Policies to enhance social development through the promotion of SME and social entrepreneurship: a study in the Colombian construction industry

Abstract

The intent of this research is to propose and analyse a set of policies in the construction industry to enhance social development. First, the paper shows the connections between the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and social entrepreneurship (SE), the reduction of the leakage, and then the generation of social value (SV) for sustainable regional development. For that, the article analyses briefly the literatures on SE and leakage, and focuses on the relevance of SME and social entrepreneurs as promoters of SV creation and development. Second, the paper proposes a framework and proposes a set of 20 policies aimed to reduce leakage, reinforce SMEs and entrepreneurship and also to promote SE behaviour by the diverse economic agents in the construction industry, in order to increase the generation of SV and sustainable development. Then, the paper analyses the acceptability, feasibility and viability of these proposed polices, which can be useful for academics and practitioners. For that, the study uses the Delphi methodology, applied to an expert-group of 23 professionals (representatives of the private and public sector) belonging to the Colombian construction industry. The results emphasize the relevance of the development of local incumbents and the social focus of firms to increase the generation of SV. Oppositely, policies interfering economic freedom and free trade receive the lowest rates in the three criteria considered.     

Utility of gambling II: risk,paradoxes, and data

We specialize our results on entropy-modified representations of event-based gambles to representations of probability-based gambles by assuming an implicit event structure underlying the probabilities, and adding assumptions linking the qualitative properties of the former and the latter. Under segregation and under duplex decomposition, we obtain numerical representations consisting of a linear weighted utility term plus a term corresponding to information-theoretical entropies. These representations accommodate the Allais paradox and most of the data due to Birnbaum and associates. A representation of mixed event-and probability-based gambles accommodates the Ellsberg paradox. We suggest possible extensions to handle the data not accommodated.      

Access pricing and investment: a real options approach

This paper examines a three-period model of an investment decision in a network industry characterized by demand uncertainty, economies of scale and sunk costs. In the absence of regulation we identify the market conditions under which a monopolist decides to invest early as well as the overall welfare generated by this decision. In a regulated environment, we consider a vertically integrated network provider that is required to provide access to downstream competitors and compare two distinct access pricing methodologies: the Efficient Component Pricing Rule (ECPR) and the Option to Delay Pricing Rule (ODPR). We identify the welfare-maximizing access prices using the unregulated market output as a benchmark and show that optimal access regulation depends on market conditions (that is, the nature of demand) with two possible outcomes: (i) access prices that provide a positive payoff to the incumbent, that is, provide a positive compensation to account for the option to delay; and (ii) access prices that yield a zero payoff to the incumbent. Moreover, unlike the earlier literature that argues in favor of an ECPR-type methodology to account for the interaction between irreversibility and demand uncertainty, we find that, except under very specific conditions, an access price that accounts for the option to delay value is welfare-superior to the ECPR.      

Top-<Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>-lists

Top-k-lists are introduced as sequences of k-dimensional random vectors with ordered components being k largest observations from a sequence of independent identically distributed random variables. Such lists changing in time are natural stochastic models of ranking tables which appear in many situations in real life, when one wants to keep a track of several best results in a given field. Here we study basic properties of top-k-lists as joint distributions, conditional structures, representations, driving examples of top-k-lists from exponential and uniform distributions, asymptotics and a relation to generalized order statistics.     

Volatility in asset prices and long-run wealth effect estimates

We argue that the equation commonly used in the estimation of the wealth effect on consumption might be unsuitable for that purpose. In particular, if the usual assumptions are employed, the derivation of the equation implies that the wealth effect is indeterminate. Furthermore, it implies that the estimate of the wealth effect should decrease when asset wealth volatility increases. Estimation of a Markov-switching model of the usual long-run aggregate consumption equation provides evidence favourable to the indeterminacy hypothesis.     

The Strategic Social Map of a Nongovernmental Organization

Currently, the traditional states-nation, as far as their social commitments are concerned, are giving way to the nongovernmental organizations (NGO). These organizations have a mission, strategy, and goals different from those organizations looking simply for profits. Nevertheless, NGOs are concerned about using management and information systems at least as good as those used by private companies. Organizations try to develop a social strategy taking their social responsibility as starting point. In this paper, the authors describe how to fix the organization mission, its strategy and goals, and also how to make its action map. A strategy proposal will be described, as well as the way on how to put it into practice. The main goals of this paper is to describe the mission, strategy, and goals of the organization; design its strategic social map; fix the limits of the organization's action; apply the theoretical model to a NGO; and design an information model in order to manage the strategic development. The authors would like to express their gratitude to M. Dolors Celma Benaiges, lecturer at the Escola Universitària del Maresme, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, for her assistance reviewing and translating the paper.     

Optimal risk-sharing with effort and project choice

We consider first-best risk-sharing problems in which “the agent” can control both the drift (effort choice) and the volatility of the underlying process (project selection). In a model of delegated portfolio management, it is optimal to compensate the manager with an option-type payoff, where the functional form of the option is obtained as a solution to an ordinary differential equation. In the general case, the optimal contract is a fixed point of a functional that connects the agent's and the principal's maximization problems. We apply martingale/duality methods familiar from optimal consumption-investment problems.     

Evolving Aspirations and Cooperation

A 2×2 game is played repeatedly by two satisficing players. The game considered includes the Prisoner's Dilemma, as well as games of coordination and common interest. Each player has anaspirationat each date, and takes an action. The action is switched at the subsequent period only if the achieved payoff falls below aspirations; the switching probability depends on the shortfall. Aspirations are periodically updated according to payoff experience, but are occasionally subject to trembles. For sufficiently slow updating of aspirations and small tremble probability, it is shown that both players must ultimately cooperate most of the time.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers C72, D83.     

Persistence,Long Memory,and Unit Roots in Commodity Prices

This article investigates the degree of persistence in several weekly and monthly agricultural prices (corn, soybeans, barrow and gilts, and milk) using long memory (fractional integration) techniques. The results indicate mean reversion (i.e., orders of integration smaller than one) in some of the agricultural prices like corn, milk, and barrow and gilts when the disturbances are autocorrelated. Further, we examine the stability across time in the degree of dependence, and the results indicate that the fractional differencing parameters have not remained constant across time. When we take into account a structural break we find that during the first subsamples, the series are stationary though highly persistent, with orders of integration close to 0 and with large autoregressive coefficients. However, for the periods after the break, the series seem to be nonstationary I(1). Dans le présent article, nous avons étudié le degré de persistance des prix hebdomadaires et mensuels de plusieurs produits agricoles (maïs, soja, castrats et cochettes, lait) à l’aide de tests de mémoire longue (intégration fractionnaire). Nos résultats indiquent une stationnarité (c.‐à.‐d. des ordres d’intégration inférieurs à un) des prix de certains produits agricoles, tels que le maïs, le lait, les castrats et cochettes, lorsque les perturbations sont autocorrélées. Nous avons également étudié la stabilité du degré de dépendance à travers le temps, et nos résultats indiquent que les paramètres de différenciation fractionnaire ne sont pas demeurés constants. Lorsque nous avons tenu compte d’une rupture structurelle, nous avons trouvé que dans les premiers sous‐échantillons, les séries étaient stationnaires quoique très persistantes, avec des ordres d’intégration près de 0 et d’importants coefficients d’autorégression. Dans le cas des périodes suivant la rupture, les séries semblaient non stationnaires I(1).