The Decision to Export and the Volatility of Sales

This paper studies the export decision of risk-averse firms in a model featuring aggregate uncertainty and no capital markets. Firms seeking to enter the foreign market face a sunk cost as well as a fixed participation cost every period they export. Using a calibrated version of the model, I show that firms are more likely to export when the correlation between domestic and foreign aggregate shocks is negative and when their degree of risk-aversion is higher. Counterfactual experiments show that exporting increases the volatility of total sales.Exports, Aggregate uncertainty, Heterogeneous-firm models of international trade

Exports, Investment and Firm-Level Sales Volatility

This paper presents a dynamic model of risk-averse producers’ decision to invest in physical capital and to export. The model features irreversible investment, no capital markets and fixed and sunk costs to export. Several features of the distribution of investment rates and export participation patterns observed in firm-level data are closely matched in a calibration exercise. Counterfactual experiments show that large adjustments in total sales associated with entry into foreign markets increase the volatility of total sales for exporting firms.exports, investment, uncertainty

Political Environment and Privatization Prices

This paper studies the link between the political and institutional context and privatization sales prices. The latter serves as a measure for assessing the relative performance of the privatization goals. Whereas this link has been studied theoretically, there are very few, if any, empirical papers on this relationship. Using data from 308 privatizations around the world and applying a cross-country approach (including instrumental variables), we find that, while the overall political regime does not matter much for prices, the political processes beyond the basic regime do matter. Institutional context also produces a significant impact on prices. Both results are robust to changes in specification.

Maquiladoras and Informality: A Mixed Blessing

Mexico experienced a tremendous expansion of its export-processing maquila sector during the 1990s. At the same time, a large proportion of its labor force remains employed in the informal sector. Since one of the main objectives of the maquiladora program was to increase formal employment, we study how the rapid increase in maquiladora activity has affected labor market outcomes in Mexico. We develop a heterogeneous firm model with imperfect labor markets that captures salient features of the Mexican economy such as the differences between maquila and non-maquila manufacturing plants and the existence of an informal sector. We calibrate the model's parameters to match key cross-sectional moments characterizing the Mexican economy. Our quantitative model indicates that the expansion of the maquila sector during the 1990s produced an increase in informality of 0.9% and a reduction in the skill premium and overall welfare of 2.7% and 3.7%, respectively. A counterfactual experiment in which we shut down the informal sector completely results in a reduction of Mexican welfare of 33.5% relative to the equilibrium with an informal sector.offshoring, informal sector, maquiladoras, trade and labor markets, Mexico

Luz y sombra como ensamble de arquetipos

Trabajo de gradoEste trabajo busca ofrecer solución a la carencia de espacios dedicados a fomentar las relaciones entre personas en el barrio Las Cruces, ubicado en la Unidad de planeamiento zonal (UPZ) 95 Las Cruces, que pertenece a la localidad Santa Fe, de la ciudad de Bogotá D.C. Esta propuesta parte con un análisis detallado de la estructura socioeconómica y espacial, funcional y de servicios, y ecológica principal planteadas en el Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial (POT).PregradoArquitect

Protectionism through exporting: subsidies with exportshare requirements in China

We study the effect of subsidies subject to export share requirements (ESR) - that is, conditioned on a firm exporting at least a given fraction of its output - on exports, the intensity of competition and welfare, through the lens of a two-country model of trade with heterogeneous firms. Our calibrated model suggests that this type of subsidy boosts exports more and provides greater protection for domestic firms than a standard unconditional export subsidy, albeit at a substantial welfare cost

Computational search for UV radiation resistance strategies in Deinococcus swuensis isolated from Paramo ecosystems

Ultraviolet radiation (UVR) is widely known as deleterious for many organisms since it can cause damage to biomolecules either directly or indirectly via the formation of reactive oxygen species. The goal of this study was to analyze the capacity of high-mountain Espeletia hartwegiana plant phyllosphere microorganisms to survive UVR and to identify genes related to resistance strategies. A strain of Deinococcus swuensis showed a high survival rate of up to 60% after UVR treatment at 800J/m2 and was used for differential expression analysis using RNA-seq after exposing cells to 400J/m2 of UVR (with \u3e95% survival rate). Differentially expressed genes were identified using the R-Bioconductor package NOISeq and compared with other reported resistance strategies reported for this genus. Genes identified as being overexpressed included transcriptional regulators and genes involved in protection against damage by UVR. Non-coding (nc)RNAs were also differentially expressed, some of which have not been previously implicated. This study characterized the immediate radiation response of D. swuensis and indicates the involvement of ncRNAs in the adaptation to extreme environmental conditions

