Influencia de los sistemas de información en los resultados organizacionales

Over the last years, information systems (IS) have constituted the main focus of research in the business organization literature. This has created the need to identify their entrepreneurial value. The paper presents a theory-based model that was developed to assess the degree of IS success in SMEs. The aim of the proposed model is to determine the influence of IS on organizational performance. To achieve this aim, the Partial Least Square statistical technique is used to analyze data from 133 questionnaires administered to businesses across the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico. The results show that those enterprises that are more concerned with the improvement of the systems’ quality, information quality and the informatics service enhance the organizational outcomes. The present study contributes to the body of literature on the assessment of IS success in the context of an emerging country. In particular, the study provides a thorough assessment of the IS effectiveness and their impact on organizational performance.     

Trade Liberalization in the Presence of Foreign Direct Investment and Tax Credits: Estimates for Costa Rica

The paper uses a calibrated general-equilibrium model to quantify the welfare impact of trade liberalization—and compute the optimal tariff structure—for Costa Rica when trade-policy-induced foreign direct investment and international capital taxation with credits are present. It shows that complete trade liberalization reduces Costa Rica's welfare, as it leads to an outflow of capital and loss of tax revenue which more than offset the efficiency gains from an enhanced resource allocation. The optimal tariff structure for the Costa Rican economy turns out to be a mixture of relatively small import tariffs and subsidies.     

Computation and the Theory of Customs Unions

This paper reports on research that uses computational techniquesto assess whether or not various propositions that have beenadvanced as plausible in the literature on the theory of customsunions actually hold. This research blends theory and numericalsimulation to get insights into the likelihood that\ varioustheoretical propositions proposed in the customs union literaturehold. (JEL F10, F13, F15}     

How reasonable are assumptions used in theoretical models? Computational evidence on the likelihood of trade pattern changes

Abstract .  In theoretical literature it is common to make the assumption that in a multi-country, multi-good world, the direction of trade (import and export by commodity) is predetermined and fixed for each good for each country. We consider a simple three-country, three-good, pure-exchange model with CES preferences. We compute free trade competitive equilibria, three-country non-cooperative Nash equilibria, and customs union equilibria for randomised parameterizations, and find that trade pattern changes between free trade and customs union equilibria in around 35% of cases.     

Investment subsidies and time-consistent environmental policy

We describe a model of dynamic pollution abatement choices withheterogeneous agents where, due to the presence of a distributionalobjective and to the absence of incentive-compatible compensationmechanisms, the choice of a second-best level of emission taxationis time-inconsistent. In this model, we investigate whetherinvestment subsidies can act as a substitute for policy commitment.     

The Choice of Structural Model in Trade–Wages Decompositions

This paper uses a calibrated general equilibrium model to decompose observed wage changes from trade and technology shocks into portions attributable to each source. It highlights some difficulties with the numerical performance of widely used theoretical trade structures. For small economies, the Heckscher–Ohlin model reveals specialization problems unless the price changes accompanying trade shocks are small. It can also yield strikingly different decompositions of the same wage change. A differentiated-goods model removes specialization problems and accommodates large price changes, but introduces demand-side responses greatly reducing the effect of trade on wages, and performs implausibly with sector-biased technical change.     

How often are propositions on the effects of regional trade agreements theoretical curiosa?

This paper uses computational techniques to assess whether or not various propositions that have been advanced as plausible in the literature on regional trade agreements may actually hold. The idea is to make probabilistic statements as to whether propositions of interest might hold, rather than to restrict assumptions so they unambiguously hold. Our aim is to blend theory and numerical simulation and go beyond the ambiguous analytically derived propositions that dominate the theoretical literature so as to assess the likelihood of propositions holding for particular model specifications.     

Trade and Environment: Bargaining Outcomes from Linked Negotiations

Some recent literature has explored physical and policy linkages between trade and the environment. This paper explores linkage through leverage in bargaining, whereby developed countries can use trade threats to achieve improved developing-country environmental management, while developing countries can use environmental concessions to achieve trade discipline in developed countries. A global numerical simulation model is used to compute bargaining outcomes from linked trade and environment negotiations. Results indicate joint gains from expanding the trade bargaining set to include the environment. However, compared with bargaining with cash side-payments, linked negotiations on policy instruments provide significantly inferior outcomes for developing countries.     

Influence of information systems on organizational results

In recent years, information systems (IS) comprise one of the main fields of study in business organization, caused by the need to identify their business value. Therefore, in this research and based on a theoretical review, a model is developed for the evaluation of the success of the IS for small and medium enterprises (SME) to determine the influence of the IS in the organizational results. To reach this goal, the Partial Least Squares (PLS) statistical technique was used through a survey made to 133 companies of Tamaulipas state, Mexico. The results obtained allow deducing that the companies that pay more attention on improving the quality of the system, of the information, and of the information systems, favor their organizational results. This work contributes to the literature on the measurement of the success of the IS in the context of a country with an emerging economy, particularly by allowing to identify in a broader manner the measurement of its effectiveness and its incidence in the business performance.     

External Linkages and Economic Growth in Colombia: Insights from a Bayesian VAR Model

This paper investigates the sensitivity of Colombian GDP growth to the surrounding macroeconomic environment. We estimate a Bayesian VAR model with informative steady‐state priors for the Colombian economy using quarterly data from 1995 to 2007. A variance decomposition shows that world GDP growth and government spending are the most important factors, explaining roughly 17 and 16 per cent of the variance in Colombian GDP growth respectively. The model, which is shown to forecast well out‐of‐sample, can also be used to analyse alternative scenarios. Generating both endogenous and conditional forecasts, we show that the impact on Colombian GDP growth of a substantial downturn in world GDP growth would be non‐negligible but that the decline still would be mild by historical standards.