In 2017, the government of Ecuador established the minimum quantity of water required to be provided for free by drinking water utilities. Ecuador recognized the access to water as a fundamental human right because it guarantees the good living, known as “Sumak kawsay”, an indigenous Andean concept, in the Ecuadorian Constitution. This represents a novel approach to water rights in the world, as it is the first attempt to establish a minimum quantity of water under a constitutional guarantee by legislation, rather than regulation or judicial decision. However, this novel legislative approach raises the question of how this minimum amount of free water will impact the most vulnerable members of the Ecuadorian community. This paper provides the results of the first comprehensive research of the minimum required water provision in Ecuador. In order to measure the impact on the income of households, we built a methodology integrating: doctrinaire analyses, normative studies, and economic analyses. According to the Ecuadorian legislation, over-consumption of raw water generates additional costs that must be paid by water companies to the central government. In that regard, there is an inevitable relationship between the efficiency of the service and those additional costs. Efficiency, on this case, is the capacity of water companies (public or private) to provide water services at an adequate price, observing the following parameters: quantity, quality and sufficiency. Our research found that with this legislation in three Ecuadorian local governments (Cuenca, Gualaceo and Suscal), the most vulnerable households (i.e., low-income and/or indigenous households) will be affected the most. This means that and those families will spend the most part of their income on water services otherwise they would have to reduce their water consumption.

This article estimates the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) for the energy sector in Ecuador, a country with a dollarized economy and illiquid stock markets. Thus, reference companies in the region were taken, and at the same time combined with characteristics of national companies, establishing a useful methodology, which makes sense with the acceptable discount rates in the Ecuadorian economy. For the above, four estimation alternatives were used. In method one, the traditional WACC formula was applied using interest rates and risk premiums from the U.S. market, which resulted in an overestimation due to the double penalty of the country risk and the U.S. market premium. Method two adjusted the market risk premium to consider only the Ecuador-specific risk premium, thus avoiding the double penalty. In method three, the credit default swap (CDS) was used to calculate the country risk premium, and the CDS was excluded from the nominal interest rate, avoiding redundancies. Finally, method four combined the U.S. interest rate with the CDS directly to calculate the market risk premium, more accurately reflecting local economic conditions in a dollarized economy. The WACC results range from 12.63% to 29.70%. In addition, a dummy variable was controlled for during the pandemic period. This article highlights the need for methodologies adapted to emerging markets, since traditional approaches would overestimate the WACC.

El objetivo de este trabajo es determinar si existen diferencias significativas en los resultados de la inversión en innovación -específicamente en la probabilidad de innovar en productos y/o procesos y en la productividad laboral- cuando se distingue entre esfuerzos de innovación endógenos y exógenos. Se utilizaron datos de la encuesta de innovación 2012-2014 del Ecuador y se aplicó la metodología propuesta por Crépon, Duguet y Mairesse. La evidencia sugiere que la innovación endógena tiene un impacto sobre la probabilidad de introducir innovación en productos y/o procesos que es del orden del doble que la exógena, mostrando además un mayor impacto sobre la productividad laboral.

El presente artículo tiene por objeto analizar la consulta prelegislativa ecuatoriana como mecanismo de participación de los titulares de derechos colectivos, para lo cual estudia los instrumentos internacionales de derechos humanos, la jurisprudencia de la Corte IDH, la normativa interna ecuatoriana, así como la jurisprudencia constitucional. El trabajo toma como caso de estudio el proceso de aplicación de la consulta prelegislativa realizado por la Asamblea Nacional durante la aprobación de la L.O.R.H.U.A.A. (2014). El artículo además analiza cuantitativamente los datos de participación generados durante el proceso, con el propósito de comprobar si la opinión de los consultados fue tomada en cuenta a la hora de redactar la Ley.

La formación dual universitaria ha emergido como una estrategia educativa innovadora que busca estrechar los vínculos entre la academia y el sector empresarial (Alemán, 2015). Este modelo, que combina el aprendizaje teórico en las aulas con períodos de práctica en empresas, ha demostrado ser exitoso para mejorar la empleabilidad de los graduados y satisfacer las necesidades del sector empresarial (Araya Muñoz, 2008). Originado en Alemania, este enfoque ha ganado relevancia en Ecuador durante la última década como una estrategia para mejorar la calidad y pertinencia de la oferta académica (Gessler, 2017). Permite a los estudiantes adquirir competencias profesionales directamente en el entorno laboral, desarrollando habilidades técnicas y transversales demandadas por los empleadores (Astorga, 2018).