Clean Water and Sanitation in the City of San Luis Potosi.

(In Field Research sponsored by WORLD Policy Analysis Center at UCLA)

One of the most important issues in any city of the world is having enough water to sustain its population and needs. The United Nations Development Program has set the importance of Clean Water and Sanitation as Goal Number Six from the Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to “protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030”. The urgency for not running out of water is a
fundamental part for most local governments worldwide. Taking action by ourselves and not only expecting others to do what must be done is the reason I decided to apply for this in field research in my hometown, San Luis Potosi (SLP), Mexico.

Value of Management Skills on Profitability: Evidence from Micro Businesses in Mexico.

(Master of Applied Economics Thesis)

This work focuses on the value provided by management skills on the profitability of micro businesses in Mexico. Firstly, a literature review on the economics of micro, small and medium business is addressed. Secondly, a statistical description of micro businesses in Mexico is worked out with data from the National Survey of Micro Business 2012, retrieved from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography.  Thirdly, the methodology on how to estimate the impact of the manager’s and the business’ features on profitability of a micro business by doing an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression is performed. Fourthly, a discussion on the results from the estimated OLS is set forth, as well as an empirical example on how management skills can predict micro businesses profitability by training three different machine learning classifier algorithms: K-Nearest Neighbors, Naïve Bayes, and a Logistic Regression. Lastly, final comments and future work are discussed.

What Determines Access to Credit in Micro-Business in Mexico, and How it Affects its Performance?

(B.S. Economics Thesis)

This research work aims to expand the study of credit for micro-businesses in Mexico, starting on determining which are the variables that make a micro-business likely to obtain credit, and therefore estimating the effects that the credit has on the performance of a micro-business. The data used for this research work were obtained from the National Micro-Business Survey of 2012, this survey has representation at the national level and provides relevant characteristics of the microentrepreneurs. Statistical and econometric techniques were used to estimate the results obtained. It is important to emphasize that this work stablishes conclusions that contrast with the reviewed literature, since it shows that a negative effect between credit access and utility for the micro-firms. This may be due to an increase in price of credit in recent years.