The asymmetric behavior of the U.S public debt

Our main goal in this paper was to measure how e¢ cient is risk sharing between countries. In order to do so, we have used a international risk sharIn this paper we re-analyze the question of the U.S. public debt sustainability by using a quantile autoregression model. This modeling allows for testing whether the behavior of U.S. public debt is asymmetric or not. Our results provide evidence of a band of sustainability. Outside this band, the U.S. public debt is unsustainable. We also nd scal policy to be adequate in the sense that occasional episodes in which the public debt moves out of the band do not pose a threat to long run sustainability.

Property rights as a public policy tool: an empirical analysis of the social and economic effects

Secure property rights are considered a key determinant of economic development. However, the evaluation of the causal effects of land titling is a difficult task. The Brazilian government through a program called "Papel Passado" has issued titles, since 2004, to over 85,000 families and has the goal to reach 750,000. Furthermore, another topic in Public Policy that is crucial to developing economies is income generation and child labor force participation. Particularly, in Brazil, about 5.4 million children and teenagers between 5 and 17 years old are still working. This thesis examines the direct impact of securing a property title on income and child labor force participation. In order to isolate the causal role of ownership security, this study uses a comparison between two close and very similar communities in the City of Osasco case (a town with 650,000 people in the São Paulo metropolitan area). One of them, Jardim Canaã, was fortunated to receive the titles in 2007, the other, Jardim DR, given fiscal constraints, only will be part of the program schedule in 2012, and for that reason became the control group. Also, this thesis also aims to test if there is any relationship between land title and happiness. The estimates suggest that titling results in a substantial decrease of child labor force participation, increase of income and happiness for the families that received the title compared to the others.

Study of the innovation management process in the development of a discontinuous product case: Motorola RAZR V3

This study will collaborate by bringing some detailed analysis and findings on a special case study of a discontinuous product development process, trying to answer how the discontinuous product development process takes place and the main factors that influence this process. Additionally, it tried to explore some explanations for the difficulties generally faced by the companies to sustain innovation. The case is about the Motorola cell phone RAZR V3, launched in 2004. RAZR V3 was noted by industry experts as game-changing feat of design and engineering, selling more than 110 million units by end of 2008 and recognized as one of the fastest selling products in the industry. The study uses a single case methodology, which is appropriate given the access to a phenomenon that happened inside corporate dominium and it is not easily accessed for academic studies, besides being a rare case of success in the cellular phone industry. In order to magnify the understanding of the phenomenon, the exploration was extended to contrast the RAZR development process and the standard product development process in Motorola. Additionally, it was integrated a longitudinal reflection of the company product development evolution until the next breakthrough product hitting the cellular phone industry. The result of the analysis shows that discontinuous products do not fit well traditional product development process (in this case, stage-gate). This result reinforces the results obtained on previous studies of discontinuous product development conducted by other authors. Therefore, it is clear that the dynamics of discontinuous product development are different from the continuous product development, requiring different treatment to succeed. Moreover, this study highlighted the importance of the management influence in all the phases of the process as one of the most important factors, suggesting a key component to be carefully observed in future researches. Some other findings of the study that were considered very important for a discontinuous product development process: have champions (who believe and protect the project) and not only one champion; create a right atmosphere to make flow the creative process; question paradigms to create discontinuous products; simple guiding light to focus the team; company culture that accepts and knows how to deal with risks; and undoubtedly, have a company strategy that understands the different dynamics of continuous and discontinuous product development processes and treat them accordingly.

Compliance to law and effectiveness of the rule of law in Brazil

The goal of this paper is to debate the degree of effectiveness of the rule of law in Brazil, through a survey measuring perceptions, attitudes and habits of Brazilians in regard to compliance to law. The survey conducted in Brazil is based on the study conducted by Tom R. Tyler in the United States, entitled Why People Obey the Law? (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990). The main argument of Tyler´s study is that people obey the law when they believe it’s legitimate, and not because they fear punishment. We test the same argument in Brazil, relying on five indicators: (i) behavior, which depicts the frequency with which respondents declared to have engaged in conducts in disobedience to the law; (ii) instrumentality, measuring perception of losses associated with the violation of the law, specially fear of punishment; (iii) morality, measuring perception of how much is right or wrong to engage in certain conducts in violation of the law; (iv) social control, which measures perception of social disapproval of certain types of behavior in violation of the law, and (v) legitimacy, which measures the perception of respect to the law and to some authorities. Results indicate that fear of sanctions is not the strongest drive in compliance to law, but more than legitimacy, indicators of morality and social control are the strongest in explaining why people obey the law in Brazil.

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.

Innovation districts: an investigation of the replication of the 22@ Barcelona’s Model in Boston

In 2000, the city of Barcelona launched 22@ Barcelona, dubbed the innovation district. The city sees the project as a means to accelerate Barcelona’s transition toward the knowledge economy. Other cities around the world have since followed the example of Barcelona, building or planning to build their own innovation districts. Boston began to establish its innovation district in 2010. Cities’ ultimate goal for these initiatives is to become more innovative and thus more competitive. Innovative districts are different from technology parks in that they aim to respond to a new economic paradigm in which economic production flows back to cities. The 22@ Barcelona model involves theoretical designs regarding five layers of innovation: economics, urban planning, productive, innovative, and creative. The comparative approach between 22@ Barcelona and Boston’s Innovation District intends to highlight the similarities and differences between those two innovation districts as well as providing a framework to define innovation districts.

Private equity regulation: what are the consequences of the alternative investment fund managers directive (AIFMD) on private equity managers?

The recent global financial crisis brought significant regulatory changes in the worldwide financial industry. In Europe and in the alternative asset sector specifically, a new regulation by the name of Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive saw the daylight in 2010. This far-reaching and complex Directive with the main goal of regulating and overseeing alternative investment funds has triggered many discussions and represents an industry game-changer. Thus, this research will focus on the impact and consequences of the Directive on private equity fund managers and the role of regulators. In other words, what are the effects, what does that mean in a quantitative and qualitative sense, and how is it likely to influence the outlook of this asset class? In order to provide the reader with an extensive view on the topic, the paper will first discuss relevant theory and literature, using mix-methods and legal-dogmatic approaches. Further, descriptive case studies, analysis of existing surveys, and interviews with industry experts will supplement the paper in order to understand primary implications of the Directive with the goal of providing useful insights for further private equity regulation research.

Why join a carbon club?: a study of the banks participating in the Brazilian “Business for Climate Platform”

Why do firms that present low levels of (direct) carbon emissions participate in “carbon clubs”, which have the goal of managing and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions? In order to answer this question, we collected data from both primary and secondary sources from firms operating in the Brazilian banking sector, which are members of the Businesses for Climate Platform (Plataforma Empresas pelo Clima e EPC). We first looked for answers in the institutional theory and resource based view of the firm (RBV). By confronting the arguments presented by these streams of scientific enquiry with empirical data, we worked on theory testing. In particular, we analyzed the institutional pressures and resources and capabilities of the focus companies, in order to understand the rationales for proactive sustainability management. We found evidences of the arguments presented by both the institutional theory and the RBV. By studying an industry that is not a frequent subject to research on socio-environmental issues e for not being considered of high impact e in an emerging market economy, the research contributes to both the further development of the institutional theory and the advancement of sustainability management in corporations.