La compilación de imágenes y “dibujos” propuesta en este documento, corresponde a escenografías tanto de puestas en escena teatrales como las denominadas Re- creadas, desarrolladas bajo una reflexión sobre los bordes del espacio urbano de Barcelona, el valor de la vida pública entre los edificios, y su rol como una actividad social que determina el lenguaje y el carácter de una ciudad, de sus habitantes y por tanto de su cultura. La propuesta recoge veinte espacios urbanos que se han catalogado en cinco tipos de escenografías, todas ellas resultado de clasificar, inventariar, segregar, seleccionar, poner sobre la tela negra para recogerlas o abandonarlas en el camino, pasear, correr, caminar, vivir e imaginar, para darles sentido; por lo que existen algunas que se han omitido por resultar repetitivas, y seguramente existen muchas otras que no están aquí por desconocimiento. Todas están inspiradas por los lugares construidos en las puestas en escena teatrales, que a mi juicio ponen en valor el acontecimiento, el hecho de que alguien les use para un fin necesario o social, y sobre todo en el constructo arquitectónico de los escenarios construidos en un recinto cerrado, que muta y se relaciona directamente con la imagen y el lenguaje de la ciudad, por tanto con los espacios reales. Para representarlas se ha recurrido a la construcción de unas escenografías propias en «maquetas de papel» para quince casos, que han terminado por revelar aquellos elementos y condiciones arquitectónicas que tienen que ver con la direccionalidad, la proporción, la contención, la perspectiva, la reducción de la forma arquitectónica, la cantidad de gente que albergan, modificando la percepción del espacio de la ciudad si se reconoce como escenario. Por tanto se busca poner en evidencia como las fachadas, aquellas envolventes que a veces damos por sentadas, constituyen el screen o telón de fondo, el lenguaje y la identidad de un lugar. El catalogo ha pasado de las escenografías delimitables que se reconocen bajo un perímetro materialmente constitutivo, a otras menos concretas en términos de límites, pues sus bordes resultan efímeros, virtuales e intercambiables, reconociendo en cierto sentido la proyección de las ciudades contemporáneas. Por esta razón, en el último tipo escenografías re-creadas la representación ha sido otra, usando fotografías que buscan poner en evidencia los diferentes escenarios simultáneos que pueden tener un solo espacio urbano de Barcelona, y las fachadas virtuales que proyectan algunos objetos. Finalmente, las maquetas se han registrado en este documento con dos imágenes. Una que corresponde a la tira de papel extendida, poniendo en evidencia el despliegue necesario y continuo de la superficie que construye el espacio escenográfico, mostrando simultáneamente la planta y el alzado [en muchos de los casos con volumen] de las plazas, las calles, los parques o los las estructuras lineales y un tanto escultóricas de los cuales fueron objeto. La otra imagen alude a la acción de levantar y re-crear la escenografía, en donde se unen las piezas del puzle, adosándose y articulándose para dar pie a la imagen del escenario urbano.

Does Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) have a positive effect on economic growth in recipient countries? The debate about the positive impact of FDI on economic growth remains open, and therefore the formulation of economic policy in developing regions such as Latin America and the Caribbean is still a dilemma between to adopting policies that support economic openness or implementing policies aimed at promoting the protection of domestic markets. However, in recent years Latin America has been leaning towards policies that promote FDI inflows so as to stimulate market growth and to increase the competitiveness in different branches of economic activity. From this argument, the following thesis investigates the impact of FDI on the growth of Latin American developing economies by presenting an econometric analysis through the application of an OLS pooled panel data analysis for 19 Latin American countries between 1980 and 2010. The result of the research aims to test the hypothesis that establishes a positive relation between FDI inflows and economic growth. To do so, the relation FDI-growth is examined by the use of different control variables related with macroeconomic stability, trade openness, political stability, per capita GDP, and secondary schooling. The results of this research reveal a positive effect of FDI on the economic growth rate of the countries taken in the sample of the study.

The purpose of this research is to present an analysis about the psychology of the luxury fashion consumer, to understand the different kinds of motivations that influence behaviour towards the purchase of luxury items. Through the exploration of theoretical approaches from both, the consumer psychology and the social culture theory, it will be explained how consumers face different kinds of needs and how they try to satisfy them in the luxury marketplace. Some of these needs will have an origin in intrinsic desires, while others will respond to affiliation needs for fitting into a certain social environment. Among the study of the cultural motivations, it will be shown how advertising plays a fundamental role of perception of luxury fashion. A selection of two case of studies of two of the most important luxury brands in the world, will illustrate how the industry uses the media communicate to the consumer the values of luxury brands, while associates to cultural representations of social success.

Contrary to the conventional orthodoxy of the World Bank, lack of formalized or secured property rights is not the main reason why titles do not become loans in Colombia. My research shows that the institutional barriers that prevent poor people from leveraging their assets are rooted in the Colombian constitution, and in the lack of private financial institutions willing to lend to the poor. Low and middle income populations cannot use their houses as collateral to obtain loans aimed to finance business because the Colombian constitution mandates families to secure a share of their assets as Family Wealth. As a result, families have to protect their estate from being impounded by lenders. When the law allows the use of the house as collateral— for financing the purchase, improvement or enlargement of housing — there are few formal financial institutions lending to the poor. Despite of the importance of this for land-titling programs, it passed unnoticed by the World Bank, who approved a US$100 million loan for the Bogotá Urban Service Project in 2003. This thesis reveals the assumptions made by the Bank regarding the importance of property formalization as a mechanism to create massive equity out of the improved real estate in the informal sector. It contrasts the Bank’s assumptions with the actual process of upgrading in Bogotá. Leveraging poor people’s assets would be critical to the well-functioning of upgrading program, but these policies should rely on a mechanism other than the willingness of formal institutions to lend to the poor.

