Productive Development Policies in Costa Rica: Market Failures, Government Failures, and Policy Outcomes

This paper analyzes five Productive Development Policies (PDPs) implemented in Costa Rica, finding that they are not optimally addressing market failures. Moreover, government failures rather than market failures represent the main justification for PDPs. Even in the presence of market failures, the policy instruments applied are not necessarily the most economically efficient but rather the most politically feasible options. In addition, the lack of policy evaluation and monitoring prevents adjustments and corrections of such policies. Addressing the arguments for policy intervention and incorporating the results of evaluation into policy design and reform are necessary conditions for success. In spite of positive policy outcomes, limitations to enhance competitiveness and create the conditions for productivity growth are still present. An umbrella approach in the case of those PDPs that reinforce each other is necessary for productivity growth.Policy Analysis, Policy Making, Industrial Policy, Costa Rica

Jumps in Rank and Expected Returns. Introducing Varying Cross-sectional Risk

Decision theorists claim that an ordinal measure of risk may be sufficient for an agent to make a rational choice under uncertainty. We propose a measure of financial risk, namely the Varying Cross-sectional Risk (VCR), that is based on a ranking of returns. VCR is defined as the probability of a sharp jump over time in the position of an asset return within the cross-sectional return distribution of the assets that constitute the market, which is represented by the Standard and Poor's 500 Index (SP500). We model the joint dynamics of the cross-sectional position and the asset return by analyzing (1) the marginal probability distribution of a sharp jump in the cross-sectional position within the context of a duration model, and (2) the probability distribution of the asset return conditional on a jump, for which we specify different return dynamics depending upon whether or not a jump has taken place. As a result, the marginal probability distribution of returns is a mixture of distributions. The performance of our model is assessed in an out-of-sample exercise. We design a set of trading rules that are evaluated according to their profitability and riskiness. A trading rule based on our VCR model is dominant providing superior mean trading returns and accurate estimation of the Value-at-Risk.Duration, Mixture of distributions, Nonlinearity, Reality check, Trading rule, VaR

Medium dependence of asphaltene agglomeration inhibitor efficiency

Applying chemical additives (molecule inhibitors or dispersants) is one of the common ways to control asphaltene agglomeration and precipitation. However, it is not clear why at some conditions the synthetic flocculation inhibitors as well as resins not only do not inhibit the asphaltene agglomeration,, they may also promote it, and why the increasing of the additive concentration may lead to the diminishing of their efficacy. To clarify this issue, in the present work we have performed a set of vapor preassure osmometry experiments investigating the asphaltene agglomeration inhibition by commercial and new inhibitor molecules in toluene and o-diclorobenzene. Monte Carlo computer modeling has been applied to interpret some unexpected trends of molar mass of the Puerto Ceiba asphaltene clusters at different concentrations of inhibitor, assuming that inhibitors efficiency is directly related to their adsorption on the surface of asphaltene or its complexes. It has been found that a self-assembly of inhibitor molecules, induced by relative lyophilic or lyophobic interactions, may be a reason of the inhibitor efficacy declining.Comment: 21 page

Implementing a Human Resources Competency-Based Model: An Actor Network-Perspective

This paper draws on a qualitative study informed by Actor-Network Theory (ANT). A socio-technical perspective is presented to describe how humans and non-human actors are attempted to be enrolled during a Human Resources Competency-Based Model (HRCBM) Implementation in a multi-campus University System in Mexico. The Project Implementation (PI) is seen as continuous processes of negotiation with and enrollment of relevant actors during the project trajectory. It includes insights from 17 semi-structured interviews with actors involved in the project. The paper shows how an actor-network was created, expanded and maintained. To strengthen the network stability, different strategies were developed and implemented by the core implementation team. But other issues suggested by ANT contributed to slow down the implementation process: some omissions made by the core team during the problematization stage, the failure to fully enroll relevant actors and the existence of a competing network. This approach can help researchers to better understand how to apply ANT concepts to study socio-technical situations such as a Project Implementation