A restatement of the welafare costs of inflation. The wast of scarce resources in the manufacturing , banking and household sectors

Lucas (2000) estimates that the US welfare costs of inflation are around 1% of GDP. This measurement is consistent with a speci…c distorting channel in terms of the Bailey triangle under the demand for monetary base schedule (outside money): the displacement of resources from the production of consumption goods to the household transaction time à la Baumol. Here, we consider also several new types of distortions in the manufacturing and banking industries. Our new evidences show that both banks and firms demand special occupational employments to avoid the inflation tax. We de…ne the concept of ”the foat labor”: The occupational employments that are aflected by the in‡ation rates. More administrative workers are hired relatively to the bluecollar workers for producing consumption goods. This new phenomenon makes the manufacturing industry more roundabout. To take into account this new stylized fact and others, we redo at same time both ”The model 5: A Banking Sector -2” formulated by Lucas (1993) and ”The Competitive Banking System” proposed by Yoshino (1993). This modelling allows us to characterize better the new types of misallocations. We …nd that the maximum value of the resources wasted by the US economy happened in the years 1980-81, after the 2nd oil shock. In these years, we estimate the excess resources that are allocated for every speci…c distorting channel: i) The US commercial banks spent additional resources of around 2% of GDP; ii) For the purpose of the firm foating time were used between 2.4% and 4.1% of GDP); and iii) For the household transaction time were allocated between 3.1% and 4.5 % of GDP. The Bailey triangle under the demand for the monetary base schedule represented around 1% of GDP, which is consistent with Lucas (2000). We estimate that the US total welfare costs of in‡ation were around 10% of GDP in terms of the consumption goods foregone. The big di¤erence between our results and Lucas (2000) are mainly due to the Harberger triangle in the market for loans (inside money) which makes part of the household transaction time, of the …rm ‡oat labor and of the distortion in the banking industry. This triangle arises due to the widening interest rates spread in the presence of a distorting inflation tax and under a fractionally reserve system. The Harberger triangle can represent 80% of the total welfare costs of inflation while the remaining percentage is split almost equally between the Bailey triangle and the resources used for the bank services. Finally, we formulate several theorems in terms of the optimal nonneutral monetary policy so as to compare with the classical monetary theory.

Gestão da qualidade no Brasil

O presente relatório origina-se de projeto destinado a analisar a gestão da qualidade no setor de serviços nacional. A pesquisa foi conduzida através do envio de questionário, contendo 135 perguntas, a uma amostra, selecionada por conveniência, de empresas de grande, médio e pequeno portes do segmento de serviços. A sondagem cobre aspectos socioorganizacionais, técnico-tecnológicos e econômico-competitivos das indústrias. Foram avaliados os procedimentos usados na gestão da qualidade e os resultados obtidos. O trabalho insere-se numa pesquisa mundial sobre gestão da qualidade, coordenada pelo Prof. Gustavo Vargas da Universidade Estadual da Califórnia em Fullerton.

Admirável estado novo: um estudo de prospectiva e estratégia

Este trabalho estuda os impactos dos avanços tecnológicos da atualidade sobre as várias dimensões da sociedade suas conseqüências para Estado. Os avanços tecnológicos são grupados ao longo de cinco vertentes históricas: infomação, transportes, fabricação, energia biotecnologia. As dimensões da sociedade são estabelecidas como sendo: econômica, social, política, tecnológica militar. Utilizando as vertentes tecnológicas como as componentes da dimensão tecnológica se sistematiza análise dos impactos destas novas tecnologias sobre as demais dimensões. análise desta matriz de impacto serve de base para estabelecer os principais desafios possibilidades da sociedade do Estado num futuro próximo. Finalmente, estudo das possibilidades futuras feito através da técnica de cenários, onde se estabelecem duas variáveis chave, que resultam em quatro cenários, apresentados também de forma pictórica.

