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Responses to
Strategic responses to the the COVID-19
COVID-19 pandemic in Pacific pandemic

Alliance countries
Vanina Vivas
Universidad del Pacífico, Lima, Peru, and
Received 3 July 2020
Manuel Villar Revised 1 August 2020
Accepted 4 August 2020
Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Peru

Abstract
Purpose – The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments of different countries to implement
unprecedented strategies with the aim of reducing the rate of contagion and mitigating its economic and social
effects. In this scenario, the purpose of this paper is to analyze four fundamental strategies, namely, testing and
diagnosis, macroprudential, labor market and social assistance, based on the crisis management theory.
Design/methodology/approach – This research note is based on a review of the principal official
legislations regarding the strategies implemented during the first 80 days from the first zero case registered in
the Pacific Alliance countries.
Findings – The review shows that the Pacific Alliance countries have implemented similar strategies
regarding macroprudential and labor market measures. On the other hand, there are differences among the
strategies related to testing and diagnostic and social assistance.
Originality/value – The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected Latin American countries due to
their economic and social problems. In this sense, the reporting and analysis of the principal strategies
implemented by the Pacific Alliance countries constitute a baseline to understand the effectiveness of these
strategies in mitigating the negative effects of the pandemic.
Keywords Strategies, Responses, Pacific Alliance, COVID-19, Pandemic
Paper type General review

Respuestas Estratégicas a la Pandemia De COVID-19 en los Países de la Alianza del

Pacífico
Resumen
Objetivo – La pandemia de COVID-19 ha obligado a gobiernos de diferentes países a implementar
estrategias sin precedentes con el objetivo de reducir la tasa de contagio y mitigar sus efectos economicos y
sociales. En este escenario, el proposito de esta nota de investigacion es analizar cuatro estrategias
fundamentales: testeo y diagnostico, macro-prudencial, mercado laboral y asistencia social, con base en la
Teoría del Manejo de Crisis.
Diseño – Esta nota de investigacion se basa en una revision de las principales legislaciones oficiales sobre
las estrategias implementadas durante los primeros 80 días desde el primer caso registrado en los países de la
Alianza del Pacífico.
Hallazgos – La revision muestra que los países de la Alianza del Pacífico han implementado estrategias
similares con respecto a medidas macro-prudenciales y del mercado laboral. Por otro lado, existen diferencias
entre las estrategias relacionadas con las pruebas y el diagnostico, y la asistencia social. Management Research: Journal of
the Iberoamerican Academy of
Management
The authors would like to thank Professor José Amoros and the anonymous reviewers for their © Emerald Publishing Limited
1536-5433
insightful suggestions throughout the review process. DOI 10.1108/MRJIAM-07-2020-1067
MRJIAM Originalidad – La pandemia de COVID-19 ha afectado significativamente a los países de América Latina
debido a sus problemas economicos y sociales. En este sentido, el reporte y analisis de las principales
estrategias implementadas por los países de la Alianza del Pacífico constituyen una línea de base para
comprender la efectividad de estas estrategias en la mitigacion de los efectos negativos de la pandemia.
Palabras clave – Respuesta estratégica; Teoría de Gestion de Crisis, COVID-19; Alianza del Pacífico,
América Latina
Tipo de artículo – Revision general

Respostas estratégicas à pandemia de COVID-19 nos países da Aliança do Pacífico

Resumo
Objetivo – A pandemia COVID-19 obrigou governos de diferentes países a implementarem estratégias sem
precedentes com o objetivo de reduzir a taxa de contagio e mitigar seus efeitos econômicos e sociais. Neste
cenario, o objetivo desta nota de pesquisa é analisar quatro estratégias fundamentais: testagem e diagnostico,
macro-prudencial, mercado de trabalho e assistência social, com base na Teoria de Gestão de Crises.
Desenho – Esta nota de pesquisa é baseada em uma revisão da principal legislação oficial sobre as
estratégias implementadas durante os primeiros 80 dias a partir do primeiro caso registrado nos países da
Aliança do Pacífico.
Conclusões – A analise mostra que os países da Aliança do Pacífico implementaram estratégias
semelhantes com respeito as medidas macro-prudenciais e do mercado de trabalho. Por outro lado, ha
diferenças entre as estratégias relacionadas a testagem e diagnostico, e assistência social.
Originalidade – A pandemia COVID-19 afetou significativamente os países latino-americanos devido a
seus problemas econômicos e sociais. Nesse sentido, o relatorio e a analise das principais estratégias
implementadas pelos países da Aliança do Pacífico constituem uma linha de base para entender a eficacia
dessas estratégias na mitigação dos efeitos negativos da pandemia.
Palavras-chave – Respostas estratégicas; Teoria de Gestão de Crises, COVID-19; Aliança do Pacífico,
América Latina
Tipo de artigo – Revisão geral

