Abstract: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.

We propose a new metaheuristic algorithm to find “good” solutions for the assignment of small treatment-control groups, minimising the random resource. Using simulated cases, we achieved 100% groups with equivalence levels equal to or higher than those generated with the simple random assignment, complete random assignment and block random assignment designs. In addition, as a secondary objective to test the new algorithm, we found that short out of-class essays implied that treatment group marks were 14% higher than in the control group.

ResumenEl 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.

RESUMENLa existencia de fallas de mercado induce a que la inversión privada en actividades de innovación sea menor a la socialmente óptima. De ahí que la intervención del estado puede ser fundamental para promover actividades de innovación tendientes a corregir este problema. El presente artículo, mediante la estimación de un sistema de ecuaciones en su forma reducida, evalúa si la financiación pública estimula la inversión en innovación y mejora el desempeño innovador y económico empresarial en