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The Gambia education country status report

REA Auditado

Many countries in Africa have placed
education at the center of their social and economic
development strategies. Although much has been achieved
across the region, some challenges remain: millions of
children are still not enrolled in primary school; girls,
children from poor families, and those from rural areas are
at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to schooling; and
learning outcomes are weak.

Tema: general: 

• Negocios y Economía

Non-universal scaling and dynamical feedback in generalized models of financial markets

REA Auditado

We study self-organized models for information transmission and herd behavior in financial markets. Existing models are generalized to take into account the effect of size-dependent fragmentation and coagulation probabilities of groups of agents and to include a demand process. Non-universal scaling with a tunable exponent for the group size distribution is found in the resulting system. We also show that the fragmentation and coagulation probabilities of groups of agents have a strong influence on the average investment rate of the system.

Tema: general: 

• Ciencias›Matemáticas

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

Identifying successful marketing strategies by export regional destination

REA Auditado

This study develops a model that explains export sales volume by destination based on a company's export marketing strategy. A seemingly unrelated regression model (SURE) simultaneously estimates the explanatory value of the different elements of the marketing strategy, as well as company characteristics, such as experience, size and motivation to export, on entry decisions to six different regional markets made by exporting companies in a southern European country. The data were collected from a sample size of 2,264 exporting companies.

Tema: general: 

• Negocios y Economía›Economía

Modelling price competition across many markets. An application to the Spanish loans market

REA Auditado

The purpose of this work is the structural modelling of price competition in a product-differentiated industry in which many firms of varying size compete across many independent small markets, with the target of identifying price behaviour. We apply it to model competition among the more than 79 banks that were active in the Spanish loans market during the period 1983–1991, using micropanel data. A model in which national banks (as opposed to regional and local banks) fully internalize their cross-rate effects in pricing is selected as the model that best fits the data.

Tema: general: 

• Negocios y Economía›Economía

Optimizing the Size of Public Road Contracts

REA Auditado

Procurement packaging has important
effects on not only the bidders' bidding behavior, but
also contractors' performance. By changing the size of
public contracts, procurers can encourage (or discourage)
market competition and improve contract performance,
avoiding unnecessary cost overruns and project delays. In
practice, there is no single solution about how to package
public contracts.

Tema: general: 

• Negocios y Economía

Financial Institutions and Markets across Countries and over Time

REA Auditado

This article introduces the updated and expanded version of the Financial Development and Structure Database. The database includes indicators on the size, efficiency, and stability of banks, nonbank financial institutions, and equity and bond markets over 1960–2007. It also contains indicators of financial globalization.

Tema: general: 

• Negocios y Economía

Banking Structure and Economic Growth: Evidence from China

REA Auditado

With panel data for 28 Chinese provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) during 1985-2002, this paper assesses the effect of banking structure on economic growth. Banking structure is defined as the relative importance of banks of different size in the banking sector. The market share of small banking institutions is taken as a proxy to measure the banking structure. In dealing with the potential endogeneity problem, this paper constructs an instrumental variable for banking structure with the information on the commercialization reform of state-owned banks initiated in 1994.

Tema: general: 

• Negocios y Economía

The Case for Tailoring Patent Awards Based on the Time-to-Market of Inventions

REA Auditado

One of the hallmarks of our patent system is that it provides a one-size-fits-all reward for innovation. Few deny a uniform 20-year patent term for all inventions provides too much protection for some, and too little for others. But absent a principled and administrable alternative, the uniform patent system has been our best option. We may know which economic determinants are relevant to a socially optimal patent term and which predispose a patent to stifling future
innovation.

Tema: general: 

• Ciencias

Investor Protection, Risk Sharing and Inequality

REA Auditado

This paper studies the relationship between investor protection, financial risk sharing and income inequality. In the presence of market frictions, better protection makes investors more willing to take on entrepreneurial risk while lending to firms. This implies lower cost of external finance and better risk sharing between financiers and entrepreneurs. Investor protection, by boosting the market for risk sharing plays the twofold role of encouraging agents to undertake risky enterprises and providing them with insurance.

Tema: general: 

• Ciencias Sociales