Introduction
On December 31, 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO, 2020f) informed about a
cluster of pneumonia patients detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. Days later,
on January 7, 2020, the Chinese authorities confirmed that these cases were associated with a
novel coronavirus whose interim name was 2019-nCoV. By January 30, the novel
coronavirus had spread from China to other Western Pacific countries (e.g. Japan, Singapore,
Republic of Korea and Australia), South-East Asian countries (e.g. Thailand, Nepal and
India), North American countries (USA and Canada) and European countries (e.g. Germany,
France and Finland) (WHO, 2020e).
On February 11, 2020, WHO (2020c) confirmed the official name of the disease and the
virus, coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome
coronavirus 2), respectively, because of its relation to the coronavirus responsible for the
SARS outbreak of 2003. Thereby, COVID-19 was described as an infectious disease caused
by the novel coronavirus and triggers mild to moderate respiratory illness in most people
infected, but serious illness in people with underlying medical problems such as
cardiovascular, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease and cancer (WHO, 2020b).
The first case of COVID-19 in Latin America was reported in Brazil by the end of
February (Johns Hopkins University, 2020), and this confirmed that the coronavirus
disease had reached every continent. In this scenario, due to the alarming levels of
spread, severity and inaction, on March 11, 2020 WHO declared COVID-19 can be Responses to
characterized as a pandemic (WHO, 2020f), whose effects led to a global crisis. the COVID-19
According to the crisis management theory, among the characteristics of this type of crisis
are large population affected, very high economic costs, extreme uncertainty and critical
pandemic
communication problems (Boin and Lagadec, 2000). Due to these characteristics and based on
the same theory, Ansell et al. (2010) highlight four political-administrative crisis response
challenges: coping with uncertainty, providing surge capacity, organizing a response and
communicating with the public. Taking this challenges into account, the objective of this
research note is to address the third strategy, that is, how the stakeholders have organized
responses to the crisis. The literature points out that this challenge is related to the achievement
of a coordinated mobilization of the necessary resources (e.g. people, money and goods) to
respond effectively (Ansell et al., 2010). Likewise, an effective response should consider the
specific needs of each region. Thus, from the geographical understanding of the crisis, it follows
that strategies must be adapted to the different characteristics of the region (Brinks and Ibert,
2020).
In the case of Latin America, the inadequate infrastructure of the health system and
socio-economic problems have forced this region to take rapid measures, such as lockdowns,
restricted daytime movements and cessation of intra-provincial travel (Miller et al., 2020). In
this sense, this paper attempt to report and analyze the governments’ responses to COVID-
19 in the Pacific Alliance (PA), made up of four Latin American countries: Chile, Colombia,
Mexico and Peru, which together represent approximately the 35% of the total population of
Latin America and the Caribbean and generate around 37% of the GDP of this region
(Duran and Cracau, 2016).
We have identified the most relevant government-led responses since the first case
reported in these countries, which are related to four fundamental aspects: testing and
diagnostic, macroprudential, labor and social assistance strategies. The structure of the
paper includes the analysis of each of the strategies in the context of the Pacific Alliance
countries and a discussion section.

