When do trade reforms imply larger poverty reductions?

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

The impacts of free trade agreements on use of antidumping

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

Endogenous spillovers in the trade-off between centralization and decentralization

In this paper, we revisit the classical trade-off between centralized and decentralized provision of local public goods, in a setting where interregional spillovers depend on the level of a national public good. We compare the standard benevolent planner approach with a political economy in which decisions, in a centralized system, are undertaken by a non-cooperative legislature with no separation of powers. We observe that the policy-maker in a centralized system is able to play both with local public goods and spillovers, a mechanism that is not available under a decentralized system. When compared to the traditional exogenous spillovers assumption, this improves the case for centralization under the standard benevolent planner approach. However, the same is not necessarily true in the non-cooperative legislature, as in this case the interests of the legislator do not need to be aligned with those of the society. Finally, we extend the traditional political economy analysis by considering a legislature in which decisions are undertaken by different committees (separation of powers), and show that it performs better than the original non-cooperative legislature, greatly improving the case for centralization.

Determinants of Portuguese trade: 1986-2010

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

The Nagasaki-Macao Trade between 1612 and 1618: Carlo Spinola S.J. Procurator of Japan

A nossa dissertação tem como objetivo analisar os compromissos e as obrigações do procurador da Companhia de Jesus no Japão durante os anos em que Carlo Spinola foi escolhido para ocupar tal posição, a segunda em ordem de importância, conforme o jesuíta italiano Francesco Pasio. O ofício de procurador era uma das posições que levavam os missionários da Companhia a lidar diretamente com as autoridades japonesas em Nagasáqui, uma vez que cabia ao procurador receber, verificar e distribuir os bens pertencentes à missão e que eram carregados no navio português de Macau. Além disso, o procurador, juntamente com outros padres superiores, tinha também incumbidas tarefas políticas relativas ao capitão-mor e aos Portugueses no Japão. Spinola assumiu o cargo quando o bakufu começou a mudar a sua atitude em relação à Igreja de Roma, devido a várias causas que, em parte, envolviam também a Companhia de Jesus, com conseqüências negativas para a missão. Para fornecer uma compreensão profunda deste cargo, propomos uma comparação entre o procuradorado de Spinola e outros procuradores no Japão, tendo escolhido em particular o caso do Português João Rodrigues Tçuzu. Além disso, uma vez que o Japão era um caso particular dentro do Padroado Português, parece-nos pertinente efectuar outra comparação e apresentar também o caso - embora mais conciso - do procurador da província brasileira da Companhia de Jesus. Através deste estudo de casos, tentaremos definir o procurador, tanto do ponto de vista prático - ou seja, os seus deveres, os seus compromissos e os seus recursos – como de uma perspectiva moral e filosófica – olhando para a literatura canônica produzida desde os primeiros tempos da Igreja Cristã. Até agora, a históriografia sobre e de autoria jesuítica apenas aborda o cargo de procurador de forma marginal. O nosso trabalho vai preencher essa lacuna. Além disso, o estudo do papel do procurador permite-nos, inevitavelmente, uma melhor compreensão dos mecanismos de participação da Companhia de Jesus no comércio entre Macau e Nagasáqui, desde o seu início – selado por Alessandro Valignano – até ao seu fim – contemporâneo do término do procuradorado de Spínola.

Firms survival and international trade: The impact of exports and imports

Double Degree. A Work Project presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters in Management from Nova School of Business and Economics and Maastricht University.

Beyond the carry trade: Optimal currency portfolios

Author's Pre-print

Getting the carry trade's jackpot

This Working Project studies five portfolios of currency carry trades formed with the G10 currencies. Performance varies among strategies and the most basic one presents the worst results. I also study the equity and Pure FX risk factors which can explain the portfolios’ returns. Equity factors do not explain these returns while the Pure FX do for some of the strategies. Downside risk measures indicate the importance of using regime indicators to avoid losses. I conclude that although using VAR and threshold regression models with a variety of regime indicators do not allow the perception of different regimes, with a defined exogenous threshold on real exchange rates, an indicator of liquidity and the volatilities of the spot exchange rates it is possible to increase the average returns and reduce drawdowns of the carry trades

Drilling deeper: Understanding trade in Angola

The present study analyzes Angola’s trading partners from 2005 to 2015 in order to understand the main drivers of Exports and Imports growth. Departing from a gravity model, foreign GDP growth and real exchange rate fluctuations were interpreted as demand and supply disturbances on Exports. While nominal and real exports both increase with demand expansions, they react differently to supply shocks. Imports are growing at the same rate as Angola’s economy while exchange rate fluctuations capture the wealth effect of Oil price in the economy.

Decentralization and privatization in Portuguese health reforms

ABSTRACT - The Portuguese National Health Service (SNS), a universal, centralized and public owned health care system, exhibits an extraordinary record of equalization in the access to health care and health gains in the late thirty years. However, the most recent history of the Portuguese health reform is pervaded by the influence of decentralization and privatization. Decentralization has been present in the system design since the 1976 Constitution, at least in theory. Private ownership of health care suppliers and out-ofpocket expenditures, on the financing side, both have a long tradition of relevance in the NHS mix of services. The initial aim of this study was to demonstrate expected parallelism between health reforms and public administration reforms, where a common pattern of joint decentralization and privatization was observed in many countries. Observers would be tempted to consider these two movements as common signs of new public management (NPM) developments. They have common objectives, are established around the core concepts of gains in effectiveness, efficiency, equity and quality of public services, through improved accountability. However, in practice, in Portugal, each movement was developed in a totally separated way. Besides those rooted in the NPM theory, there are few visible signs of association between decentralization and privatization. Decentralization, in the Portuguese SNS, was never intended to be followed by a privatization movement; it was seen merely as a public administration tool. Private management of health services, as stated in the most recent SNS legislation, was never intended to have decentralization as a condition or as a consequence. Paradoxically, in the Portuguese context, it has led invariably to centralized control. While presented as separate instruments for a common purpose, the association between decentralization and privatization still lacks a convincing demonstration. Many common health care management stereotypes remain to be checked out if we want to look for eventual associations between these two organizational tools.

The emergence of product certification systems as trade barriers

This paper addresses the growing difficulties automobile manufacturers face within their after sales business: an increasing number of trade obstacles set up by import countries discriminates against the foreign suppliers and impedes the international sales of genuine parts. The purpose of the study is to explore the emergence of trade restrictive product certification systems, which affect spare parts exports of automobile manufacturers. The methodology used includes review of the literature and an empirical study based on qualitative interviews with representatives of major stakeholders of the automotive after sales business. Relevant key drivers, which initiate the introduction of technical regulations in importing countries, are identified and analysed to evaluate their effect on the emerging trade policy. The analysis of the key drivers outlines that several interacting components, such as the global competitiveness of the country, macroeconomic and microeconomic factors, and certain country-specific variables induce trade restrictive product certification systems. The findings allow for an early detection of the emergence of product certification systems and provide a means to early recognise the risks and opportunities for the sales of automotive spare parts in the automakers’ target markets. This allows the manufacturers to react immediately and adapt in time to the upcoming changes.