Adaptações do sistema de informações gerenciais para atender necessidades de empresas envolvidas com a implantação do pensamento enxuto: um estudo de caso

The management system based on lean thinking has led to significant changes in the companies that have decided to adopt it. Frequently, those changes do not create a sustainable position coherent with the good results that are obtained. Many are the causes being discussed and analyzed, not only in academia, but also by lean manufacturing institutes and companies. The existing practices related to the managerial information system and the implementation, development, and maintenance of the lean journey may be some of such causes. This dissertation emphasizes whether the changes generated by this type of management are being followed by the managerial information system. The development of such system was in many cases based on mass production, whose principles go against lean manufacturing concepts. Thus, the objective of this dissertation is to verify whether the traditional managerial information system can meet the needs of the companies that adopt lean manufacturing principles. Through a case study based on qualitative and exploratory research in an electronic equipment assembling company, the stage of the implementation of lean thinking concepts at the time of the field research was analyzed, as well as whether the metrics, financial and non financial indicators were suitable for lean principles. The aim of such study was to empirically verify if the criticism found in the existing literature was pertinent or not. The data collected through the analysis of the documentation, the interviews with managers and in loco observation was treated through the content analysis method. The main conclusion of the research is that, although the company in question is investing in training and applying lean principles in its production line and in some administrative activities, the current managerial information system does not demonstrate the specific results obtained with lean principles. However, how changes to the managerial information system will be implemented is yet to be determined. Currently, metrics and indicators aligned with lean management are being added to the managerial reports. As more lean tools are employed, mainly with the consolidation of more value streams, the company has already diagnosed the need for new indicators. The main office has started a diagnosis of measurement and control systems in a product line in one of its affiliates with the goal of studying the possibility of applying the so called lean accounting in the future.

Operations strategy in perspective: the means for achieving superior performance

Manufacturing strategy has been widely studied and it is increasingly gaining attention. It has a fundamental role that is to translate the business strategy to the operations by developing the capabilities that are needed by the company in order to accomplish the desired performance. More precisely, manufacturing strategy comprises the decisions that managers take during a certain period of time in order to achieve a desire result. These decisions are related to which operational practices and resources are implemented. Our goal was to identify the relationship between these two decisions with operational performance. We based our arguments on the resource-based view for identifying sources of competitive advantage. Hence, we argued that operational practices and resources affect positively the operational performances. Additionally, we proposed that in the presence of some resources the implementation of operational practices would lead to a greater performance. We used previous scales for measuring operational practices and performance, and developed new constructs for resources. The data used is part of the High Performance Manufacturing project and the sample is composed by 291 plants. Through confirmatory factor analysis and multiple regressions we found that operational practices to a certain extant are positively related to operational performance. More specifically, the results show that JIT and customer orientation practices have a positive relationship with quality, delivery, flexibility, and cost performances. Moreover, we found that resources like technology and people explain a great variance of operational performance.

The influence of the supply chain agents on the new product development's performance: an analysis based on the multi-group moderation