Strategic responses in the Pacific Alliance

Testing and diagnostic strategies
Given the fast spread of coronavirus cases around the world, it became necessary for each
country to adopt different diagnostic strategies to formulate the appropriate responses.
According to the information provided by WHO (2020a), the methods used to detect COVID-19
are classified into rapid and molecular. Among the former, there are two types of rapid
diagnostic test (RDT). One detects the presence of viral proteins (antigens) expressed by the
COVID-19 virus in a sample from the respiratory tract of a person and the other type detects the
presence of antibodies in the blood of the patient. However, these rapid tests have limited utility
because of its detection characteristics. For example, the first type of rapid test is sensitivity to
other respiratory disease and the second cannot quickly diagnose acute infection to inform
actions needed to determine the course of treatment. For these reasons, WHO has been
recommending the use of molecular of respiratory tract samples (e.g. reverse transcription
polymerase chain reaction: RT-PCR) for the identification and laboratory confirmation of
COVID-19 cases, instead of the two types of RDTs.
During the first months of the spread of COVID-19, the severity of the contagion in Mexico,
Peru and Chile was medium, while in Colombia, it was low (Melin et al., 2020). This indicated
that these countries would adopt similar testing and diagnostic strategies of the virus. In the
Peruvian case, the Ministry of Health of Peru (2020a) published a technical document focused
MRJIAM

Figure 1.
Pacific Alliance’s
PCR tests per million
people

on prevention, diagnosis and treatment for people who may be affected by the coronavirus.
Within this guide, it discloses the use of RDTs, considered to complement the strategies of
diagnosis, treatment, surveillance, communication and information, focusing on health workers
and people who had direct contact with infected people. Likewise, it indicates that all the
information resulting from the test must be sent to the Epidemiological Surveillance System of
the Ministry. However, the document does not mention whether people who test positive
through rapid tests will undergo a subsequent molecular test to confirm their condition; since
May 1st, the daily publications made by the Ministry of Health differentiates the results
(positive and negative) of molecular tests and rapid tests.
For the remaining countries, we found no official information on the processing of
rapid tests as part of diagnostic strategies. The statistics published by the Ministry of
Health of Chile (2020a) only correspond to PCR tests results. Likewise, the Ministry of
Health of Colombia (2020) only publishes PCR tests results. In the case of Mexico, the
data published by the Secretariat of Health of Mexico (2020b) do not explicitly specify
whether the results corresponds to PCR or rapid tests and we have not found official
publications regarding the strategy for COVID-19 testing and diagnosing.
Considering the above, to be able to compare the number of tests processed by each
country, Figure 1 shows the total of PCR tests per million people. Likewise, to facilitate
the comparison, we have taken the first 80 days from the detection of the first case in each
country as the period of analysis. As we can see, Chile has processed the largest number
of PCR tests per million people, followed by Colombia, Peru and Mexico.

COVID-19 evolution
Based on the above-mentioned testing and diagnostic strategies, Figure 2 shows COVID-19
evolution in the Pacific Alliance countries regarding four principal indicators: total cases,
total cases per million people, recovered and deaths, obtained from the data published by
Johns Hopkins University (2020). Considering our period of analysis, the first cases of
 Responses to
the COVID-19
pandemic

Figure 2.
Pacific Alliance’s
COVID-19 cases,
recovered and deaths

contagion of the Pacific Alliance were reported by Mexico. On February 28, 2020, the
Mexican Government announced the detection of first three COVID-19 cases related to
citizens who had returned from Europe. On March 3, Chile reported its first zero case
corresponding to a citizen who had been in Singapore. Three days later, on March 6,
Colombia and Peru reported their first zero cases related to two citizens who had returned
from Europe.
As Figure 2 shows, Peru has reported the highest number of cases of COVID-19, followed
by Chile, Mexico and Colombia. However, it should be considered that since May 1st, the
infected cases in Peru correspond to positive results from both rapid and PCR tests, while for
the rest of the countries the cases correspond only to positive results of PCR tests. When we
compare this indicator with cases per million people, we found that Mexico, the first most
populated country (followed by Peru), turns out to be the country with the least number of
detected cases. On the other hand, in terms of recovered, Peru has the highest number,
followed by Mexico, Chile and Colombia; while in terms of deaths, Mexico has the highest
number, followed by Peru, Colombia and Chile.

