Liquidity, business cycles and monetary policy: A simulation

A Masters Thesis, presented as part of the requirements for the award of a Research Masters Degree in Economics from NOVA – School of Business and Economics

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.

Internationalization project - Logoplaste in the Turkish market

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Mota-Engil new prospects of growth: Overcoming the financial crisis

The 2008 global financial crisis caused the collapse of business key sectors, declines in consumer wealth and a fall in economic activity resulting in a global recession. In some European countries, the 2008 crisis contributed to a sovereign-debt crisis which had a strong impact in Southern European countries. The construction sector was particularly affected, with budget cuts disturbing public investment and no financing available for private constructors. This report intends to explain how Mota-Engil, faced this situation of low growth, and which strategies were adopted by the management to overcome the difficult economic conjecture, mainly in its domestic market: Portugal. The report is organized as a case-study. The first part, the case narrative, is subdivided into 6 parts, and the second part is the teaching note. The teaching note is constituted by the four questions and their respective responses.

Podem as nossas leis tornar-nos mais atrativos?

The concept of soft power offers the opportunity for the States, under the current power shifts, to thrive, in a competitive and globalised scene, shaping o t hers' preference in accordance with their goals. Portugal, though it i s a small country, has soft power skills, according with specialized rankings, due to i t s geography and climate, main economic activities, historical role, legal framework, culture and language. Therefore, we can and we should develop public policies to optimize our resources, converting them in planned outcomes. On the other hand, public entities engaged with foreign trade, investment and tour ism, aid f or development, promotion of culture and language should be structured in or-der to strengthen the performance of Portugal in this area. Being a member of the European Union or of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries is, at last, essential to expand our global presence. In this Master's work project, I decided to make a critical analysis of legislation related with public diplomacy i n Portugal, together wi th research about the approach of two other countries (United Kingdom and Finland) to the same topic, for the sake of improvement.

Infraventus-internationalizing a renewables business to Kenya

Infraventus – Internationalizing a Renewables Business to Kenya Infraventus is a renewable energy development company, with a consolidated experience, since 1988, in developing, constructing and operating projects mainly in Portugal, but also in other countries: Spain, Poland, France, Australia, Finland and Panama, and is now regarding Kenya as a possible destiny. Kenya is the biggest economy of East Africa, with a growing GDP around 5% and a low level of electric grid coverage thru its territory, 33% of national access to electricity. Kenya energy policy is intended to promote the investment in renewables; wind and sun are existing resources in good measures. Kenya is an interesting destiny to Infraventus, but has many risks. The objective of this dissertation is to evaluate the possible advantages of this investment and risks and propose recommendations about how to mitigate them considering alternative entry mode