Este estudo buscou verificar a influencia dos agentes da cadeia de suprimentos no desempenho do desenvolvimento de novos produtos quando os agentes são analisados em conjunto. A motivação desta pesquisa veio de estudos que alertaram para a consideração da integração da cadeia de suprimentos como um constructo multidimensional, englobando o envolvimento da manufatura, fornecedores e clientes no desenvolvimento de novos produtos; e devido à falta de informação sobre as influencias individuais destes agentes no desenvolvimento de novos produtos. Sob essas considerações, buscou-se construir um modelo analítico baseado na Teoria do Capital Social e Capacidade Absortiva, construir hipóteses a partir da revisão da literatura e conectar constructos como cooperação, envolvimento do fornecedor no desenvolvimento de novos produtos (DNP), envolvimento do cliente no DNP, envolvimento da manufatura no DNP, antecipação de novas tecnologias, melhoria contínua, desempenho operacional do DNP, desempenho de mercado do NPD e desempenho de negócio do DNP. Para testar as hipóteses foram consideradas três variáveis moderadoras, tais como turbulência ambiental (baixa, média e alta), indústria (eletrônicos, maquinários e equipamentos de transporte) e localização (América, Europa e Ásia). Para testar o modelo foram usados dados do projeto High Performance Manufacturing que contém 339 empresas das indústrias de eletrônicos, maquinários e equipamentos de transporte, localizadas em onze países. As hipóteses foram testadas por meio da Análise Fatorial Confirmatória (AFC) incluindo a moderação muti-grupo para as três variáveis moderadoras mencionadas anteriormente. Os principais resultados apontaram que as hipóteses relacionadas com cooperação foram confirmadas em ambientes de média turbulência, enquanto as hipóteses relacionadas ao desempenho no DNP foram confirmadas em ambientes de baixa turbulência ambiental e em países asiáticos. Adicionalmente, sob as mesmas condições, fornecedores, clientes e manufatura influenciam diferentemente no desempenho de novos produtos. Assim, o envolvimento de fornecedores influencia diretamente no desempenho operacional e indiretamente no desempenho de mercado e de negócio em baixos níveis de turbulência ambiental, na indústria de equipamentos de transporte em países da Americanos e Europeus. De igual forma, o envolvimento do cliente influenciou diretamente no desempenho operacional e indiretamente no desempenho de mercado e do negócio em médio nível de turbulência ambiental, na indústria de maquinários e em países Asiáticos. Fornecedores e clientes não influenciam diretamente no desempenho de mercado e do negócio e não influenciam indiretamente no desempenho operacional. O envolvimento da manufatura não influenciou nenhum tipo de desempenho do desenvolvimento de novos produtos em todos os cenários testados.

Rent-sharing in Brazil: using trade liberalization as a natural experiment

This paper examines the extent of rent-sharing in Brazil, between 1988 and 1995, combining two different data sets: annual industrial surveys (pIA) and annual household surveys (PNADs). The aim is to use the trade liberalization policies that took place in Brazil in the early 1990s as a "natural experiment" to examine the impact ofproduct market rents on wages. We first estimate inter-industry wage differentials in Brazil, using the household surveys, afier controlling for various observable workers' characteristics. In a reduced form fixed effects equation, these controlled inter-industry differentials are seen to depend on the industries' rate of effective tariff. We also find that LSDV estimates of the effect of value-added per worker (computed using the industrial surveys) on the wage differentials are positive, but somewhat small. However, we find that instrumenting the valued-added with the effective tariffs more than doubles the estimated rent-sharing coefficient. The paper concludes that rent-sharing is prevalent in the Brazilian manufacturing sector, and this mechanism transferred part of the productivity gains due to trade liberalization to manufacturing workers in the form ofhigher (controlled) wage premium.