Macroprudential strategies
The main objective of macroprudential strategies is to maintain the stability of a country’s
financial system. To achieve this objective, it is necessary to implement measures that
consider the risks that can undermine the entire financial system (Zulkhibri, 2019).
Regarding the economic policies established to maintain the stability of financial
institutions, as well as people’s access to funds that allow them to cope with isolation in a
dignified manner, the Central Bank of Peru (BCRP) reduced its reserve requirements in both
MRJIAM national (Central Reserve Bank of Peru, 2020a) and foreign currency (Central Reserve Bank
of Peru, 2020b) to provide liquidity to banks. Likewise, the Superintendency of Banking,
Insurance and Pension Funds of Peru (2020c) ordered not to charge for the provision of
credit risk to all firms that access to “Reactiva Perú” program (Congress of the Republic of
Peru, 2020a). On the other hand, the Congress of the Republic of Peru (2020b) approved a law
that allows contributors of the private pension system to withdraw up to 25% of their
retirement funds to support their families during the period of isolation.
In the case of Chile, the Ministry of Finance of Chile (2020b) created the Guarantee Fund
for Small Entrepreneurs that gives a contribution from the Treasury for an amount of up to
US$3,000,000,000. To make this fund available, different requirements and limits were
established so that this fund is not used for excessive financing, both in national and foreign
currency.
For its part, Colombia, in its declaration of a state of emergency the Presidency of the
Republic of Colombia (2020), provided that financial entities can adopt exceptional measures
that allow them to optimally use their capital. This measure reaches financial entities that
have the state as stakeholder. Furthermore, these measures must be aligned to allow the
issuance of bonds that guarantee the flow of liquidity by the Central Bank of Colombia.
Finally, the scope of the rule also seeks to fortify its National Guarantee Fund (FNG) to
continue giving credit access to the natural and legal persons of the country.
In the case of Mexico, the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit of Mexico (2020a)
established an exceptional requirement to allow multiple banks to access the necessary
liquidity during this pandemic. This consisted of placing banking institutions in the lowest
scenario of liquidity coverage and to guarantee the flow of financing to people and entities
that require it. Likewise, this mechanism exempts the payment of dividends to the
shareholders of multiple banks, the transfer of benefits involving their assets and the
payment of their employees’ compensation.

Labor market strategies

Due to the pandemic, the labor sector underwent several changes to prevent the spread of
coronavirus. Thus, workplaces have adopted specific prevention and protection measures
such as measurement of body temperature, facemask use and prioritize work from home
(Cirrincione et al., 2020), the latter being a strategy to prevent workplaces from becoming
sources of infection and to allow people not to lose their jobs (Belzunegui-Eraso and Erro-
Garcés, 2020). However, the rate of informality, the type of occupation and the
characteristics of workers have limited the implementation of teleworking in Latin America
and the Caribbean, where only between 10 and 13% of jobs have been able to adopt this
alternative in the Pacific Alliance (Delaporte and Peña, 2020).

Sanitary measures at workplace

Regarding the measures taken in this field, the four countries have adopted similar sanitary
actions regarding the care of workers who belong to essential sectors. The Ministry of
Health of Peru (2020b) established standards related to disinfection of workplaces, the
control of workers’ temperature both when entering and leaving, the access to disinfectants
for workers, and to avoid the assistance of people at risk of contracting the virus, like those
who are over 60 years old, and those with cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, among
others.
Similar to Peru, the Ministry of Health of Chile (2020b) established preventive health
measures in the workplace to safeguard the health of workers. For its part, the Ministry of
Interior of Colombia (2020) established restrictions on the transit of people and vehicles.
However, it guaranteed the sale of essential products and attended the production chain and Responses to
those activities related to the health system. the COVID-19
In the case of Mexico, the government suspended no essential activities and allowed the
operation of all the activities directly related to the health emergency, as well as the tasks
pandemic
that involve the supply of food, civil security and the protection of their population
(Secretariat of Health of Mexico, 2020a). The government also published a guide for workers
that perform these activities such as physical distance between people, avoidance of crowds,
the increase of public transport units, temperature controls at the entrance and exit of the
workplace, among others (Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare of Mexico, 2020).

Teleworking
In the Peruvian case, public and private entities implemented teleworking since the
establishment of the national state of emergency, except for those who have tested positive
for the coronavirus and those who have medical rest (Presidency of the Council of Ministers
of Peru, 2020a). Within this framework, employers must inform changes in workers’ benefits
so that their functions are not affected (Presidency of the Council of Ministers of Peru,
2020e). On the other hand, the Peruvian government granted a subsidy for employers of the
private sector so that they can continue paying the corresponding wages to their workers
(Presidency of the Council of Ministers of Peru, 2020c).
The Government of Chile modified its teleworking code so that entities of essential
sectors can adapt during the pandemic (Ministry of Labor and Welfare of Chile, 2020a).
Likewise, the Chilean Government also facilitated access to unemployment insurance except
for people who are beneficiaries of other programs (Ministry of Labor and Welfare of Chile,
2020b). In the case of Mexico and Colombia, we did not find an official law related to
teleworking during the period of analysis. However, the Government of Colombia created
the Formal Employment Support Program (PAEF) to prevent private formal employment
from being affected and to help those entities that demonstrate to be in need of subsidies
(Ministry of Finance and Public Credit of Colombia, 2020b).

