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Objective/Context: This paper studies the role of the Chilean state during the great drought of 1967-1969 as a mediator between human beings and nature. Institutional adaptations and the effort to improve the infrastructure were elements of continuity with respect to previous droughts, but there were novelties as well, such as attempts to pursue weather modification and the artificial melting of glaciers. The support of technologies and scientists operating from peripheral state institutions was essential for these purposes. All the above took place in the context of the Cold War when the predominant environmental imaginaries made human intervention look favorable and necessary for the modernization of countries. Methodology: Diverse primary sources were used, such as ministerial documents, decrees, bulletins, and reports of different state institutions that allowed understanding the logic of state management during the water crisis. Similarly, research in national and international press helped identify how imaginaries about the environment were expressed and disseminated publicly, which tended to validate novel efforts to control nature. Originality: This is an original study for Latin America, which addresses the early appearance of science and technology in the efforts of what today would be known as geoengineering: mainly through the observation of new actors, which expanded the traditional forms of mediation between humans and nature, led by the state, concerning climate crises. Conclusions: In the 1960s, optimism grew for the human capacity to control and manipulate water resources by appealing to ways other than those previously known, associated with infrastructure development. Expert knowledge was placed at the service of peripheral institutions of the state to promote these changes with lasting consequences. The human desire to control nature at all costs was validated, which helps explain the temporal projection of experiments with artificial rain and glacier control to the present day in Chile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The starting point of this article is the recognition that crisis is a constant when analyzing Latin America. This article asks how do political democracy and economic liberty interact in this region, considering that both are fundamental to development. After an analysis of Latin American diversity, the paper poses the question "Has the "end" of history reached Latin America with the liberal reforms in the region in the 1990s?", and concludes that the actual crisis is not due to a failure of the liberal model but rather to its limited application and lack of transparency. The paper ends with the suggestion that the region needs the "Chilean consensus", less orthodox than the Washington Consensus, but whose foundation is the transformation of the country's mentality, forming the base of its success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the issue of whether – in line with the Chinese economic approximation to Latin America during the last decade – the region has experienced political changes in terms of countries' foreign policies, shifting their traditional alignment with the positions of the regional hegemon, the United States. Given this general focus, the research project focuses on evaluating a specific issue of global governance: climate change policy. Here I find a marked difference between the Chinese and the US position, constituting two opposing poles between which Latin American countries must operate. I consider the cases of two countries, Brazil and Chile, in terms of their discursive location between China and the United States on global climate change policy. I was able to identify discursive changes throughout the decade that suggest a political alignment of the two Latin American countries with China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the relationship between the performance of Latin American stock markets with their real economies, applying seven econometric models for the cases of Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. The relationship between stock market yields in these countries and their respective GDPS is examined and compared, applying to the series for each country unit root tests, cointegration analysis, error correction model analysis, Granger causality modeling, self-regression vector analysis, stimulus and response functions, and variance decomposition analysis. The series comprise the following stock markets: Argentina's MERVAL, Brazil's BOVESPA, Chile's IGPA, and Mexico's IPC, as compiled by Economática. The GDP series were obtained from the Cepalstat data base. The series are monthly and are for the period 1993-2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Logo selection and modification is a common marketing practice; brand managers and other marketing executives will normally face these kinds of decisions. However, logo design and modification have been largely neglected in the marketing literature. Few studies have empirically tested the effects of logo design characteristics on consumer responses (see Henderson and Cote 1998). In this paper, we set out to extend this research and guidelines to an international setting. This is thought to be particularly important, because in today's environment, brand strategy decisions often need to take into consideration the potential of expanding and competing globally, and brand elements can be perceived quite differently. In particular, our study replicates the cited work in a developing Latin-American country (i.e., Chile), to test the cross-cultural relevance and stability of US-based logo guidelines in the context of a developing Latin- American nation with a vibrant marketplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]