Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Economy

Organizational Structure

1. Senior Management: People who make strategic decisions and set the overall objectives of the company.

2. Middle Management: Middle management or executive staff. Example: heads of department. Labor: relate the general objectives of the company with specific departments.

3. Operating Base: Technicians and workers.

4. Technostructure: Analysts and experts in management and operation functions, who do not participate in productive work but also design, plan, and prepare the people doing productive work.

5. Support Structure: Staff: personal advice to managers.

Relations in the Formal Organizational Structure

1. Formal: These relationships are defined in advance by management and communicated to other members of the organization.... Continue reading "Understanding Company Structure, Departments, and Roles" »

Quality Concept

• Quality Product
• Quality of Service
• Quality of Care

Defining Quality

There may be different definitions:

• According to the dictionary
• According to UNE-EN-ISO 9000:2000
• Specialty-based: focus on technical, financial, or customer aspects
• The Organization for European-based Quality Control (EOQC)

A quality product or service represents the degree that covers the client's requirements which were used, and the result of quality design and quality of manufacture.

Top Quality

• Satisfaction of needs and customer expectations (consumers, users, members of the organization, shareholders, society, etc.)
• The least-cost associated, linked to an efficient use of resources
• The use of continuous improvement as a method
• The applicability to all processes and

Indifference Curves

Indifference curves are lines on a plane representing combinations of goods that produce the same satisfaction. As we move away from the axes, satisfaction increases. However, satisfaction remains the same along any single indifference curve. Consumers always aim to be on the highest possible indifference curve their income allows.

Automatic Stabilizers

Automatic stabilizers in fiscal policy are instruments that activate automatically without government intervention. They respond to changes in income, employment, or prices, stabilizing the economy.

Existing Tax Deductions

1. If income increases and demand holds or increases, existing deductions remain unchanged, potentially hindering growth.
2. If income falls and demand decreases,

Oil Production Phases

• Exploration: The search activity for oil through geological and laboratory techniques.
• Exploitation or Production of Crude: A set of activities including locating fields, drilling wells, preparing pipes, building storage facilities, etc.
• Refinery: The process involving a set of physical and chemical processes from which crude oil yields various products.
• Marketing: The placement of oil and its derivatives in consumer markets.

Location Factors

• Market Access: Proximity to consumer markets reduces transportation costs and facilitates access to foreign markets via ports and airports.
• Communication Possibilities: The existence of communication infrastructure allows easy access to markets.
• Quantity and Quality of Labor: Requires a large

Understanding Purchasing Power Parity

General Idea

A country's currency value, with respect to another, is determined by its purchasing power.

Two Applications of Purchasing Power Parity

1. To determine the exchange rate parity of purchasing power and use it for comparisons of social accounting.
2. As a theory that explains the relationship between price levels and the exchange rate.

Factors Influencing Exchange Rate Fluctuations

Parity Adjustments

Persistent or fundamental imbalances in the balance of payments can lead to changes in monetary parity, or the external exchange value of a currency. Parity can be adjusted upwards (revaluation) or downwards (devaluation), depending on whether there is a surplus or a deficit.

Devaluation allows exporters to receive... Continue reading "Understanding Purchasing Power Parity and International Monetary Systems" »

CRM

CRM is an integrated information system that is used to plan, schedule and control the pre-sales and post-sales activities in an organization. CRM embraces all aspects of dealing with prospects and customers, including the call center sales-force, marketing, technical support and field service. The primary goal of CRM is to improve long-term growth and profitability through a better understanding of customer behavior. -CRM aims to provide more effective feedback and improved integration to better gauge the return on investment (ROI) in these areas.

CRM: Support, sales, service, orders, analysis, mkt, strategy.

Strategic CRM is focused upon the development of a customer-centric business culture. –This culture is dedicated to winning and keeping... Continue reading "Understanding CRM: Strategies, Models, and Relationships" »

Key Economic Terms

GDP (Gross Domestic Product): GDP is the monetary value of all final goods and services produced within an economy over a specific period. It's calculated by summing the value of production across all sectors of the economy, subtracting the value of intermediate goods used in the production process.

Income per Capita: This economic measure is derived by dividing the total income earned by the entire population of a country or region.

Multinational Corporation: A company with production or distribution operations in multiple countries. Multinationals can expand their operations globally and relocate industrial plants from one country to another.

Balance of Payments: A document that records all economic transactions between a country... Continue reading "Key Economic Terms: GDP, Income, Trade, and Industry" »

Coordination and Control Bases

In the model of team production, activities are coordinated and determine the productivity of team members. Determining the individual productivity of team members is hampered by technical issues and opportunistic behavior. This requires mutual monitoring and production standards, often overseen by a supervisor to prevent avoidance. This incurs costs for the company.

To produce efficiently, companies must manage two types of costs:

• Costs of collective action
• Control costs

Thus, there are two lines of organizational guidelines:

• Hierarchical organizational solutions
• Participatory organizational solutions

Hierarchical solutions are based on mutual surveillance among members or supervision by a higher authority. When a supervisor... Continue reading "Coordination, Control, and Agency Problems in Organizations" »

The Evolution of Money: From Barter to Digital Currency

What is Money?

It's easy to think of money as dollar bills and quarters, but money is anything that most people can agree upon as a means of exchange. If enough people in town are willing to accept donuts as money, then donuts are money—at least for people in that city. One might, however, run into trouble when trying to spend those donuts in other cities.

Barter: The Original Exchange System

Before coins or banknotes, people exchanged fish for stone tools or leather goods for wood. This method of exchanging one thing for another is called barter. It remains in use today: Sue could agree to fix Ramon's electrical wiring if Ramon prepares Sue's income tax figures. They have exchanged services,... Continue reading "The Evolution of Currency: From Barter to Digital Transactions" »

Understanding the IMF and Global Debt

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was initially created to rebuild Europe after World War II. The U.S. provided aid to Europe, especially England and Germany. The IMF is formed with representatives from all member countries.

Funding for the IMF, the Paris Club, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and other central banks (BCOs) comes from various sources, including private entities.

John Maynard Keynes was a key figure in the establishment of the IMF.

Debt Restructuring in Argentina

Amado Boudou served as Minister of Economy.

Lavagna achieved a reduction of external debt through a Debt Exchange Plan, also known as an Operation Exchange.

This involved restructuring approximately $170 billion in debt,... Continue reading "Understanding the IMF, Debt Restructuring, and Argentina's Economy" »