Search

Profiles and adaptive strategies of owner-managers of medium-sized firms in Kenya

REA Auditado

The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to develop a profile of owner-manager entrepreneurs of 30 medium-sized firms in the "missing middle" sector of Kenya's economy, and (b) to investigate the business strategies used by these managers through the various stages of growth of their businesses. The sample for this study was drawn from medium-sized manufacturing firms in Nairobi. The data was collected through a preliminary fact sheet and structured interviews using a questionnaire.

Tema: general: 

• Ciencias Sociales›Educación

A Theory for Market Impact: How Order Flow Affects Stock Price

REA Auditado

It is known that the impact of transactions on stock price (market impact) is a concave function of the size of the order, but there exists little quantitative theory that suggests why this is so. I develop a quantitative theory for the market impact of hidden orders (orders that reflect the true intention of buying and selling) that matches the empirically measured result and that reproduces some of the non-trivial and universal properties of stock returns (returns are percent changes in stock price).

Tema: general: 

• Ciencias›Física

Adolescents' catalog purchasing patterns for clothing

REA Auditado

The purpose of this study was to determine adolescents' patronage motives and non-motives when using catalogs for clothing shopping. In addition, the study examined the purchasing role structure, payment practices, information sought, product-specific attributes considered, and shopping practices of adolescents in catalog shopping for their clothing. Self-administered questionnaires were given to 272 junior high and high school boys and girls who have clothing that was purchased from a catalog in the past 12 months.

Tema: general: 

• Ciencias Sociales›Educación

Improving failure diagnosis via better design and analysis of log messages

REA Auditado

As software is growing in size and complexity, accompanied by vendors’ increased time-to-market pressure, it has become increasingly difficult to deliver bulletproof software. Consequently, software systems still fail in the production environment. Once a failure occurs in production systems, it is important for the vendors to trouble-shoot it as quickly as possible since these failures directly affect the customers. Consequently vendors typically invest significant amounts of resources in production failure diagnosis.

Tema: general: 

• Ingeniería y Ciencias Aplicadas›Ciencias Computacionales

Topics on financial structures

REA Auditado

The two papers of this dissertation focus on the role of financial intermediaries in the economic development of Colombia. The first paper investigates the financial status of small and medium size manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) in Colombia. The paper investigates the SMEs' access to formal sources of credit relative to their share in value added, production and employment. I conducted a survey of selected SMEs, which describes the financial position of SMEs and SMEs' perceptions on financial problems.

Tema: general: 

• Negocios y Economía›Economía

Essays on technological change and innovation games

REA Auditado

The objectives of this dissertation is to provide a theory of innovation and technological change incorporating the following aspects; (i) the impact of the existence of substitutes and complements on the innovation incentives in presence of technological externalities, in a Cournot Nash game theoretic framework. Process innovation theory has focused predominantly on changes in the production possibility set of industrial structures producing homogenous goods. Indeed, firms are assumed to produce identical goods at the same fixed marginal cost.

Tema: general: 

• Negocios y Economía›Economía

Mechanisms for transfer of price risk of construction materials

REA Auditado

Depending on the contractual arrangement, fluctuations in materials prices expose different parties involved in a construction contract to various degrees of risk. In general, owners and/or contractors face the risk of losses when the prices of materials move upwards. Suppliers, on the other hand, face the risk of losses when the prices of materials move downwards. This study addresses this risk, taking all parties into consideration. It presents a mechanism for transferring this risk through the use of futures markets.

Tema: general: 

• Ingeniería y Ciencias Aplicadas›Ingeniería›Ingeniería Civil y Ciencia de los Materiales

Optimal bank portfolio choice and bank regulation: The Indonesian case

REA Auditado

This study tests empirically contracting theory in financial market. The model is based on Krasa and Villamil model (1992) which is modified to let each investor has k units of endowment, each bank has equity B, and monitoring cost depends on project size. In this model loan size per entrepreneur and the number of loans become choice variables (this makes the intermediary able to economize monitoring cost by investing more in one project).

Tema: general: 

• Negocios y Economía›Economía

Three essays on inequality

REA Auditado

This dissertation analyzes inequality focusing on labor market frictions that determine occupational choice and on different educational policies that determine the level of education and human capital accumulation.
The first essay presents an overlapping generations model with three different occupational choices: full-time manager, self-employed or worker, and frictions in the labor market due to labor protection policies. The model shows that labor market frictions can explain differences in employment structures and firm sizes across countries.

Tema: general: 

• Negocios y Economía›Economía

Land tenure security and resource use in Peruvian Amazonia: A case study of the Ucayali region

REA Auditado

The assignment of private property rights has been praised as one effective policy option to assure that resources are put into their most valued use by ensuring economic agents that the rewards for their work will be in their hands. When talking about private property rights over land, this policy has been implemented in the form of titling projects, under the assumption that titles signal secure land tenure.

Tema: general: 

• Negocios y Economía›Economía