Essays on economic growth

A fundamental question in development economics is why some economies are rich and others poor. To illustrate the income per capita gap across economies consider that the average gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of the richest 10 percent of economies in the year 2010 was a factor of 40-fold that of the poorest 10 percent of economies. In other words, the average person in a rich economy produces in just over 9 days what the average person in a poor economy produces in an entire year. What are the factors that can explain this difference in standard of living across the world today? With this in view, this dissertation is a conjunction of three essays on the economic growth field which we seek a possible responses to this question. The first essay investigates the existence of resource misallocation in the Brazilian manufacturing sector and measures possible distortions in it. Using a similar method of measurement to the one developed by Hsieh and Klenow (2009) and firm-level data for 1996-2011 we find evidence of misallocation in the manufacturing sector during the observed period. Moreover, our results show that misallocation has been growing since 2005, and it presents a non-smooth dynamic. Significantly, we find that the Brazilian manufacturing sector operates at about 50% of its efficient product. With this, if capital and labor were optimally reallocated between firms and sectors we would obtain an aggregate output growth of approximately 110-180% depending on the mode in which the capital share is measured. We also find that the economic crisis did not have a substantial effect on the total productivity factor or on the sector's misallocation. However, small firms in particular seem to be strongly affected in a global crisis. Furthermore, the effects described would be attenuated if we consider linkages and complementarity effects among sectors. Despite Brazil's well-known high tax burden, there is not evidence that this is the main source of resource misallocation. Moreover, there is a distinct pattern of structural change between the manufacturing sectors in industrialized countries and those in developing countries. Therefore, the second essay demonstrate that this pattern differs because there are some factors that distort the relative prices and also affect the output productivity. For this, we present a multi-sector model of economic growth, where distortions affect the relative prices and the allocation of inputs. This phenomenon imply that change of the production structure or perpetuation of the harmful structures to the growth rate of aggregate output. We also demonstrate that in an environment with majority decision, this distortion can be enhanced and depends on the initial distribution of firms. Furthermore, distortions in relative prices would lead to increases in the degree of misallocation of resources, and that imply that there are distinct patterns of structural changes between economies. Finally, the calibrated results of the framework developed here converge with the structural change observed in the firm-level data of the Brazilian manufacturing sector. Thereafter, using a cross-industry cross-country approach, the third essay investigates the existence of an optimal level of competition to enhance economic growth. With that in mind, we try to show that this optimal level is different from industrialized and under development economies due to the technology frontier distance, the terms of trade, and each economy's idiosyncratic characteristics. Therefore, the difference in competition industry-country level is a channel to explain the output for worker gap between countries. The theoretical and empirical results imply the existence of an inverted-U relationship between competition and growth: starting for an initially low level of competition, higher competition stimulates innovation and output growth; starting from a high initial level of competition, higher competition has a negative effect on innovation and output growth. Given on average industries in industrialized economies present higher competition level. With that if we control for the terms of trade and the industry-country fixed effect, if the industries of the developing economy operated under the same competition levels as of the industrialized ones, there is a potential increase of output of 0.2-1.0% per year. This effect on the output growth rate depends on the competition measurement used.

Taxa não inflacionária da capacidade utilizada: uma abordagem usando microdados brasileiros

Esta dissertação baseia-se na criação de uma taxa não inflacionária da capacidade utilizada (NIRCU) para economia brasileira, utilizando microdados da Sondagem da Indústria de Transformação e Índice de Preços ao Produtor Amplo – M (IPA-M), pesquisas desenvolvidas pela FGV/IBRE. Foram criadas três taxas: NIRCU Sondagem, NIRCU Coincidente e NIRCU Antecedente. A primeira utiliza apenas dados da sondagem e a ideia é verificar que não há pressão inflacionária quando as empresas informam para sondagem que não irão variar os seus preços para os próximos três meses e que o número de turnos trabalhado é igual à média do setor. Já as demais, cruzam as informações das empresas que respondem tanto a Sondagem da Indústria de Transformação quanto no IPA-M e verifica se as que informam que não irão alterar os seus preços nos próximos três meses se concretiza quando comparados às variações do índice. A diferença entre as duas últimas abordagens é que a primeira, NIRCU Coincidente, verifica no mesmo período e a outra, NIRCU Antecedente, no trimestre seguinte. A forma encontrada para verificar a eficácia dos indicadores em mensurar a existência de pressão inflacionária foi inserir os diferentes hiatos de produto das NIRCU no modelo de Curva de Phillips, usando a metodologia de Mínimos Quadrados Ordinários (MQO). De acordo com as estimativas, a NIRCU Antecedente foi a única das três que não apresentou um bom desempenho no resultado; as NIRCU Sondagem e Coincidente tiveram uma performance muita boa, principalmente a última. Ou seja, esses dois indicadores tiveram um resultado tão bom quanto as mais tradicionais medidas de hiato de produto.

