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The purpose of this research is to analyze the Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) long memory and conditional volatility.

The empirical approach includes ARFIMA-HYGARCH and ARFIMA-FIGARCH, both models under Student‘s t-distribution, during the period (ETH: November 9, 2017 to November 25, 2021 and BTC: September 17, 2014 to November 25, 2021).

Findings suggest that ARFIMA-HYGARCH is the best model to analyze BTC volatility, and ARFIMA-FIGARCH is the best approach to model ETH volatility. Empirical evidence also confirms the existence of long memory on returns and on BTC volatility parameters. Results evidence that the models proposed are not as suitable for modeling ETH volatility as they are for the BTC.

Findings allow to confirm the fractal market hypothesis in BTC market. The data confirm that, despite the impact of the Covid-19 crisis, the dynamics of BTC returns, and volatility maintained their patterns, i.e. the way in which they evolve, in relation to the prepandemic era, did not change, but it is rather reaffirmed. Yet, ETH conditional volatility was more affected, as it is apparently higher during Covid-19. The originality of the research lies in the focus of the analysis, the proposed methodology and the variables and periods of study.

Deviations from efficiency widely documented for the case of developed capital markets include the presence of seasonal patterns. These anomalies, fairly well known by investors, could possibly lead to obtaining extraordinary gains. Although markets from the developing and transitional economies have grown significantly during the last decades, research concerning their seasonal behavior is limited. This paper examines the day-of-the week and month-of-the year effect for the seven Latin American stock exchanges: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. Returns derived from the local nominal indexes, adjusted for inflation indexes, and dollar adjusted indexes are analyzed to identify the behavior of each exchange and draw some comparisons.

One important characteristic of cryptocurrencies has been their high and erratic volatility. To represent this complicated behavior, recent studies have emphasized the use of autoregressive models frequently concluding that generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) models are the most adequate to overcome the limitations of conventional standard deviation estimates. Some studies have expanded this approach including jumps into the modeling. Following this line of research, and extending previous research, our study analyzes the volatility of Bitcoin employing and comparing some symmetric and asymmetric GARCH model extensions (threshold ARCH (TARCH), exponential GARCH (EGARCH), asymmetric power ARCH (APARCH), component GARCH (CGARCH), and asymmetric component GARCH (ACGARCH)), under two distributions (normal and generalized error). Additionally, because linear GARCH models can produce biased results if the series exhibit structural changes, once the conditional volatility has been modeled, we identify the best fitting GARCH model applying a Markov switching model to test whether Bitcoin volatility evolves according to two different regimes: high volatility and low volatility. The period of study includes daily series from July 16, 2010 (the earliest date available) to January 24, 2019. Findings reveal that EGARCH model under generalized error distribution provides the best fit to model Bitcoin conditional volatility. According to the Markov switching autoregressive (MS-AR) Bitcoin’s conditional volatility displays two regimes: high volatility and low volatility.

This book is an attempt to reflect on what we have learned from financial policies and financial crises in Latin America. The 21 chapters in this volume capture the developments in various ways. They cover theoretical contributions, regional empirical studies, and specific inquiries on Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. The breadth of methodologies implemented suggests that researchers are looking at Latin American financial markets through a variety of lenses. The chapters are divided into 7 parts, including, in Part I, an initial overview. Part II examines the foreign exchange markets in Latin America and their interactions with other markets. Part III discusses dollarization issues in the region. Part IV then takes up the issue of banking in Latin America. Equity and bond markets are considered in Parts V and VI, respectively. Lastly, Part VII considers pension systems in Latin America. Taken as a whole, the 21 chapters seize the excitement of studying Latin America and provide lessons that are applicable around the world.

Demographic and socioeconomic changes, and health issues, promote interest in emerging countries for healthy foods, taking traditional foods under the perspective of functional foods. Amaranth has moved from local to a wider consumption as a functional food. The purpose of this paper is to identify consumers’ perception about amaranth and its relation to consumption motives.