Social assistance strategies

Developing countries’ issues related to informality and poverty have made it difficult to
implement certain strategies, such as isolation to prevent the spread of coronavirus (Buheji
et al., 2020). As a result, the governments of these countries have been forced to meet
people’s basic needs as much as possible.
In the case of Peru, the government implemented the first cash transfers of
approximately US$100 at the beginning of its quarantine in March (Presidency of the
Council of Ministers of Peru, 2020b) and the second installment in April (Presidency of the
Council of Ministers of Peru, 2020d) to safeguard the financial well-being of people who were
vulnerable by not being able to continue working for the cessation of activities. Chile also
gave cash transfers to families to prevent people from being able to cover their expenses for
as long as the quarantine lasts (Ministry of Finance of Chile, 2020a).
For its part, Colombia granted an unconditional grant for people in vulnerable situations,
who have the fewest opportunities and are the most affected because they cannot work
during the period of isolation (Ministry of Finance and Public Credit of Colombia, 2020a).
Mexico has not granted cash transfers focused on families like the other countries of the
Pacific Alliance; however, it did provide vouchers of 20% of the salary of medical personnel
currently treating coronavirus patients (Mexican Social Security Institute, 2020).
MRJIAM Government stringency index
To analyze in a general way the responses implemented by the Pacific Alliance countries, we
have used the Government Stringency Index (Roser et al., 2020), which considers nine metrics
related to: school closures; workplace closures; cancellation of public events; restrictions on
public gatherings; closures of public transport; stay-at-home requirements; public information
campaigns; restrictions on internal movements; and international travel controls. The index is
calculated as the mean score of the nine metrics, each taking a value between 0 and 100. A
higher score indicates a stricter government response (i.e. 100 = strictest response).
Figure 3 shows that among the four countries, the Peruvian Government has
implemented more policies in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, followed by the
governments of Colombia, Mexico and Chile. However, as indicated by the authors, the
index simply records the number and strictness of government policies, but not their
effectiveness. Therefore, the higher score shown by Peru and Colombia does not necessarily
reflect that their governments have implemented the best policies for the country. In fact, the
greater number of policies in these countries may have been due to the lack of the necessary
tools to respond quickly to this type of crisis.
With the aim of knowing the level of preparation of these countries prior to the outbreak,
we used the Global Health Security Index (GHSI). This Index address the infectious disease
outbreaks that can lead to international epidemics and pandemics. For that, it comprises 140
questions related to six categories:
(1) prevention;
(2) detection and reporting;
(3) rapid response;
(4) health system;
(5) compliance with international norms; and
(6) risk environment.

These categories are evaluated on a scale of 0 to 100 points, where 100 means best health
security conditions.

Figure 3.
Pacific Alliance’s
Government
Stringency Index
 Chile Colombia Mexico Peru
Responses to
Category Score Position Score Position Score Position Score Position the COVID-19
pandemic
1. Prevention 56.2 23 37.2 75 45.5 49 43.2 60
2. Detection and reporting 72.7 30 41.7 91 71.2 32 38.3 102
3. Rapid response 60.2 18 43.5 70 50.8 39 51.7 37
4. Health system 39.3 43 34.3 64 46.9 24 45.0 33
5. Compliance with international norms 51.5 78 60.1 35 73.9 6 63.0 26
6. Risk environment 70.1 38 51 116 57.0 89 57.7 84

Notes: Prevention (e.g. biosecurity, biosafety and immunization); Detection and reporting (e.g. laboratory
systems, real-time surveillance and reporting and epidemiology workforce); Rapid response (e.g. emergency
preparedness and response planning, emergency response operation and trade and travel restrictions);
Health system (e.g. health capacity in clinics, hospitals and community care centers, health-care access and
infection control practices and availability countermeasures); Compliance with international norms (e.g. Table 1.
IHR reporting compliance and disaster risk reduction, financing and commitment to sharing of generic and
biological data and specimens); and Risk environment (e.g. political and security risks, socio-economics Pacific Alliance’s
resilience and public health vulnerabilities) global health security
Source: Global Health Security Index (2019). Own elaboration index

