...GLOBAL BUSINESS FINANCE ASSIGNMENT ECUADOR INTRODUCTION Ecuador officially the Republic of Ecuador which literally translates to the Republic of the Equator) is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the w It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border with Brazil. The country also includes the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific, about 1,000 kilometers (620 mi) west of the mainland. Ecuador straddles the equator, from which it takes its name, and has an area of 283,561 km2, 109,415 sq ml. Its capital city is Quito, which was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in the 1970s for having the best preserved and least altered historic center in Latin America. The country's largest city is Guayaquil. The historic center of Cuenca, the third largest city in the country, was also declared a World Heritage Site in 1999.. Ecuador is also home to a great variety of species, many of them endemic, like those of the Galápagos islands. This species diversity makes Ecuador one of the seventeen megadiverse countries in the world. Ecuador is a presidential republic and became independent in 1830, after having been part of the Spanish colonial empire and the republic of Gran Colombia. It is a medium-income country with an HDI score of 0.695 (2010), and...
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...Drawing on the specific examples outlined in your text (Chapter 9), discuss the leading indicators for the banking crisis? what are the regulatory mechanisms that have been put in place by leading markets to mitigate this risk? What are the local experiences? A banking crisis is defined as a situation which the value of financial institutions or assets drop rapidly. a financial crisis is often associated with a panic or a run on the banks, in which investors sell off assets or withdraw money from savings accounts with the expectation that the value of those assets will drop if they remain at a financial institution. A financial crisis can come as a result of institutions or assets being overvalued, and can be made worse by investment behavior. A rapid string of sell offs can further result in lower asset prices or more savings withdrawals. If left unchecked, the crisis can cause the economy to go down into a recession or depression. There are a number of causes for banking crisis outlined in the text, it is also said that banks are more vulnerable to failures than other companies. This is because they are more fragile than many other firms and more open contagion. There are three reasons to support this view: Low capital to assets ratios (high leverage), which provides little room for losses; Low cash to assets ration, which may require the sale of earning assets to meet deposit obligations; and High demand and short term debt to total debt (deposits) ratios (high potential...
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...The Global Financial Crisis: Assessing Vulnerability for Women and Children, Identifying Policy Responses Mayra Buvinic World Bank February 2009 The current global financial crisis, on top of recent food price increases (which, while down from their peak last year continue to affect the poor in developing countries), will have serious gender specific consequences for women in poor countries and their children. While women (and men) in most developing countries are vulnerable to increased risk of poverty and hardship, exposure to gender-specific negative impacts are particularly high in a subset of countries. These are countries where pre-existing high infant mortality rates and/or low rates of female schooling, combined with decelerating growth rates, substantially raise the vulnerability of women and girls to the deleterious effects of the crisis. Their situation is even more precarious in the sub-set of countries where limited fiscal resources constrain governments’ ability to cushion human impacts. If left unchecked, these crisis consequences on women will reverse progress in gender equality and women’s empowerment (and in meeting the MDGs), increase current poverty and imperil future development. Fortunately, policy responses which build on women’s roles as economic agents and their preference for investing resources in child well-being can go a long way towards mitigating these negative effects. These responses are good for women and for development–...
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...of goods in the world. China became the world's top manufacturer in 2011, surpassing the United States. For 2010, inbound foreign direct investment into China surpassed $100bn for the first time, and investment overseas by Chinese companies in non-financial sectors totaled $59 billion. The country's per capita GDP is $7,518 in 2010. The provinces in the coastal regions of China tend to be more industrialized, while regions in the hinterland are less developed. As China's economic importance has grown, so has attention to the structure and health of that economy. In the modern era, China's influence in the world economy was minimal until the late 1980s. At that time, economic reforms initiated after 1978 began to generate significant and steady growth in investment, consumption and standards of living. China now participates extensively in the world market and private sector companies play a major role in the economy. Since 1978 hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty: According to China's official statistics, the poverty rate fell from 53% in 1981 to 2.5% in 2005. However, in 2006, 10.8% of people still lived on less than $1 a day (purchasing power parity-adjusted). The infant mortality rate fell by 39.5% between 1990 and 2005, and maternal mortality by 41.1%. Access to telephones during the period rose more than 94-fold, to 57.1%. In the 1949 revolution, China's economic system was officially made into a communist system. Since the wide-ranging reforms of the...