A questionnaire was applied to 610 respondents, and free word association determined their perception about amaranth through categories. Cluster analysis identified groups of consumers according to their motives for consumption. Global χ² and correspondence analysis related consumers’ perceptions in the groups were identified.

A total of 16 word categories reflected consumers’ perception about amaranth. Most mentioned were: Traditional product, Hedonism and Health and well-being. Three groups showed significant differences regarding motives of consumption. It is concluded that perceptions about amaranth are closely linked to the motives of consumption. Perceptions of health benefits are related to motives for health issues and taste. There is a group that still consumes amaranth perceived as a traditional food.

As a functional food, these results could be useful to promote amaranth from its perception as healthy. Producers might develop products based on amaranth that meet perceptions considering gender and age in Mexico and other emergent countries.

This work contributes knowledge to international research that analyses traditional foods as functional foods and consumer perceptions on these. It is a first approach to identify perceptions of Mexican consumers towards amaranth as a traditional and a functional food.

Pulque is a fundamental piece in the Mexican gastronomy and identifying consumers’ perception could help promote it and generate new opportunities of commercialization. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore the underlying factors that influence consumers’ perception toward pulque, and second, to identify groups of consumers according to their perception.

A questionnaire was designed and applied to 220 consumers within points of sales. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was undertaken and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) was used to identify different groups of consumers.

By means of EFA three factors were obtained: traditionality, bad reputation of pulquerías and functional beverage. In order to identify different consumption patterns among consumers, HCA was performed and three groups were identified: traditional, neo-consumers and neo-consumers in transition. The groups identified showed significant differences in their perception.

Pulque has recently gained interest in various consumer sectors, mainly among young consumers, who are consuming and promoting the beverage these days. In this sense, the results of this work could be used for its promotion and consumption in order to attract more consumers and make a contribution to the development of local economies.

This is the first work in Mexico to explore the perception of consumers toward pulque: the most important traditional fermented beverage in Central México. Results of this research suggest the appearance of a revaluation process among young consumers, more informed and with greater sensitivity toward traditional Mexican food, particularly in the case of pulque. Likewise, these results could be useful for producers and sellers to carry out commercial strategies and promote the drink.

The South Texas University this study examined is a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) that has a 73.3% Hispanic (primarily Mexican American) population (Tallant, 2018 ). The logical consequence of education is the provision or guarantee of an equitable opportunity for all students to have equal access to learning and the achievement of academic success (Stewner-Manzanares, 1988 ). The basic definition of bilingual education in the United States is the use of two languages for instruction of the home language and English. Unfortunately, this basic principle is not accepted by postsecondary institutions as predispositions of university preparedness (Blanchard & Muller, 2014; García, Kleifgen, & Falchi, 2008; Kanno & Cromley, 2013; Lee et al., 2011; Menken, Hudson, & Leung, 2014). Mexican American students are potentially being left out of the opportunities afforded by the attainment of a postsecondary education because they are a language minority (Lucas, Henze, & Donato, 1990; Moll, 1990; Trueba, 2002; Trueba & Wright, 1981; Washington & Craig, 1998). Students are already examined for postsecondary credentials or college readiness, in the eighth grade (Paredes, 2013). Through this testing, 11 out of every 100 Hispanic children in the state of Texas are deemed as having attained postsecondary credentials (Paredes, 2013). As part of the fastest growing demographic group in Texas and the United States, the Mexican American population holds the lowest rate of graduation from postsecondary institutions and the highest high school dropout rate of any ethnic minority in the nation. In a 12-year study, Kanno and Cromley (2013) found that one out of eight English as a second language (ESL) or English language learners (ELLs) attain a bachelor’s degree from postsecondary institutions across the United States while the success rate for their English, monolingual counterparts is one out of three. Various researchers (García et al., 2008; García, Pujol-Ferran, & Reddy, 2012) argue that the inequity of education in the United States can be measured by how few minority students educated under the principles of education attend a postsecondary institution because it is the diploma from such institutions that leads to higher paying wages for the individual (García, 1991; García et al., 2008, García et al., 2012).