Differences in doing business in Brazil and norway: evidence from norwegian expatriates

With more and more business being done between Brazil and Norway we are seeing an increasing number of expatriates from Norway moving to Brazil!to work. Most!are!related!to!the!oil!and!gas!industries.!With!the!two!cultures,! countries!and!backgrounds!being!so!different!what!are!some!of!the!issues!and! challenges!that!arise? Using!existing!literature!as!well!as!faceRtoRface!interviews!of!Norwegian! expatriates!working!in!Rio!de!Janeiro!this!thesis!tries!to!compare!the!two! countries!and!at!the!same!time!explore!some!of!these!potential!issues.!The! research!focuses!on!differences!in!trust,!negotiation!style,!planning,!organization,! conflict!as!well!as!general!cultural!challenges. Analysis!of!the!responses!shows!that!for!some!issues!there!are!no!clear!problems! or!challenges!but!for!others!there!are.!Specifically!the!treatment!of!time!and!the! general!timeliness!in!Brazilian!society!seems!to!be!a!challenge!for!Norwegian! expatriates.!Secondly!and!equally!as!challenging!is!the!hierarchical!way!of! organizing!businesses!in!Brazil!compared!to!the!flatter!structure!found!in! Norwegian!businesses.!With!the!hierarchy!comes!also!bureaucracy,!another! factor!that!the!subjects!in!this!thesis!found!to!be!difficult!to!deal!with. The!thesis!is!divided!into!6!chapters!starting!with!“introduction”,!followed!by! chapter!2!“Literature!review”.!Chapter!3!is!“Research!Methodology”!followed!by! chapter!4!“Data!presentation”.!Finally!the!results!are!discussed!in!chapter!5! “Analysis!and!discussion” and!concluded!in!chapter!6.

Future cenario planning in Brazilian logistics and transportation sector

Nas últimas décadas o setor de logística passou por grandes transformações pelo mundo. Assim, a eficiência do sistema logístico é importante para o crescimento econômico, a diversificação, redução dos custos operacionais e da pobreza. Segundo o Banco Mundial, o Brasil tornou-se uma das maiores economias do mundo, mas os custos logísticos elevados colocam em risco esse crescimento. Estes custos são em grande parte o resultado de diferenças em infraestrutura de cada região, juntamente com os encargos do setor rodoviário, que corresponde por 60% do total do transporte de carga do país. Entretanto, a logística brasileira está às portas de uma nova revolução, em práticas de negócios e eficiência, e também na qualidade e disponibilidade da infraestrutura de transportes e comunicações, e novos projetos e práticas para superar a situação. O objetivo deste estudo não é analisar o presente e as atuais tendências de logística do Brasil e do setor de transporte, mas sim modelar possíveis cenários futuros para os próximos anos. Em outras palavras, este trabalho mostra diferentes possibilidades de como o setor de logística e transporte poderá ser no futuro. Para isso, este trabalho irá utilizar a metodologia de cenários prospectivos e entrevistas com especialistas relacionados da área.

On the welfare costs of business-cycle fluctuations and economic-growth variation in the 20th century and beyond

The main objective of this paper is to propose a novel setup that allows estimating separately the welfare costs of the uncertainty stemming from business-cycle uctuations and from economic-growth variation, when the two types of shocks associated with them (respectively,transitory and permanent shocks) hit consumption simultaneously. Separating these welfare costs requires dealing with degenerate bivariate distributions. Levis Continuity Theorem and the Disintegration Theorem allow us to adequately de ne the one-dimensional limiting marginal distributions. Under Normality, we show that the parameters of the original marginal distributions are not afected, providing the means for calculating separately the welfare costs of business-cycle uctuations and of economic-growth variation. Our empirical results show that, if we consider only transitory shocks, the welfare cost of business cycles is much smaller than previously thought. Indeed, we found it to be negative - -0:03% of per-capita consumption! On the other hand, we found that the welfare cost of economic-growth variation is relatively large. Our estimate for reasonable preference-parameter values shows that it is 0:71% of consumption US$ 208:98 per person, per year.