After balance of powers diplomacy, globalization´s politics

The September 11th episode not only marked the end of the Cold War, but of the Balance of Powers Diplomacy, through which the nation-states defin e themselves as enemies, and solve their problems with war or war threat. Today the major countries do not have enemies among other nation-states. Slowly Globalization’s Politics replace the previous system, as long as globalization gets regulated, and the rule of law emerges at international level. In the global world we have three types of countries: the rich, the ones of intermediary development, and the poor. Globalization is inherently unjust to the latter. Unable to compete in a world where competition prevails everywhere, such countries are either just outside the system, or, frustrated, recur to terrorism. Interests, however, do not point out only in the direction of inequalities. Through politics, i.e., through debate and argument, it will be possible to create a less unjust international law system. And also though it, the hope in an international government ceases to be a mere utopia.

Essays on the general equilibrium effects of barriers to trade on economic growth, foreign trade and the location of economic activity in Brazil

This work presents a fully operational interstate CGE model implemented for the Brazilian economy that tries to quantify both the role of barriers to trade on economic growth and foreign trade performance and how the distribution of the economic activity may change as the country opens up to foreign trade. Among the distinctive features embedded in the model, modeling of external scale economies, port efficiency and land-maritime transport costs provides an innovative way of dealing explicitly with theoretical issues related to integrated regional systems. In order to illustrate the role played by the quality of infrastructure and geography on the country‟s foreign and interregional trade performance, a set of simulations is presented where barriers to trade are significantly reduced. The relative importance of trade policy, port efficiency and land-maritime transport costs for the country trade relations and regional growth is then detailed and quantified, considering both short run as well as long run scenarios. A final set of simulations shed some light on the effects of liberal trade policies on regional inequality, where the manufacturing sector in the state of São Paulo, taken as the core of industrial activity in the country, is subjected to different levels of external economies of scale. Short-run core-periphery effects are then traced out suggesting the prevalence of agglomeration forces over diversion forces could rather exacerbate regional inequality as import barriers are removed up to a certain level. Further removals can reverse this balance in favor of diversion forces, implying de-concentration of economic activity. In the long run, factor mobility allows a better characterization of the balance between agglomeration and diversion forces among regions. Regional dispersion effects are then clearly traced-out, suggesting horizontal liberal trade policies to benefit both the poorest regions in the country as well as the state of São Paulo. This long run dispersion pattern, on one hand seems to unravel the fragility of simple theoretical results from recent New Economic Geography models, once they get confronted with more complex spatially heterogeneous (real) systems. On the other hand, it seems to capture the literature‟s main insight: the possible role of horizontal liberal trade policies as diversion forces leading to a more homogeneous pattern of interregional economic growth.

Sports administration: an examination of the competitive balance concept through european and brazilian domestic soccer leagues comparison

A questão do Equilíbrio Competitivo é um tema importante da economia dos esportes profissionais nos Estados Unidos e na Europa. Muitas pesquisas foram feitas para estabelecer os critérios mais relevantes para avaliar a competitividade das ligas profissionais de futebol. Esta pesquisa analisou a relevância do Equilíbrio Competitivo como determinante da competitividade comparando o Brasileirão Série A com as nove principais ligas na Europa (Bélgica, Inglaterra, Alemanha, Holanda, França, Itália, Portugal, Escócia e Espanha). A competitividade é a capacidade de uma empresa (um clube) ou de uma indústria de enfrentar a concorrência efetiva ou potencial. A medida da competitividade deve levar em consideração uma série de fatores importantes como a qualidade e a relação qualidade/preço, a gestão de recursos humanos e a organização empresarial. Esse trabalho visa demonstrar que, apesar da incerteza do resultado ter sido considerado por muito tempo como um fator positivo de atratividade/interesse dos fãs nos esportes, um campeonato equilibrado poderia ter um efeito insignificante, para não dizer desprezível sobre a competitividade das ligas de futebol a longo prazo. Os resultados mostraram que o aumento do Equilíbrio Competitivo pode ser relevante para os campeonatos mais fracos (Bélgica, Holanda, Portugal, Escócia), mas nao dos cincos melhores (Alemanha, Espanha, França, Inglaterra, Itália). Consequentemente, o Equilíbrio Competitivo deve ser contemplado como uma variável desprezível quanto à competitividade das ligas de futebol, apesar do interesse crescente pelo conceito na literatura. Baseado principalmente em pesquisas de Dell'Osso e Symanski (1991) e de Oughton e Michie (2004), o índice HHI (Herfindahl-Hirschman) tem sido utilizado para determinar o nível de concentração de 11 ligas de futebol estudadas. Uma revisão da literatura sobre administração de futebol e esportes foi realizada.