Twin Peaks

Received wisdom suggests that most exporters sell the majority of their output domestically. In this paper, however, we show that the distribution of export intensity not only varies substantially across countries, but in a large number of cases is also bimodal, displaying what we refer to as twin peaks. We reconcile this new stylized fact with an otherwise standard, two-country model of trade in which firms are heterogeneous in terms of the demand they face in each market. We show that when rm-destination-specific revenue shifters are distributed lognormal, gamma, or Frechet with sufficiently high dispersion, the distribution of export intensity has two modesin the boundaries of the support and their height is determined by a country's size relative to the rest of the world. We estimate the deep parameters characterizing the distribution of export intensity. Our results show that when the conditions for the existence of twin peaks are met, differences in relative market size can explain most of the observed variation in the distribution of export intensity across the world

La Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz frente al Estado de Derecho y el Derecho Administrativo

Una de las grandes novedades que han presentado los acuerdos de paz que se adelantaron en La Habana, entre el Gobierno del presidente Juan Manuel Santos y la cúpula de las FARC, radica en la propuesta de crear una Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (JEP), que incluye la implementación de un Tribunal Especial de Paz (TEP). Estas jurisdicciones y tribunales no son una novedad en el plano mundial, puesto que dentro de contextos de justicia transicional varios países han acudido a este tipo de figuras, punto en el cual cabe destacar las experiencias del Líbano, Sierra Leona, Camboya, Timor y Bosnia Herzegovina, a las cuales se deben agregar las experiencias vividas en el Cono Sur de nuestro continente, y donde destacan los casos de Argentina y Chile. Cada una de estas experiencias ha tenido sus propias particularidades de acuerdo a la caracterización y estructura de su sistema jurídico-político. Para el caso específico de Colombia, una vez se conoció el punto quinto de las negociaciones de La Habana (diciembre de 2015), las críticas y los cuestionamientos no se hicieron esperar, pues si bien es cierto, los Acuerdos de La Habana eran, para ese momento, tan solo un esbozo de lo que planeaba hacerse, quedo en evidencia que algunos de sus puntos contravienen claramente la naturaleza del Estado de Derecho y socavan la estructura y funcionamiento del Estado, especialmente porque se desconoce el principio de tridivisión de poderes y se afecta la imparcialidad y autonomía de la función judicial, tal como pasaremos a ver.Universidad Libre de Colombia - Facultad de Derecho - Maestría en Derecho Administrativ

Promoción de resiliencia preventiva a través de la enseñanza de inglés como lengua extranjera

La presente investigación busca favorecer la promoción de resiliencia preventiva y competencias ciudadanas, mediante el diseño de una serie de planes de clase y una guía para la asignatura de inglés del grado noveno en un colegio de Bogotá. Esta investigación pretende incorporar el plan de promoción de competencias ciudadanas diseñado por el Ministerio de Educación Nacional (MEN en adelante) a la enseñanza de inglés como lengua extranjera, dada su transversalidad y directa relación con el fortalecimiento de la resiliencia preventiva que se pretende promover. Además, es importante resaltar que la propuesta pedagógica del proyecto investigativo se sirve del trabajo cooperativo en el aula de clase, el fortalecimiento de vínculos interpersonales de los estudiantes y docentes, así como la implementación de temáticas sociales reales, que describen el contexto en el que los estudiantes se encuentran inmersos, y desde luego, focalizando aquellas potencialidades presentes en los aprendientes para hacer frente a las adversidades inherentes de dichos contextos. Todo lo anterior, haciendo de la experiencia del inglés, un aprendizaje realmente significativo.This research seeks to foster the promotion of preventive resilience and citizenship skills by designing a series of lesson plans and a learning guide for the ninth grade English class in private School of Bogota. This research attempts to incorporate the citizenship skills promotion plan, designed by the Ministry of National Education (MEN), to English teaching as a foreign language, due to its direct relationship with preventive resilience goals. It is also important to highlight that the pedagogical approach of this research project uses cooperative work in the classroom, strengthening interpersonal relationships of students and teachers, as well as the implementation of real social issues, describing the context in which students are immersed, and of course, focusing on those potential protective factors that learners already have in order to cope with the inherent adversities of such contexts. All of the above, to make English learning a truly meaningful experience.Licenciado (a) en Lenguas ModernasPregrad