The aim of this paper was to measure the effect of different credit-related events on the option implied volatility of several companies that belong to the Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50 index list. Measuring the effect of credit events on volatility will augment on the already important body of literature that investigates the volatility-related phenomena; in particular those who research the effect of news on volatility. I find that, over the entire window around the credit events, there was a decrease in the implied volatility but that only the negative events have a statistically significant effect, which reflects the stronger information content of negative credit events researched by previous papers. I also found that this negative effect is mainly due to a strong “reversal” effect in the post-event 10-day period, where the negative effect is stronger and more statistically significant (particularly for the negative events). Furthermore, during the pre-event period there is not much evidence that supports any type of foresight of the market. My results also suggest that there is a difference between the behavior of the implied volatility when the events are outlook changes and credit reviews, and when the event is a rating change (downgrade/upgrade).

This dissertation explains in detail how Albrecher et al. (2008) developed three different model independent lower bounds and one upper comonotonic bound for European Asian call option prices. The main characteristic of these bounds is that Albrecher et al. (2008) only use the observable plain vanilla option prices in the market to calculate them whichallows for the _nding of static hedging portfolios. The concepts behind the bounds are basically Jensen's inequality and some properties of comonotonicity of random vectors. This document will also explain how to implement these bounds when the market has a finite number of options available, moreover, how to do it when these bounds do not involve strikes found in the market. Two facts will be used: the call option price function is convex with respect to strike, and the lower and upper bounds for a call option suggested by Bertsimas and Popescu (2002). Finally, as an example, one application of these bounds in the Colombian FX option market will be presented.

Resumen: El estudio aborda el nuevo marco y los recientes acontecimientos en el contexto de la economía digital. Describe de manera general los conceptos clave de la economía digital, junto con las recomendaciones y opciones sugeridas por la Acción 1 del reporte BEPS de la OCDE. Su objetivo principal es identificar y analizar los principales elementos relacionados con los impuestos directos y precios de transferencia. Las principales preocupaciones de contenidas en la Acción 1 del reporte BEPS conllevan a cuestionar si el marco fiscal internacional actual sigue siendo adecuado para hacer frente a los negocios en el contexto de la economía digital. Se ha analizado y sugerido que los costos de las economías de escala en el ámbito digital combinados con el aumento de los efectos de red generados por interacciones con los clientes pueden justificar un cambio de política fiscal. Sin embargo, en un cambio de política fiscal debe considerarse el potencial impacto en las configuraciones de negocios tradicionales con el fin de mantener la coherencia a nivel internacional. Éste estudio concluye que aún se debe trabajar a nivel internacional y nacional con el fin de abordar de manera efectiva todos los desafíos fiscales de la economía digital. También resalta que las conclusiones pueden evolucionar a medida que las economías digitales continúan creciendo y desarrollándose, lo que significa que los países deben continuar supervisando los avances diarios y nuevas configuraciones de negocio que están surgiendo de forma ininterrumpida. Una respuesta eficaz y definitiva a los problemas importantes requiere una solución internacional, coordinada y armonizada que se pueden lograr a través de un acuerdo multilateral, como ya es el propósito de la acción 15 del reporte BEPS. Como se trata de una solución que puede tomar mucho tiempo para que se pueda lograr, ahora que los principales riesgos de BEPS han sido identificados, ahora se requiere acción inmediata de las recomendaciones y las opciones establecidas por la OCDE necesarias para avanzar en el objetivo de hacer frente a los crecientes desafíos fiscales de la economía digital.

Abstract: This dissertation studies the effect of scientific discoveries, regulation, and changes in market access on the American and Japanese brewing industries over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Breweries adapted to these shocks by switching to new technologies, products, and geographical markets. In the long run, this adaptation process shaped the structure of the brewing industry and introduced competition and new production techniques in the soft-drink and biotechnology industries. Using detailed data at the brewery-level, coupled with natural experiments, I study the repercussions of this adaptation mechanism across industries and over time. Resumen: Esta tesis estudia el efecto de descubrimientos científicos, regulación y cambios en acceso a mercados en las industrias cerveceras de Estados Unidos y Japón durante los siglos diecinueve y veinte. Las cerveceras se adaptaron a estos cambios modificando su mezcla de tecnologías, productos y mercados geográficos. En el largo plazo, este proceso de adaptación cambió la estructura de la industria cervecera e introdujo competencia y nuevas técnicas de producción en las industrias de la gaseosa y la biotecnología. Usando datos detallados al nivel de cervecera, junto con experimentos naturales, estudio las consecuencias de este proceso de adaptación a través de industrias y a lo largo del tiempo.