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...RELATIONS…………………………………………………….……………5 FOREIGN RELATIONS WITH THE U.S………………………………………..………6 FOREIGN POLICY DECISION MAKING………………………………………………7 DEMOGRAPHICS……………………………………………………………..…………8 RELIGION…………………………………………………….…………………………..9 HEALTH………………………………………..………………………………………..10 INFRASTRUCTURE……………………………………………………………………10 ECONOMY……………………………………….………………………….……… …11 2. ECOPETROL S.A. COMPANY OVERVIEW…………………………….…………… …12 BACKGROUND………………………………………………………………… ……..12 ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE……………………………………..…… ………12 MERGERS AND AQUITITIONS………………………………………………………14 COMPETITORS……………………………………………………….……… ………..14 FINANCIAL ANALYSIS…………………………………………………….. ………..15 RIVALRY COMPARISON…………………………………………………… ……….16 FUTURE GOALS…………………………………………………………..… ………..17 3. CAPITAL MARKET OVERVIEW…………………………………………………………18 INFLATION …………………………………………..………………….……………..18 CURRENT RISK……………………………………………………….………………..18 FINANCIAL CRISIS……………………………………………………..……………..19 INVESTMENT RECOMMENDATION………………………………..………………19 4. CONCLUSION…………………………………………………….…….…………………..20 5. BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………..………………………………..21 COLOMBIA HISTORY During the pre-Colombian period, the area now known as Colombia was inhabited by indigenous societies ranging from hunters and nomadic farmers to the highly structured economy of the Chibchas, who are considered to have been one of the most developed indigenous groups in South America. Santa Marta, the first permanent Spanish settlement, was founded in 1525. The city of Santa Fe de Bogota...
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...Complete the case studies for this week. Review the case studies below in the textbook. Prepare a one-page report for each of the following case studies: * Case Study: Martha Stewart’s Lost Reputation, pg. 34 * Case Study: Texaco: The Ecuador Issue, pg. 41 * Case Study: Where Were the Accountants?, pg. 44 Ethics Case: Martha Stewart’s Lost Reputation In June 2002, Martha Stewart began to wrestle with allegations that she had improperly used inside information to sell a stock investment to an unsuspecting investing public. That was when her personal friend Sam Waksal was defending himself against Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allegations that he had tipped off his family members so they could sell their shares of ImClone Systems Inc. (ImClone) just before other investors learned that ImClone’s fortunes were about to take a dive. Observers presumed that Martha was also tipped off and, even though she proclaimed her innocence, the rumors would not go away. On TV daily as the reigning guru of homemaking, Martha is the multi-millionaire proprietor, president and driving force of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. (MSO), of which, on March 18, 2002, she owned 30,713,475 (62.6 percent1) of the class A, and 30,619,375 (100 percent) of the class B shares. On December 27, 2001, Martha’s Class A and Class B shares were worth approximately $17 each, so on paper Martha’s MSO class A shares alone were worth over $500 million. Class B shares are convertible into...
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...environmental and political grounds. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Statistics estimations, world total exports of banana accounted for 16,8 million tonnes in 2006. Bananas are also a very important staple commodity for many developing countries, together with wheat, rice or corn, hence the relevance of bananas for food security. Some of the main banana producing countries, such as India or Brazil, are hardly involved in international trade. In fact, only about one fifth of total banana production is internationally traded . Nevertheless, the share of banana trade in world banana production increased slightly in the last decades (from around 18% in the sixties and seventies to over 22% in the 1990s and 2000s). The international banana market shows a highly regional character. The banana industry is a very important source of income, employment and export earnings for major banana exporting countries, mainly developing countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as in Asia and Africa. According to FAO statistics, world banana exports are valued a total of US$5,8 billion in 2006, making them clearly a vital source of earnings to many countries. A strong bond exists between banana-generated income and household food security. Export volume or price changes bring about income changes for those directly employed in banana production, both as smallholder farmers and as wage earners on banana plantations. In addition, secondary...
