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.

The implementation of corporate governance in Germany and Brazi l: a comparative case study

The recent promotion of best corporate governance standards by several different government institutions and non-for profit organizations resulted in the implementation of more sophisticated governance mechanisms. As consequence to the separation of ownership and control the concept of agency theory arose. Agency theory argues that without out proper control mechanism managers would behave exploit owners due to information asymmetry. Regulators have promoted corporate governance mechanisms in order to address this issue. This paper aims to contrast the implementation of best corporate governance practices in Germany and Brazil on the example of two practical examples. With this purpose in mind, this paper analyzed two companies listed in the main stock exchange in Germany and Brazil throughout a period of 5 years. In order to measure the degree of corporate governance practices implemented 3 different parameters have been chosen. In line with great part of the literature the parameters considered to be relevant are; composition, procedures and deviation from the local corporate governance code. The comparison of the data revealed that board composition in the two analyzed companies is similar regarding the proportion of independent representatives but does distinguish in size. While committees are related to the same topics it can be implied that Natura’s board is more involved in the actual management of the company. Lastly, Beiersdorf has been able to comply to a larger extend with the recommendations of the local German code than Natura to the recommendations published by Brazilian code of the IBGC.