Table 1 shows the score achieve by the Pacific Alliance countries, as well as their
position among the 195 countries analyzed in parentheses. Despite the limitations of this
index that do not allow a fair comparison between countries (Razavi et al., 2020), we can see
from the table that the scores and positions of the countries are not constant. However, if we
take two relevant categories such as prevention, detection and reporting and health system,
we find a better scenario for Mexico and Chile.
A closer reference to the current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, regarding the degree
of preparedness of the countries, was made by WHO (2020c). It has classified all countries with
COVID-19 cases in five levels according to their preparedness, high-risk of imported cases,
imported cases, localized transmission and community transmission. Based on this
classification, the Pacific Alliance countries placed in an intermediate position of preparedness
capacity level with Mexico and Chile in Level 4, and Peru and Colombia in Level 3.

Discussion
The crisis management theory suggests that among the different challenges that arise
in a crisis environment such as the one created by COVID-19 is the organization of
effective responses, which must be adapted to the characteristics of each region. While
the COVID-19 outbreak has prompted governments to implement unprecedented series
of strategies, the number and type of these policies has been conditioned by the
previous situation or degree of preparation of governments and the priority given to the
health of citizens over the economy. In this scenario, the measures deployed by the
Pacific Alliance countries in terms of testing and diagnostic, macroprudential, labor
market and social assistance strategies have had coincidences in certain aspects and
different levels of depth.
Regarding the testing and diagnostic strategies, although we did not find official
information for Mexico, it appears that the four countries have adopted the WHO
recommendations regarding the use of PCR tests over rapid tests. However, it should be
noted that only in Peru published official information regarding the use of rapid tests as a
strategy for timely detection and tracking of the virus, despite its limitations.
MRJIAM In macroprudential matters, Peru is the country that has taken the most measures,
combining the actions of its Ministry of Economy with the work of the BCRP to ensure the
greatest possible flow of liquidity through the placement of bonds by the issuing entity and
loans to entities through the “Reactiva Perú” program. Chile also focuses its measures on
firms and is more explicit in the restrictions it places on small entrepreneurs, while Colombia
gave the necessary support for taking measures but without showing a plan as specific as
the other countries. Mexico focused on the liquidity of its economy, but its rules do not show
a plan that guides all government actions.
Regarding the labor strategies, all countries have prioritized the continuity of operations
of all firms related to essential activities if they comply with the appropriate health
measures. Regarding teleworking – an alternative working mode – it has been recently
considered by the governments of Peru and Chile, while Colombia and Mexico are subject to
the existing regulations regarding this matter. The measures of Peru and Chile focus on
maintaining the rights of workers to not be affected by arbitrary dismissals. As for
adaptation, they leave a regulatory framework that gives flexibility to public and private
entities to adapt in the best possible way.
In the case of social assistance strategies, Peru, Chile and Colombia implemented cash
transfers focused on families to cope with isolation; and Mexico implemented cash transfers
for health workers in compensation for their work. We must point out that in this type of
strategies there are issues related to promptness, scope and leakage that should be
considered when implementing measures like these.
Finally, although different strategies have been enacted to fight the pandemic, their
effectiveness cannot yet be assured. In this sense, further research could conduct a comparative
analysis of the situation before and during the pandemic and considering the impact on the
different regions and sectors. Likewise, to avoid issues such as the underreporting of main
indicators (e.g. cases, deaths and recovered), further studies could assess whether the responses
implemented obeyed the particular characteristics of each country or were not formulated
adequately based on the information available until those moments.

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About the authors

Vanina Vivas Ruiz is an Assistant Researcher at Universidad del Pacífico, Peru. She graduated in
Economics from Universidad Nacional del Callao, Peru. Her main topics of interest are strategic
management and behavioral economics. Vanina Vivas Ruiz is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: vh.vivasr@gmail.com
Manuel Villar Castillo graduated in Economics from Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos
and participant of the LXVII Advanced Economics Extension Course of the Central Reserve Bank of
Peru. His main topics of interest are macroeconomics and finance.

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