The economics of Vieira da Silva

This paper investigates the time valuation and the age valuation profile of art-works created by the Portuguese female painter Maria Helena Vieira da Silva. It uses data from records from her paintings auction sales between 1986 and 2014, taken from Artprice.com. The study explores three aspects regarding her artistic career: (1) estimation of Age-valuation profile, defining her creativity pattern and the age at which she produced her most valuable paintings; (2) estimation of time valuation profile, through a creation of an individual hedonic price index for Vieira da Silva; (3) internationalization phenomenon of the artist, investigating whether selling prices are primarily set in euros or in US dollar. The results suggest that Vieira da Silva peaked quite early in her career; her paintings prices are not very sensible to economic cycles and tends to slightly increase afterlife; the empirical results are not suggestive on which currency is the best predictor of her paintings’ price.

Macroeconomic effects of monetary policy in the Eurozone

To study the macroeconomic effects of unconventional monetary policy across the different countries of the eurozone, I develop an identification scheme to disentangle conventional from non-conventional policy shocks, using futures contracts on overnight interest rates and the size of the European Central Bank balance sheet. Setting these shocks as endogenous variables in a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model, along with the CPI and the employment rate, estimated impulse response functions of policy to macroeconomic variables are studied. I find that unconventional policy shocks generated mixed effects in inflation but had a positive impact on employment, with the exception of Portugal, Spain, Greece and Italy where the employment response is close to zero or negative. The heterogeneity that characterizes the responses shows that the monetary policy measures taken in recent years were not sufficient to stabilize the economies of the eurozone countries under more severe economic conditions.

Search-for-yield in Portuguese fixed-income mutual funds and monetary policy

This paper studies the effects of monetary policy on mutual fund risk taking using a sample of Portuguese fixed-income mutual funds in the 2000-2012 period. Firstly I estimate time-varying measures of risk exposure (betas) for the individual funds, for the benchmark portfolio, as well as for a representative equally-weighted portfolio, through 24-month rolling regressions of a two-factor model with two systematic risk factors: interest rate risk (TERM) and default risk (DEF). Next, in the second phase, using the estimated betas, I try to understand what portion of the risk exposure is in excess of the benchmark (active risk) and how it relates to monetary policy proxies (one-month rate, Taylor residual, real rate and first principal component of a cross-section of government yields and rates). Using this methodology, I provide empirical evidence that Portuguese fixed-income mutual funds respond to accommodative monetary policy by significantly increasing exposure, in excess of their benchmarks, to default risk rate and slightly to interest risk rate as well. I also find that the increase in funds’ risk exposure to gain a boost in return (search-for-yield) is more pronounced following the 2007-2009 global financial crisis, indicating that the current historic low interest rates may incentivize excessive risk taking. My results suggest that monetary policy affects the risk appetite of non-bank financial intermediaries.

Essays in health economics: Volume-Outcome Effect, upcoding behaviour and the evaluation of a short-term intervention program

Evidence in the literature suggests a negative relationship between volume of medical procedures and mortality rates in the health care sector. In general, high-volume hospitals appear to achieve lower mortality rates, although considerable variation exists. However, most studies focus on US hospitals, which face different incentives than hospitals in a National Health Service (NHS). In order to add to the literature, this study aims to understand what happens in a NHS. Results reveal a statistically significant correlation between volume of procedures and better outcomes for the following medical procedures: cerebral infarction, respiratory infections, circulatory disorders with AMI, bowel procedures, cirrhosis, and hip and femur procedures. The effect is explained with the practice-makes-perfect hypothesis through static effects of scale with little evidence of learning-by-doing. The centralization of those medical procedures is recommended given that this policy would save a considerable number of lives (reduction of 12% in deaths for cerebral infarction).