Financial inclusion helps poor households to improve their consumption levels, protect against risks and significantly reduce the need to sell assets to meet basic needs. With access to savings, credit, insurance, and other financial services, poor people take advantage of economic opportunities, are more resilient and better able to cope with the everyday crises they face. Thus, the use of financial services is associated with improvements in household economic welfare and enterprise stability or growth. By reducing vulnerability and increasing earnings and savings, financial services allow poor households to make the transformation from ‘every-day survival’ to ‘planning for the future’ (Kiva-Organization). Microfinance is even more than providing a fundamental economic basis for planning and expanding business activities. By supporting women's economic participation, microfinance helps to empower women, thus promoting gender-equity and greater investment in their children's education. Also, increased earnings from financial services lead to better nutrition and better living conditions, which translates into a lower incidence of illness. With more money, poor people may seek out and pay for health care services when needed, rather than go without or wait until their health seriously deteriorates. The availability of credit for entrepreneurs is likely to lead to economic diversification and wealth creation in the community, which might support the development of health-related infrastructure such as sanitation and medical facilities (UNCDF Microfinance). Many different studies have shown that poor people who participate in microfinance programs that had access to financial services have better economic conditions than those who did not have access to financial services (Nawaz, 2010). While this empirical evidence seems almost to be done, we looked for a field that is nearly unexplored. Instead of understanding the determinants of financial inclusion or exclusion, this study will focus on the outcomes of interest that are shaped by financial exclusion. One such outcome is individual health. To start with, individual health (and mostly mental rather than physical health) is lower the larger the uncertainty individuals face, for a given level of income. As long as financial inclusion provides insurance against many possible shocks, and allows a better planning of one's life, we should expect a positive effect of financial inclusion on individual health. Also, it seems that in most impoverished communities, financial inclusion serves to raise the level of general sanitation, which also improves individual health. With research data from Columbia, this study considers if there is any statistical significance for the linkage between financial inclusion and health. The organization of this study is the following. In Section 2 we describe the principals of financial inclusion, determinants of health and the current linkage between microfinance and health. After the theoretical part, Section 3 offers the data collection process, explains the basic survey and gives an analysis of the descriptive statistics. Section 4 includes the definition of the relevant variables as well as the regression of the models we used. The empirical findings are shown in Section 5, while the evaluation and the discussion of the results are shown in Section 6. Finally, Section 7 presents some conclusions.

Documento en el que se discute, al igual que en otras publicaciones que llevan el mismo nombre y que se han publicado por entregas desde 1892, la situación económica y la crisis monetaria por la que atravesó Colombia a fines del siglo XIX e inicios del XX, respecto a la amortización del papel moneda y los fondos necesarios para ello. El documento aparece firmado por las iniciales M. T.

Documento anónimo en el que se analiza la situación económica de Colombia a fines del siglo XIX, partiendo de los casos delproblema de la circulación monetaria y el déficit de la industria nacional.

Exposición del Secretario de Hacienda José Ignacio de Márquez presentada al Congreso de la República. En el cual se da cuenta del estado de las finanzas públicas; el documento corresponde al año de 1831.

Informe presentado por el Secretario de Hacienda Antonio Roldán al Presidente de la Unión. En el cual se da cuenta del estado de las finanzas públicas y los negocios fiscales de la nación; el documento corresponde al periodo de 1881.

Exposición del Secretario de Estado Mariano Calvo en el Despacho de Hacienda que hace al Congreso Constitucional de la Nueva Granada en 1841, sobre el estado de los Negocios de su Departamento.