CURRICULUM VITAE Astrid Loretta Ayala Castellanos PERSONAL DATA Family name: Ayala Castellanos First names: Astrid Loretta Place of birth: Guatemala, Guatemala Nationality: Guatemalan Telephone: (+502) 2338-7941 Fax: (+502) 2338-7963 Address: Universidad Francisco Marroquín, School of Business, Edificio de la Escuela de Negocios, 01010 Guatemala, Guatemala Email: aayala@ufm.edu EMPLOYMENT 1/2006 present (www.ufm.edu) School of Business Full-time professor Director of the Legal Master (LL.M.) in Finance program 2001 present Ayala, Castellanos & Asociados, Guatemala Founder, owner and member of the Board of Directors Financial consultant in valuation, financial analysis and financial information systems STUDIES Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain School of Economics and Business Administration PhD in Economics Title of the PhD thesis: Three Essays on Real and Nominal Macroeconomic Variables in Latin America Directors of the PhD work: Luis Albériko Gil-Alana (Universidad de Navarra) and Juncal Cuñado (Universidad de Navarra) Defense of the thesis: 12/2010 Grade of the thesis: Sobresaliente Cum Laude por unanimidad Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain School of Economics and Business Administration
Master of Economics and Finance (MEF) Title of the thesis: The relationship between the economic value added and the market value of the equity Director of the thesis: Rocío Sánchez Mangas (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) Presentation of the thesis: 09/2008 Faculty of Economics Master of Economics and Finance Title of the thesis: Génesis y crisis de los principios morales de la sociedad occidental contemporánea desde la perspectiva del psicoanálisis freudiano Director of the thesis: Wenceslao Giménez-Bonet (Universidad Francisco Marroquín) Presentation of the thesis: 2005 Academic distinction: Magna Cum Laude Boston University, United States School of Management International program in finance and managerial economics School of Business Master in Business Administration Academic distinction: Summa Cum Laude Faculty of Economics Public Accountant and Auditor Academic distinction: Summa Cum Laude RESEARCH VISITS 8/2010 Central Bank of Hungary, Research Department, Budapest Visiting researcher in the topic of fiscal convergence of Central and Eastern Europe to the Eurozone 1/2012 Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona RESEARCH INTERESTS Macroeconomics (economic growth, trade cycle, public finances, economic convergence, unemployment, real exchange rate, comparative economics, capital markets and the real economy) Valuation, M&A Financial markets
Several topics of applied econometrics (models of non-stationary time series, structural breaks, unit root tests, fractional integration) PUBLICATIONS Ayala, A. and Blazsek, S. (2014). Contagion of sovereign debt in the Eurozone, Theoretical Economics Letters, 4. [accepted for publication] Ayala, A. and Blazsek, S.A. (2013). Fiscal convergence of Central and Eastern Europe to the Eurozone accession considering the impact of the financial crisis, Economic Systems, Vol. 37 Issue 1, pg. 45-60. Ayala, A., Cuñado, J. and Gil-Alana, L. (2013). Real Convergence: Empirical Evidence for Latin America, Applied Economics, Vol. 22, pg. 3220-3229. Ayala, A., Cuñado, J. and Gil-Alana, L. (2012). Real convergence in Latin America: a fractionally integrated approach, Applied Financial Economics, Vol. 22 Issue 20, pg. 1713-1717. Ayala, A., Cuñado, J. and Gil-Alana, L. (2012). Unemployment Hysteresis: Empirical Evidence for Latin America, Journal of Applied Economics, Vol 15 Issue 2, pg. 213-233. Ayala, A. and Blazsek, S. (2012). How has the financial crisis affected the fiscal convergence of Central and Eastern Europe to the Eurozone?, Applied Economics Letters, Vol. 19 Issue 5, pg. 471-476. Ibargüen, G. and Ayala, A. (2006). A market proposal for auditing the financial statements of public companies, Journal of Management for Value, 1, 2. BOOKS, BOOKS CHAPTERS Ayala, A., Blazsek, S., and González, R. B. (2014). Default risk of sovereign debt in Central America. In: Nigel Finch (Ed.), Emerging Markets and Sovereign Risk, Palgrave Macmillan. [accepted for publication] Ayala, Astrid (2011). Génesis y crisis de los principios morales de la sociedad occidental contemporánea desde la perspectiva del psicoanálisis freudiano, Editorial Académica Española. (ISBN 978-3-8465-6329-8), España. WORK IN PROGRESS Fiscal sustainability of Eurozone governments: An empirical review of the past decade (with Szabolcs Blazsek) submitted, 2013. Sustainability of public finances in Central and Eastern European countries: a fractional integration perspective (with Szabolcs Blazsek and Yuliya Lovcha) submitted, 2013. Time-varying predictions of real activity and stock returns (with Szabolcs Blazsek) submitted, 2013. Endogenous Markov regime-switching vector autoregression with estimates of the China stock market and economic growth relation (with Szabolcs Blazsek and Fernando Pérez de Gracia).
Mean Reversion in Real Exchange Rates: Empirical Evidence for Latin America (with Juncal Cuñado and Luis Albériko Gil-Alana). Sustainability of public finances in the Eurozone: a fractional integration perspective (with Szabolcs Blazsek and Yuliya Lovcha). Endogenous Markov switching dynamic volatility models (with Szabolcs Blazsek). RESEARCH PROJECTS Convergence of CEE countries to the Eurozone in the presence of structural changes. Members of the project: Jerome Vandenbussche (IMF), Szabolcs Blazsek (UNAV) and (UFM). Financing organization: Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary) CONFERENCES OMI-SoFiE Financial Econometrics Summer School, University of Oxford, July 2013. Hungarian Society for Economics annual conference, December 2011. Summer Workshop in Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, July 2010. ETSERN Pamplona Meeting, June 2010. SUMMER SCHOOLS 2013 Summer School at the University of Cambridge, lecturers: Andrew Harvey, Sean Holly and Melvyn Weeks. MEMBERSHIPS Society of Financial Econometrics (2013, 2014) REFEREE FOR JOURNALS Applied Financial Economics Technological and Economic Development of Economy Applied Economics TEACHING Universidad Francisco Marroquín (abbreviation of the master program): 2006 present: Value Based Management (master degree level) Financial Analysis (master degree level) Valuation (master degree level)
Corporate Finance (master degree level) Economy I (master degree level) Economy II (master degree level) Competition and Entrepreneurship (master degree level) Financial Accounting (master degree level) Workshop of Valuation in an M&A Context (master degree level) Financial Principles (undergraduate degree level) Economic Value Added (undergraduate degree level) Working Capital Management (master degree level) Financial Statements Analysis in different Sectors (master degree level) Workshop of Valuation (master degree level) OMMA: Online de Madrid Manuel Ayau Análisis de Estados Financieros de la Empresa (Master en Value Investing y Teoría del Ciclo) Contabilidad y Análisis Financiero (Master en Diseño y Desarrollo Empresarial de Ciudades) Introducción a la Contabilidad (Master en Value Investing y Teoría del Ciclo) LANGUAGES Spanish: Native English: Advanced