Within a competitive environment, where entrepreneurs need to obtain funds, there is a need to understand the factors that could make the difference. Entrepreneurs in the technology sector In the South West of the UK and in Colombia were analyzed.  The first criteria must be to have access to sources of funds and approach the one that better fits the ventures characteristics. The study shows that equity and grants are the most suitable sources for ventures in the early stages. The multi-method quantitative approach selected included giving surveys to tech-entrepreneurs, 29 in the UK and 35 in Colombia; 2 structured interviews with investors and 16 structured observations of investment panels. The main characteristics identified could be grouped into three categories: the entrepreneur, the product and the market. Those should be supported by an appropriate network, business plan and advisers. However, with all the investment proposals revised by investors, the proposals finally selected are the ones that have a good balance among all the elements. And the experience of the investor, his knowledge and the negotiation with the entrepreneur are what define the value of the venture. Finally, it was shown that there is a need for advisers in Colombia to prepare current entrepreneurs and make them aware of the critical factors. Given the results, it could be said that the vast knowledge and results of previous studies could be applied to advise entrepreneurs in Colombia.

The current political context in Colombia with an ongoing peace process requires to implement measures to rectify past political repression and to create adequate conditions for exercising political opposition. The physical elimination and social stigmatization of a political opposition group, as it happened with the Unión Patriótica, are weak foundations for a post-conflict situation. I will suggest that a collective reparation for UP victims which recognises not just the damage produced individually, but the harm suffered as a collective, could serve to foster trust between the parties on the negotiations table. I claim that a reparation strategy centered in the concept of dignity would respond more efficiently to the harm caused to this collective. I state that, contrary to the common practice, it is possible to conceptualise a collective reparation for groups with no ethnic, cultural or religious bonds.

The aim of this article is to investigate the determinants of the foreign direct investment (FDI) in some European countries from 2003 to 2010. This period is interesting because it was characterized by huge investments of capital before 2008 and after this date a cooling of the economy due the subprime mortgage implosion. Panel Data of 23 European countries were analyzed among the several FDI macroeconomic triggers proposed by the UNCTAD in the United Nations Conference For Trade and Development report of 2012. Our empirical results are consistent with the objectives of the UNCTAD model. The FDI has become in a very important goal for all the countries because it has positive spillovers that act as boosters for the growing of their economies. Within the positive effects we highlight the transferring of technology to domestic firms, the creation of new and better jobs, the increasing in the number of tax payers and, besides, these investments are a clean source of income with the benefit of not assuming the risk linked to the debt. Consequently, the governments have the need and the duty to promote policies for attracting FDI. If we analyze the case of Europe, one can differentiate three groups of development and several kind of challenges, i.e., the high unemployment rates that some Mediterranean countries are facing, the adverse selection problem that hinders the credit flow across the productive value chain and the migration of the manufacturing to developing countries. Hence nowadays the understanding of the factors determining the FDI is a key issue to link the policy making with the potential investors.

International trade markets are shaped by different standards and technical regulations across countries and regions affecting trade. This paper analyzes the relationship between international standards and exports for manufacture firms in Latin America. The study tests the hypothesis that internationally-recognized quality standards compliance helps firms to export. Throughout an econometric approach, a logit model examines the relationship between firm’s decision to export (yes/no), and the variable of whether or not a firm has an internationally-recognized quality standard. The study uses data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey. It concludes that for each firm’s export determinant, the probability to export is consistently higher when firms comply with the internationally-recognized quality standards. This means that, regardless of the size, age, foreign ownership, use of communication technologies, manufacture sector and country type, a firm benefits in terms of exports, from internationally-recognized quality standard compliance. In this sense, policymakers may create programs to proactively support trade; such as training firms on how achieve compliance with international standards and subsidize part of the cost. On the institutional framework, these policies could be achieved by improving capacity by rethinking the role and evaluate the performance of (1) the Export Promotion Agency and (2) the National Standards Body. Which opens a new line of research for these topics of public policy and public administration.

Since the 70s when cocaine consumption first took off in the US, this country has been fighting in Latin America the supply-side ‘war on drugs’ which was placed mainly in Colombia since the 90s, the only country in the region that has an additional component to the drugs problem, guerrillas and paramilitaries, both who use the drug trade to fuel a protracted conflict. The US fashioned under Clinton’s administration the controversial anti-drug strategy known as 'Plan Colombia' a policy that made Colombia the 3rd largest recipient of military aid in the world after Israel and Egypt until the Afghanistan and Iraq era; however after 9/11 the strategy took a different course from a war against drugs to a war against terrorism, significantly increasing the military counter-insurgency component of Plan Colombia, deepening the US dependence in the country and isolating it from the rest of Latin America. The results after 40 decades of US investment and intervention are questionable since the policies have proven to be a failure as they have not reached the expected results and have worsened the problems they tried to tackle. In a nutshell, the US anti-narcotics policy in Latin America has been a failure since after 40 decades and billions of dollars invested, it has not helped to curb production, trafficking and demand; but it has undermined the democracy and triggered conflict in countries where drugs are produced; the case of Colombia exemplifies this ‘war system’ where the ‘war on drugs’ shifted to ‘war on terrorism’ under the framework of the US strategy.

This work constitutes an inquiry into the field of memory studies. Through the presentation and the analysis of a particular case study I will provide an insight to some approaches to address the field. To begin with a general background of the case study will be presented to fully understand its social, historical and cultural connotation, and then I introduce the dynamic of how this work will be developed from this point. Finally this research concludes with some recommendations about the concepts previously developed.