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...strategy Executive summary The following report maps out Hyundai Motor Corporation’s (HMC) internationalisation strategy from its creation in 1967 to the current period. This strategy can be chronologically divided into four phases according to HMC’s objectives and rationale for expansion at different stages of its existence. From the research carried out, it appears that HMC’s choices of specific internationalisation patterns at different stages essentially stemmed from: The dynamics of the relationship between HMC, the Hyundai business group and the South Korean economic and political environment; Political, social and nationalistic incentives deriving from the specificities of Chaebol management and later the influence of the Asian crisis on this management and decision taking processes; Korea’s initial factor dotation, i.e. the prevalence of certain factors over others which pushed the company to seek knowledge and resources abroad at a very early stage; The replication of Japanese strategies (Nissan, Mitsubishi, Toyota). - Due to the complexity of HMC’s environment, strategy over time cannot be illustrated using a single internationalisation framework. The report therefore discusses two different frameworks – namely Porter’s diamond and Dunning’s eclectic paradigm – to analyse the company’s strategy at different stages of its international development. 2 06/06/2013 Research project: Hyundai globalisation strategy Introduction Hyundai Motor Corporation (HMC)...
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...16 Section II: Data & Stylized facts 17 2.1 Data 17 2.2 Stylized facts 20 Section III: Empirical analyses 26 3.1 Effect of rating events on investors’ behavior 27 3.2 Effect of business cycles on investors’ behavior surrounding rating events 33 Conclusion 46 Reference list 48 Appendix 52 Section I: Rating symbols & definitions 52 Section II: Tables 54 Section III: Figures 56 Section IV: Extended theory 57 Section V: Graphs 59 Section VI: Data 67 Section VII: Testing classical assumptions 71 Abstract Firstly, this paper investigates if investors react to changes in sovereign credit ratings. Hereby rating changes for European, Non-European and European Union countries are considered for the period: 1990-2011. Using both bond spreads and credit default swap (CDS) spreads as measures for investors’ behavior, analysis shows that changes in sovereign credit ratings significantly affect these spreads. Furthermore evidence is found that a rating downgrade of a sovereign country has a bigger impact on the spreads than a rating upgrade. Secondly, it is theoretically...
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...Foreign 99 Chapter III Direct investment by China in Latin America and the Caribbean A. Introduction Since 2008, China has become one of the world’s largest sources of direct investment. These flows first reached significant levels in Latin America in 2010, when it is estimated they surpassed US$ 15 billion. Chinese companies have in fact burst on the scene in the region so recently that several of the biggest projects were still being finalized in early 2011, or had only just been put into operation. Most investments have been made in natural resource extraction, but over the medium term this is expected to diversify into other sectors such as manufacturing and infrastructure construction. Paradoxically, there is a lack of data on this extremely important phenomenon, which poses a constant problem for policymakers and analysts studying Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI). Appraisals of the possible opportunities and challenges presented by this increased investment flow therefore tend to lack supporting empirical evidence. The aim of this chapter is to make some progress on this issue, at least as far as investment in the region is concerned. A variety of sources have been consulted, including investment announcements in the media and interviews with Chinese company managers and Latin American and Caribbean government authorities. Despite the evident limitations of this kind of material in terms of data quality and reliability, this course of action does provide...
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...Part One: The Chile Wine Industry The Chilean wine industry has experienced various transformations over the past 30 years – its quality revolution led by the complete technological renovation during the 1980s, the export boom of the 1990s, and the new terror developments during the 2000 decade. This transformation has allowed a new generation of talented viticulturists and winemakers to capitalize on Chile’s viticultural paradise and to produce World Class Wines of unique character and personality. Chile is the world’s eighth largest wine producer and the fifth largest exporter, reaching a market share of 8% by volume of the global international wine market at the close of 2010. However, and most importantly, Chile exports 70% of its wine production, making it the world’s most globalized wine industry, with great flexibility, innovation and a long-term commitment to quality and service. With 150 destination countries and 1.5 billion consumers for each year, Chilean wines are positioned as the country’s most emblematic and best known world ambassador. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Chileans adopted advanced technology and invested in new machinery for optimizing the winemaking process in the field. The winemaker offered an innovative higher-quality product that was conducive to the development of new wine varieties. Later producers also perfected their wine cellars and invested in better labels and packing, such as boxes, bottles and cartons, that were more attractive to...
