Resultados de investigaciones 2023

 

The right to the city and contemporary housing policy in Ecuador

Autores/as: Vanessa Pinto Valencia, Marco Córdova Montúfar & Diana Bell Sancho

This article analyzes how the right to the city has been implemented in Ecuadorian housing policy after it was recognized in the 2008 Constitution, focusing on the link between this right and the right to housing. Based on the policy design framework, the study seeks to explore to what extent the set of policy instruments developed in the period 2009–2020 have been consistent with the right principles proposed in Constitution. Some limitations are identified, such as the prevalence of a housing policy model that disregards social production as an alternative and is disconnected from broader strategies of equitable urban development. The absence of indicators that account for the right to the city, and the lack of strategies that facilitate the articulation between the housing and land management competencies of the central and municipal governments are other fundamental constraints.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The geographical component in firms’ perception of innovation barriers: the case of Ecuador

Autores/as: Juan Fernández-Sastre  y Fernando Bruna

This is the first study to analyse the contribution of context to firms’ perception of innovation barriers in a single country. Using the Ecuadorian Innovation Survey and multilevel logit models, we study whether the geographical location of Ecuadorian firms makes them more likely to assess three financial, five knowledge and two market barriers as relevant factors hindering their innovation activities. Our results indicate that location in one of Ecuador’s 24 regions has only a subtle effect on perception of barriers. After controlling for internal and sectoral characteristics of firms in each region, we find that only 2–6% of the dispersion observed for whether a barrier is perceived as relevant is due to regional differences. For financial and knowledge barriers, half of that small geographical component disappears when the model includes regional population density. Based on the latter result, we argue that urban economics arguments can explain the spatial distribution of firms’ perception of innovation barriers in this small developing country. Our results provide a critical reflection to advance the current research agenda on contextual factors affecting innovation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Changes of Cinchona distribution over the past two centuries in the northern Andes

Autores/as: Carlos E. González-Orozco, Esther García Guillén and Nicolás Cuvi

The Cinchona genus is important for humanity due to its ethnobotanical properties, and in particular its ability to prevent and treat malaria. However, there have been historical changes of Cinchona distribution in the tropical Andes that remain undocumented. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, several explorers recorded Cinchona precise localities in present-day Colombia and Ecuador, countries which harbour about half of the species of the genus, including C. officinalis. We compare historical and twentieth-century records to evaluate whether elevational ranges, mean elevation and latitude varied between the two periods. A large expansion of 662.5 m in average elevation for Cinchona and 792.5 m in elevational range for C. officinalis was found. These findings have implications for the conservation of economically important species and help us understand the impacts of the Anthropocene over time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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New Rightists or Simply Opportunists?
The New Right Parties in Power in Latin America and Europe between 2010 and 2019:
An Analysis of Their Ideological Dimensions

Autores/as: Alejandra López Aguilar y Juan Federico Pino Uribe

There is a boom in the power of right-wing parties that are becoming government parties in Latin America and Europe. It has been pointed out that these are distinguished from traditional right-wing parties by their common ideology that transcends national contexts, which is why they have been grouped as New Right-wing parties. This article questions whether these parties share ideological themes or whether they are heterogeneous and obey national interests. This study systemizes the New Right-wing parties’ programs and classifies them to answer the question. This corpus is then studied through frequency, network, and principal component analysis. Two conclusions are reached from this. First, these parties agree on issues such as provider States and nationalist claims, and, second, their programs have diverse themes that do not show the formation of an identifiable transnational ideological agenda in their programs. Consequently, grouping these parties as an ideologically homogeneous phenomenon can make invisible the fact that they are parties that adjust to particular demands of their political environment, in a logic that obeys more catch-all parties than ideological and dogmatic parties.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Territorial inequalities in financial inclusion: A comparative study between private banks and credit unions

Autores/as: Javier Álvarez Gamboa, Pablo Cabrera Barona y Hugo Jácome Estrella

This research evaluates financial inclusion and territorial inequalities comparing private banks and alternative financial institutions of the social and solidarity-based economy of Ecuador (provinces-level), between 2015 and 2018. Applying Principal Component Analysis, a synthetic index of financial inclusion was constructed using indicators that capture the dimensions of access, use and extent of financial services. A non-hierarchical cluster analysis was also performed to classify Ecuadorian provinces on terms of high, low, and medium multidimensional poverty and rurality. The obtained results indicate the existence of territorial inequalities in the access and use of financial services. We conclude that the credit unions produce a greater level of financial inclusion in disadvantaged territories of Ecuador, in contrast to the private banks that show high levels of financial inclusion in the provinces with a higher socioeconomic status.