Gustavo Barboza

Linking Course-Embedded Assessment Measures and Performance on the Educational Testing Service Major Field Test in Business

Assessment of the business curriculum and its learning goals and objectives has become a major field of interest for business schools. The exploratory results of the authors’ model using a sample of 173 students show robust support for the hypothesis that high marks in course-embedded assessment on business-specific analytical skills positively affect performance on overall business disciplinary competence proxy by results in the Major Field Test in Business (MFT-B) examination, while controlling for SAT score, GPA, major, and gender differences. This particular result provides useful and relevant information to advance the assessment process in schools of business as a valuable tool to enhance the overall learning experience. The authors also found a marked difference across majors.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Horizontal Differentiation in Imperfect Competitive Markets with Global Warming Effects

This study develops a model of corporate social responsibility (CSR) behavior that is compatible with both the mutual goals of profit maximization and the reduction of global warming effects. The theory developed in this paper indicates that, under perfect competitive and unregulated markets, firms must take an innovative entrepreneurship approach to reduce global warming externalities, and, consequently, respond to the demands of stakeholders to behave in a CSR fashion. In this setting, managers and firms find incentives to pursue strategies leading to horizontal differentiation when a segment of the market has strong revealed consumption preferences for environmentally friendly products, and when consumers derive a consumption disutility from products creating global warming effects. To achieve these goals, firms using a safe technology also incur certification/labeling costs in order to gain market power. That is, this study demonstrates that, in unregulated competitive markets, efforts to clearly identify sources of global warming effects require innovative entrepreneurship thinking above and beyond government regulatory efforts. Thus, firms behaving in a CSR fashion may achieve monopolistic power, and therefore positive profits. In sum, our model demonstrates that CSR is compatible with the triple bottom line of economic, social and environmental performance

Perception of Climate Change and Impact on Land Allocation and Income: Empirical Evidence from Vietnam's Delta Region

Using a sample survey from Vietnams M&RRD, this study examines both the factors affecting smallholder households’ perceptions of climate change, and the impact of climatic change on smallholders’ income and land allocation decisions. Results show a significant and negative impact of perception of climate change on income of smallholder households. Smallholders with perceived climate changes reduce land allocated to paddy crop. Farmers make strategic decision to counter the negative effects of climate change by increasing the amount of rented land for paddy crop production, while at the same time decreasing the amount of owned land allocated to paddy crop.

Empirical Evidence on Trade Reform, Revealed Trade Openness, and Output Growth in Latin America. How Far Have We Come?

Free trade reform promotes and consolidates businesses’ orientation to international markets. Using a sample of twenty Latin American countries, this study finds support for the hypothesis that higher revealed trade openness implies faster economic growth. However, at low output growth levels, increased revealed trade openness does not translate to faster output growth. Why more trade does not necessarily imply faster growth at all levels of revealed trade openness growth remains a conundrum. Failure to derive faster economic growth may compromise the prospects for sustainable trade reforms and thus the consolidation of new business ventures as engines for further growth.

A Spatial Econometric Analysis of Cultural Dimensions, Technology Knowledge and Economic Growth

Using data from 65 countries over the period 1980–2003, this paper investigates the role that cultural dimensions play in the process of technological change, innovation and adoption and consequently on the steady state level of output per worker and its growth, using spatial econometrics techniques to account for spatial dependence between countries. Initial findings indicate that differences across cultural dimensions act as a leveling effect but not as long run growth determinants. In addition, when controlling for physical and human capital accumulation, culture plays a much smaller role in explaining differences in income per capita than initially thought, with little effect on output per worker growth along the transitional dynamics path. Spatial econometric considerations are relevant in explaining differences across rates of growth of per worker output, but not in terms of steady-state levels of income.