Dr. Gallegos-Mardones, Juan

The purpose of this study is to explain the financial performance of companies in Latin America through the lens of capital structure and ownership structure. We perform a quantitative analysis of companies in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Peru using a panel data method. To avoid endogeneity problems, instrumental variables, generalised method of moments models, and panels with random effects are employed. The data cover the period 2000 to 2015. We find a positive relationship between financial performance, growth, and size of the company. However, there are mixed results for short- and long-term financial leverage, as well as for company liquidity. With respect to the ownership structure of Chilean companies, a positive effect is observed for the first major shareholder with financial performance. In general, our results are in line with those of previous studies. However, the existence of mixed results between companies and countries makes for an interesting and novel conclusion.

Antecedentes: Los sistemas de vales en educación se basan fundamentalmente en la capacidad de los padres para elegir la escuela de sus hijos. Sin embargo, esta capacidad se reduce cuando enfrentan costos de cambio. Método: Se identificaron los datos de los estudiantes que cursaban cuarto grado en 2000 y octavo grado en 2004, y se verificó si estos, habían cambiado de escuela. Además, comparamos la utilidad que reporta la escuela elegida con respecto a otras, no disponibles en 2000, determinando así la existencia de costos de cambio. Resultados: Encontramos que los costos de cambios son estadísticamente significativos y económicamente relevantes, además, afectan la decisión de cambiar de escuela. También mostramos qué cambios marginales en niveles de utilidad no son suficientemente significativos para cambiar de escuela identificando un eventual umbral. Conclusiones: La preocupación natural de los padres con respecto a la capacidad de reacción está condicionada por la existencia de costos de cambio.

The purpose of this research is to contribute new and relevant information about the early adoption of integrated reporting in an emerging economy, in this case the Chilean economy, with emphasis on the reasons for its use, the perceived benefits, and the difficulties experienced during the process of adoption. Methodologically, this work uses a qualitative approach, utilising semi-structured interviews as a data collection instrument that are applied to the managers in charge of preparing this reporting for a sample of companies that trade on the Chilean stock exchange. These interviews were interpreted using an analysis of their content. The results obtained are in accordance with the literature and the empirical evidence, with the characteristics belonging to an emerging economy and highlighting the importance of communicating with the stakeholders. The relationship with the stakeholders and the inclusion in international contexts were the most valued. It is also highlighted that all of the companies analysed declare sustainability as a strategic focus, which is an infrequent situation in developing economies. One limitation of this work is the low valuation and use that market agents still assign to integrated reporting in Chile, which affects the degree of preparation and utilisation, and could be explained by other types of incentives and motivations.

Many higher education systems require students to take admission exams, which are considered good predictors of academic performance. However, in Latin America, their use has been criticised for promoting socioeconomic segregation and favouring students of higher socioeconomic levels. This research complements the higher education admission process by using alternative measures of relative performance that promote greater equity in the system and allow access to higher education for more vulnerable sectors. A longitudinal study of students in Chile taking the University Selection Test (P.S.U.) and estimations of ordinary least squares (O.L.S.) in two stages were conducted. We found that the use of new measures of performance allows those more vulnerable students from public schools to reach equal and/or superior levels of relative performance than their peers from private schools. The practical implications of this research relate to recognising that good students can also attend public schools and that those students who have the capability can enter higher education, independent of their economic situations.

Financial vulnerability can be understood as the risk of an organisation being unable to carry out routine its normal operations due to financial restrictions. Models to estimate financial vulnerability have mainly been developed for profit-making organisations, while few exist for non- profit organisations (NPOs). One example is higher education institutions, which have experienced important changes in Latin America through gratuity policies for student tuition. This study proposes a model to estimate the effects of gratuity on financial vulnerability, as previous studies have focused on the effects of enrolment. A binary logistic regression model is proposed, considering the following variables: debt, income concentration, operating margin, administration costs, and square metres of rooms per student. We applied this model to 54 universities between 2013 and 2019. The results showed that the model is relevant for the debt, size, and operating margin variables. Additionally, we observed that on average, all universities were negatively affected. This result is particularly true for state-owned universities because of certain management restrictions. A limitation of this study is the unavailability of other sources of non-financial information, such as each university’s business model and stock of strategic resources, which could improve our model, as this information is more related to control than to management.

El presente trabajo aplica en una empresa dedicada a la producción, comercialización y distribución de productos derivados del asfalto en la zona sur Chile. La empresa referida, ha preferido no revelar su razón social, para tal efecto hemos denominado a esta, Fantasía S.A. Durante los últimos años Fantasía ha experimentado un crecimiento significativo en sus ventas y con ello, una disminución de su nivel de liquidez y calidad de sus cuentas por cobrar. Sin embargo, este incremento en cuentas por cobrar está asociado a un mayor riesgo asumido de cobro, dada su política liberalizadora de cuentas por cobrar. Más aún, Fantasía S.A., no dispone de un sistema de gestión de crédito objetivo que permita una evaluación adecuada de la calidad y capacidad crediticia de sus clientes actuales y potenciales. Por tanto, en este artículo se propone a Fantasía un modelo de evaluación crediticia a sus clientes actuales y potenciales ajustado y ponderado a su realidad, que permite disminuir el riesgo de crédito o incobrables. El presente trabajo considera, una descripción de los modelos de evaluación de créditos y en específico de los modelos de credit scoring. A través de entrevistas a expertos, se definieron variables cuantitativas y cualitativas críticas a considerar en un proceso de gestión de créditos. Respecto de la calidad del modelo de evaluación crediticia propuesto, este muestra que un 81,82% de los créditos otorgados a sus clientes han superado el nivel mínino de evaluación o límite de aprobación por la empresa.

El estudio que se presenta tiene como objetivo central evaluar aquellos factores que llevan a un estudiante universitario a desertar no sólo al primer año sino también en los subsiguientes. A través de estimaciones de modelos de probabilidad logit, se encontró que los motivos que llevan a la deserción van cambiando a medida que se avanza en la carrera. Si bien existe un factor transversal, que corresponde al rendimiento académico universitario, en el primer año de carrera destacan otros factores, tales como, la región de procedencia, edad, y año de ingreso, mientras que al tercer año de carrera destacan el rendimiento académico y el financiamiento. A partir de estos resultados se pueden diseñar mejores políticas de retención estudiantil.

Working capital management is one of the most important decisions that affect an organisation’s financial performance. Despite the importance of this topic, the empirical evidence for emerging economies is scarce; therefore, this research attempts to estimate and compare how investment in working capital impacts the financial performance of companies listed on the stock exchanges in Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Brazil for the years 2000 to 2018. This study uses panel data methodology, and the results show the existence of a positive and significant but non-linear relationship between investments in working capital and firm performance. However, there are mixed results for different countries and industries that could be explained by macroeconomic variables that favour access to financing for such investments. Furthermore, the results show that investments in working capital perform better for larger companies than smaller companies.

The positive impact that competition has on performance in most industries has been questioned in the education sector. The difficulty to measure competition, the idea that parents don't rationally choose schools for their children, and that schools do not react to that choice is in the center of the debate. We critically analyze the prevailing methodology in the literature that relates competition and educational performance, and the data used to estimate that impact. We propose a methodology that considers relevant substitutes for each school using various attributes which parents consider when choosing schools, and we apply it to estimate the effect of competition on educational performance in Chile, were more than 90% of the students are covered by a voucher. The evidence supports the hypothesis that competition has a positive, statistically significant, and economically relevant educational impact on private and public schools.