la base monetaria ajustada y que la demanda por base monetaria es homogénea de grado uno en precios e ingreso. Así esta puede ser interpretada como una demanda por base monetaria en el sentido de la teoría cuantitativa. Los resultados arrojados por la prueba de exclusión señalan que se comete un error de especificación en la demanda por base monetaria si se excluye la variable de innovación financiera, ya que al hacerlo el signo del coeficiente correspondiente a la tasa de interés resulta contraintuitivo. Por último, se muestra que al introducir la misma variable de innovación financiera en la estimación de la velocidad de la base monetaria se obtiene un vector de cointegración con signos de coeficientes teóricamente plausibles, y que no se rechaza la hipótesis nula de elasticidad unitaria de la tasa de interés a un nivel de significancia del 5.0%

The Competing Risks of Acquiring and Being Acquired: Evidence from Colombia´s Financial Sector

This paper studies the determinants of the probability of participating in a process of merging or acquisition for financial institutions in Colombia. We use survival analysis techniques and competing risks models to estimate the probability of participating in such processes as an acquiring or acquired firm. Using an especially rich database containing financial information of Colombian banks for the period 1990 - 2007, we find that both macroeconomic and microeconomic variables are important determinants of such probability. However, there are differential effects for the acquiring firm and the acquired firm. Particularly, while firm size and solvency result significant determinants of the probability of being an acquiring firm, efficiency is an important determinant of the probability of being acquired. Also, the concentration index, that plays no role for acquiring firms, plays an important role in the probability of being acquired.Survival analysis; competing risk models; Colombia

Application of a Natural Language Interface to the Teleoperation of a Mobile Robot

IFAC Intelligent Components for Vehicles, Seville, Spain, 1998This paper describes the application of a natural language interface to the teleoperation of a mobile robot. Natural language communication with robots is a major goal, since it allows for non expert people to communicate with robots in his or her own language. This communication has to be flexible enough to allow the user to control the robot with a minimum knowledge about its details. In order to do this, the user must be able to perform simple operations as well as high level tasks which involve multiple elements of the system. For this ones, an adequate representation of the knowledge about the robot and its environment will allow the creation of a plan of simple actions whose execution will result in the accomplishment of the requested tas

El racionamiento del crédito y las crisis financieras

The idea that credit is important has gained importance in the contemporary macroeconomic theory. However, almost all the models that explicitly include financial variables in their explanation of economic behaviour continue to differentiate between the monetary and the real economy in the long run. This paper proposes a relationship between credit restrictions and financial crisis based on postkeynesian theory. In this context, credit rationalization appears as a natural phenomenon in modern capitalist economies, and not as a result of the bankers’ voluntary action will or their imperfect information due to the confidentiality of investors’ knowledge. Financial crisis are endogenous, but they can be prevented by the correct behaviour of the economic institutions.credit, financial crisis, postkeynesian theory, economic institutions, financial variables

La Mentoría como elemento de mejora en el proceso de enseñanza - aprendizaje

Este artículo describe una experiencia de mentoría llevada a cabo dentro de la Universidad de Granada con el objetivo de mejorar la calidad de la enseñanza que en ella se ofrece. Se han realizado diferentes actividades (grabaciones en vídeo y seminarios de formación) que han dado lugar a acciones de mejora concretas de la docencia, la tutoría y la evaluación de los alumnos. A tenor de los resultados de diferentes encuestas, la experiencia ha sido muy positiva no sólo para el profesor mentor y el profesor novel, sino también para sus alumnos.SUMMARY: This paper describes a mentoring experience carried out in the University of Granada with the aim of improving the quality of the education that this offers. Different activities have been performed (video recording and training seminars) which have given rise to concrete measures for the improvement of the teaching, the tutoring, and the evaluation of the students. According to the results of different surveys, the experience has been very positive not only for the mentor and the beginning teacher, but also for their students.Peer Reviewe

Engineered Salmonella allows real-time heterologous gene expression monitoring within infected zebrafish embryos

Short communication.Microbial host–pathogen interactions have been traditionally well studied at genetic and physiological levels, but cell-resolution analyses have been particularly scarce. This has been especially remarkable for intracellular parasites for two major reasons: first, the inherent loss of bacteria traceability once infects its hosts; second and more important, the limited availability of genetic tools that allow a tight regulated expression of bacterial virulence genes once inside the host tissues. Here we present novel data supporting the use of zebrafish embryos to monitor Salmonella enterica serovar Thyphimurium infection. Intravenous infection of Salmonella can be easily monitored using in vivo fluorescence that allows the visualization of free-swimming bacteria through the circulatory system. Moreover, we have engineered Salmonella to voluntarily activate heterologous gene expression at any point during infection once inside the zebrafish macrophages using a salicylate-based expression system. This approach allows real-time cell-resolution in vivo monitoring of the infection. All together, this approach paves the road to cell-based resolution experiments that would be harder to mimic in other vertebrate infection models.his work was funded by grants BFU2010-14839, CSD2007-00008, CSD2007-00005 and Proyectos de Excelencia CVI-3488 and P07-CVI-02518 from the Spanish and Andalusian Governments, respectively. Jose Luis Royo holds a JAE DOC contract from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).Peer reviewe