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...petroleum-rich lands, such as Latin America and the Middle East. In return for the right to drill and extract oil, companies paid a royalty to host governments. World War II (1939–45) increased the need for oil even further, resulting in the construction of long pipelines to transport crude and refined oil for consumer and military use. After the war, however, the United States began importing increasing amounts of oil from foreign countries, and its own production declined. In the late 1950s, global oil supplies far outstripped demand for fuel, causing prices to plummet. To minimize their financial losses, oil companies instituted lower royalty payments to host governments. In response in 1960, many oil-rich nations resolved to exert greater control over the way their petroleum was produced and sold by forming the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)—a group of oil-producing nations that sets guidelines for world fuel exports. Today, OPEC has 12 members—Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. Together, OPEC nations produce about 40 percent of the world's oil and control two-thirds of the planet's existing reserves. The OPEC Conference, an administrative board, meets twice a year to determine limits on how much oil each member can release onto the market at given times. Rising gasoline prices in the 1970s profoundly affected the U.S. economy and, in many ways, came to define the...
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...3/14/2014 www.eguaglianzaeliberta.it/stampaArticolo.asp?id=306 Stampa Dal Mondo Globalism's Discontents Ittzoifnnireitrainl,noerchzeenoepvrài u sgi siuin iazai nenzoai uv icez uv oet n n ago dlNbl e oe Pubblichiamo l'articolo, comparso su "American Prospect" all'inizio del 2002 di Joseph E. Stiglitz, premio Nobel per l'economia e profondo conoscitore dei meccanismi economico-finanziari internazionali, dal titolo "Globalism's Discontents". Questo articolo è la base del libro di Stiglitz pubblicato in ottobre in italiano dall'editore Einaudi col titolo "La globalizzazione e i suoi oppositori". Few subjects have polarized people throughout the world as much as globalization. Some see it as the way of the future, bringing unprecedented prosperity to everyone, everywhere. Others, symbolized by the Seattle protestors of December 1999, fault globalization as the source of untold problems, from the destruction of native cultures to increasing poverty and immiseration. In this article, I want to sort out the different meanings of globalization. In many countries, globalization has brought huge benefits to a few with few benefits to the many. But in the case of a few countries, it has brought enormous benefit to the many. Why have there been these huge differences in experiences? The answer is that globalization has meant different things in different places. The countries that have managed globalization on their own, such as those in East Asia, have, by and large, ensured that...
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...BUSINESS department of economics The Problems Of Bankruptcy Process In Argentina Semester work Written by student_: saskia saimol Sebastian (VBa4) Sajith Saji Nair (VBa3) ) Accept: dr. Rita Remeikienė Table of Contents INDRODUCTION 3 Case Study 1 4 Argentina and 10 Other Countries Facing Bankruptcy 4 Case study 2 6 Argentina Bankruptcy 6 Argentina towards Bankruptcy 6 What Happens When Argentina Goes Bankrupt? 8 Background to the Crisis 9 Argentina's Unemployment Rate 10 The Facts of the Case 12 Riots, Rate, Default and Resignations of Argentina 13 Research Matrix about Bankruptcy 16 CONCLUSION 17 REFERENCE 17 INDRODUCTION Bankruptcy is a legal proceeding in which a person who cannot pay his or her bills petitions the court to get legal protection from creditors and to obtain a fresh financial start. Although a bankruptcy filing is a court proceeding and all documents are signed under oath. However, in most bankruptcy cases you do not need to go before a judge. At the moment your bankruptcy is filed, the automatic stay goes into effect. The automatic stay immediately stops your creditors from attempting to collect debts from you in any way, including phone calls, letters and pending court proceedings. There are some exceptions to the automatic stay including criminal or government proceedings or those related to most domestic relations matters...
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