This dissertation consists of three chapters and is centered on the issues of external debt default and growth. In the first chapter, we develop a macrodynamic model of a small open economy that incorporates the effects of haircut and external debt default on the borrowing cost of a debtor country. We argue that the ability to impose a substantial haircut, a reduction in external debt in the face of a sovereign default can work as a strong enough incentive for a debtor country to borrow heavily even when it faces an increased default risk. Calibrating our model to real world data and employing numerical simulations we show that the observed overborrowing and consequently multiple external debt defaults by many countries around the world are equilibrium outcomes in the presence of the haircut induced benefit of sovereign default. Chapter two empirically investigates how debt default affects growth in low-income countries that have a high debt burden. We adopt Rose’s (2005) methodology of using dummy variables to examine both the contemporaneous and lagged effects of debt default on growth in countries that received debt relief assistance under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC). An inflow of capital is expected to affect these economies differently than other countries which are not eligible for the HIPC initiative. Our findings indicate that initiation of an external debt default leads to a downturn in growth, possibly due to the uncertainty created by such an event. However, debt renegotiation marking the conclusion of a default spell helps to revive growth and contributes to about 1 percentage point increase in growth for these countries. This positive growth effect of successful completion of a default episode is robust to different specifications and is pertinent even in the long run. In the third chapter, we examine the differential impacts of debt renegotiation on the various sectors within an economy. We analyze more than fifty years of data for ten broadly defined sectors from twenty-four mostly developing countries around the world. Our results indicate that debt rescheduling is associated with five to nine percent growth in sectoral productivity in countries outside of sub-Saharan Africa. This positive impact of debt renegotiation is particularly significant in the sectors of mining, construction, trade services, transport services, business services and personal services. Our findings provide support to the postulations of the debt overhang theory and the crowding out theory at sectoral level.

El presente trabajo de investigación tiene como objetivo principal la investigación, validación de nuestro modelo de negocio, para luego ser implementado en el mercado real del Perú. Dicha aplicación está basada en nuestro Business Model Canvas y las estrategias aplicadas en alianzas, recursos claves, actividades clave, canales de llegada, costos, entre otros. Barber & Beauty es una aplicación para smartphones, la cual sirve para hacer reservas en los distintos salones de belleza y barberías que se afilien a nuestra plataforma desde la comodidad de tu celular. Esta app está dirigida hacia jóvenes (hombres y mujeres) de 18 a 35 años de los niveles socioeconómicos A, B y C de la ciudad de Lima. Para pode llegar a nuestros clientes se utilizaron los canales electrónicos como Facebook, Instagram y pagina web. En base a dichos canales se elaboraron estrategias y experimentos para poder llegar a nuestros clientes y hacer nuestra validación de descargas y ventas de nuestra aplicación. Para el análisis de factibilidad de nuestro proyecto se realizaron encuestas a los usuarios (clientes) que utilizarían la plataforma, también se desarrollaron entrevistas a expertos (dueños de salones/barberías) para validar si estarían dispuestos a entrar a nuestra plataforma. A través de dichos experimentos se pudo confirmar que nuestro público objetivo anteriormente mencionado, si estaría dispuesto a descargar y utilizar nuestra aplicación Barber & Beauty. Por otro lado, nuestro otro segmente de clientes salones y barberías, también mostraron gran interés en formar parte de nuestra plataforma. Por lo que podemos concluir, que nuestra idea de negocio es rentable y tiene altos niveles de escalabilidad. / The main objective of this research work is research, validation of our business model, and then the implementation of the project into the Peruvian market. This application is based on our Business Model Canvas and the strategies applied in alliances, key resources, key activities, channels, costs, among others. Barber & Beauty is an application for smartphones, which is used to make reservations in the different beauty salons and barber shops that join our platform from the comfort of your cell phone. This app is aimed at users (men and women) between 18 and 35 years of age from socioeconomic levels A, B and C from the city of Lima. In order to reach our clients, electronic channels such as Facebook, Instagram and website were used. Based on these channels, strategies and experiments were developed to reach our customers and validate the number of downloads and sales of our application. For the viability analysis of our project, surveys were carried out with users (clients) who would use the platform, and interviews to experts (salon/barber shops owners) were also carried out to validate whether they would be willing to enter our platform. Through these experiments, it was possible to confirm that our previously mentioned target audience would be willing to download and use our Barber & Beauty application. On the other hand, our other segment of client’s salons and barbershops, also showed great interest in being part of our platform. From what we can conclude, that our business idea is profitable and has high levels of scalability. / Trabajo de investigación

Unreliable homodiegetic narration presents a unique mode of narrative transmission which demands the encoding within the text of 'translational indices', that is, signifiers of several kinds which justify the reader/receiver in over-riding the sincere first person avowals of the apparent mediator of the discourse. The argument establishes the presence of an epistemologically primary 'immanent' narrative situation within an ostensibly unitary narrative situation. Such a stereoscopic perspective upon the presented world of the literary 'work provides the reader/receiver with a warrant for a rejection of the epistemological validity of the homodiegetic narrator's discourse. Moreover, the thesis advances a typology of such translational indices as they occur in the dense ontology of the literary work of art. The narratological theory of unreliable homodiegetic narration developed in the first half of the dissertation is applied in the second half to selected exemplars of such narrative transmissions, demonstrating thereby the theoretical fecundity of the model for the discipline of narratology. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1988.