The new economy: Essays in network economics and two-sided markets

Following the Introduction, which surveys existing literature on the technology advances and regulation in telecommunications and on two-sided markets, we address specific issues on the industries of the New Economy, featured by the existence of network effects. We seek to explore how each one of these industries work, identify potential market failures and find new solutions at the economic regulation level promoting social welfare. In Chapter 1 we analyze a regulatory issue on access prices and investments in the telecommunications market. The existing literature on access prices and investment has pointed out that networks underinvest under a regime of mandatory access provision with a fixed access price per end-user. We propose a new access pricing rule, the indexation approach, i.e., the access price, per end-user, that network i pays to network j is function of the investment levels set by both networks. We show that the indexation can enhance economic efficiency beyond what is achieved with a fixed access price. In particular, access price indexation can simultaneously induce lower retail prices and higher investment and social welfare as compared to a fixed access pricing or a regulatory holidays regime. Furthermore, we provide sufficient conditions under which the indexation can implement the socially optimal investment or the Ramsey solution, which would be impossible to obtain under fixed access pricing. Our results contradict the notion that investment efficiency must be sacrificed for gains in pricing efficiency. In Chapter 2 we investigate the effect of regulations that limit advertising airtime on advertising quality and on social welfare. We show, first, that advertising time regulation may reduce the average quality of advertising broadcast on TV networks. Second, an advertising cap may reduce media platforms and firms' profits, while the net effect on viewers (subscribers) welfare is ambiguous because the ad quality reduction resulting from a regulatory cap o¤sets the subscribers direct gain from watching fewer ads. We find that if subscribers are sufficiently sensitive to ad quality, i.e., the ad quality reduction outweighs the direct effect of the cap, a cap may reduce social welfare. The welfare results suggest that a regulatory authority that is trying to increase welfare via regulation of the volume of advertising on TV might necessitate to also regulate advertising quality or, if regulating quality proves impractical, take the effect of advertising quality into consideration. 3 In Chapter 3 we investigate the rules that govern Electronic Payment Networks (EPNs). In EPNs the No-Surcharge Rule (NSR) requires that merchants charge at most the same amount for a payment card transaction as for cash. In this chapter, we analyze a three- party model (consumers, merchants, and a proprietary EPN) with endogenous transaction volumes and heterogenous merchants' transactional benefits of accepting cards to assess the welfare impacts of the NSR. We show that, if merchants are local monopolists and the network externalities from merchants to cardholders are sufficiently strong, with the exception of the EPN, all agents will be worse o¤ with the NSR, and therefore the NSR is socially undesirable. The positive role of the NSR in terms of improvement of retail price efficiency for cardholders is also highlighted.

Deflation and monetary policy: A look into Japan and the Euro Area

With more than two decades of weak economic performance since the bubble burst in the ‘90s, the Japanese deflationary scenario has become the economic fate every developed economy fears to become. As the euro area continues to experience sustained low inflation, studying the Japanese monetary policy may shed light on how to prevent persistent deflation. Using an SVAR methodology to understand the monetary transmission mechanism, we find some evidence that the euro area may possess characteristics that would eventually lead to a deflationary scenario. The extent of whether it would suffer the same Japanese fate would depend on how macroeconomic policies are timely coordinated as a response to its liquidity problem and increasing public debt across member states.

Economics consulting project for the Iberian Marketing Oil department of Galp Energia: Strategy and Marketing guidelines for Galp Energia’sconvenience business in the Iberian market

Field lab: Consulting lab

International placement analysis of the German business market for a Nova Achool of Business and Economics graduate student

Changes in today’s society led to the evolution of professional migrations and individual searches for more suitable professional opportunities and careers outside one’s countries. International Placement is nowadays one of the world’s biggest trends in higher education for the future ahead and an appealing demand of the Millennium generations. The following work project aims to study the German business market identifying the most attractive German companies and respective graduate programs for a Nova School of Business and Economics graduate student. The study’s conclusion relies on concrete strategic suggestions regarding the implementation of the results and practical use of the outcome provided.

Recommendations for Nova School of Business and Economics to target yhe Colombian market

The growing connotation Internationalization has worldwide, alongside the economic, political and socio-environmental changes, is empowering a progressively global education economy. Therefore, this Work Project aims to help Nova SBE to understand the decision making process of the Colombian tertiary education students, as this market constitutes an enriching opportunity to meet both business and educative objectives. In order to do so, a qualitative research was conducted to comprehend the rationale behind Colombian students to study abroad. The study points out that the reputation of a HE institution and the Portuguese culture are the key attributes to pursue a degree in Portugal.