Competências operacionais em redes de manufatura: uma análise sob a perspectiva coevolucionária

Esta tese tem como objetivo principal investigar como ocorre a disseminação de competências operacionais entre matriz e unidades fabris de redes de manufatura. Este objetivo principal se desdobra em cinco objetivos secundários: (i) Definir o conceito de competência operacional; (ii) Identificar os possíveis fatores que influenciam a disseminação de competências operacionais em rede de manufatura sob a ótica de seus atores; (iii) Identificar as possíveis inter-relações entre esses fatores que possam favorecer a disseminação de competências operacionais em uma rede de manufatura, sob a percepção dos atores; (iv) Investigar e analisar como as organizações interagem para promover o reforço ou a criação de competências operacionais entre suas diversas unidades, observando sua dinâmica e a interação entre os atores; (v) Analisar como a combinação entre fatores internos (nível micro) e fatores externos (do ambiente competitivo) influenciam e são influenciados por essa dinâmica. Para tanto, apresenta-se uma pesquisa qualitativa no campo de Estratégia de Operações baseada na Teoria da Coevolução, dividida em dois estudos. O primeiro estudo, de cunho exploratório, procura identifica os antecedentes da disseminação de competências. Através da condução de um focus group e posteriormente entrevistas semi-estruturadas com Executivos de Operações, foi possível elencar os principais fatores que influenciam o processo de disseminação de competências. O segundo trabalho é um estudo de casos múltiplos, conduzido com 4 redes de manufatura. Pode-se observar que a coevolução das unidades fabris e disseminação de competências é um processo gradativo, possui fatores motivacionais cumulativos, envolve atores de dimensões distintas e com velocidade de absorção distintos. A partir dos achados, foi possível identificar que a maturidade da construção de competências operacionais evolui ao passo do nível de maturidade que a manufatura se encontra.

A technological innovation for capsicums production in Peru: the mechatronics arms

Peru agricultural exports have increased in recent years due to (i) free trade agreements with many countries (United States, Canada, European Union, China, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Chile, among others), (ii) an increasing international demand for healthy products, (iii) country´s economic development and (iv) more private investments in this sector (Velazco 2012). Also, if we can compare among Peru three main regions (Coast, Andean highlands and the Jungle), It is the Coast (western region) that has a developed agricultural production due to unique weather conditions, private investments, public infrastructure, transport costs and quality of land (Gomez, 2008). This country development is also related to the production of non-traditional products for export like asparagus, artichokes, capsicums, bananas, grapes, among others; produced by agro industrial companies and small farmers and that are mainly labor intensive (Gomez, 2008 and Velazco, 2012). This very successful export diversification and self-discovery process was the result of a combination of strong natural comparative advantages (mainly excellent agro climatic conditions) and a significant innovation effort. It meant the introduction and expansion of new products and markets, the entry of new firms, and experimental research and the adoption of new techniques and process technologies developed abroad (in irrigation, crop management, post-harvesting, sanitary control, storage and packing) to produce high-quality, niche (gourmet) and higher value-added products, in line with consumer trends in sophisticated food markets. In products such as asparagus, mango, organic coffee and capsicums, Peru has become a leading world exporter (OECD). For this reason one of the government main tasks for the next years is to meet urgent agriculture producer’s needs in the areas of technological Innovation and business management (MINAG). In this context, this thesis analyzes the applicability of a new technology – the mechatronic arms – specifically to capsicums production sector in Peru. We chose Capsicums production sector (paprika, chilli pepper) because is mainly labor intensive and is the sector where my family company (DIROSE SAC) operates. This innovation consists in a 40 arms mechatronic combine, and it was first created in order to improve the efficiency on the labor intensive phase of harvest for this kind of agriculture products. It is estimated that a laborer with brief training operating the machine would be equivalent to 40 people that not only would work during daytime, but also on the night shift as well. Also, using this new technology can allow a company to make additional crops that would increase their yields and annual revenues. This thesis was developed as a business plan to make this new product available for other agriculture companies that operates in the capsicums production sector in Peru; however, this new technology has the potential to be modified in order to be available to other kind of agriculture products, in Peru and other countries.