Economic valuation of collecting water to billing in the aspersion irrigated bean in the no tillage system and conventional crop

The law's project n.676/2000 approved the collecting of billing water for farmers in a maximum foreseen value of US$ 0.01 m(-3) of extracted water in the São Paulo State. As the irrigated agriculture is the activity that consumes more water, the farmers profitability can be affected. This work was to analyze the economic impact of billing water in the aspersion irrigated bean crop to consider the system of conventional production and no tillage system in the Paranapanema municipal district, São Paulo State, Brazil. The indicators used to analyze the economic results were unit variable cost, market price and unit profitability. The results showed that for the aspersion irrigated bean crop in conventional system, the participation of cost to the recourse water in cost variable totality was of 2.5% and in no tillage system the participation was of 2.2%. The fall of profitability just the billing water in conventional crop system and in no tillage system was US$ 0.01 kg(-1).

Analysis of forecasting capabilities of ground surfaces valuation using artificial neural networks

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Economic valuation of the Emas waterfall, Mogi-Guaçu River, SP, Brazil

A Cachoeira de Emas, no Rio Mogi-Guaçu, é reconhecida regionalmente como um importante local para a pesca e o turismo. Os primeiros registros da pesca profissional e esportiva no local datam da década de 30, que é o mesmo período em que a atividade do turismo teve seu início. O presente artigo fornece uma valoração ambiental deste local e identifica as diferenças entre os principais grupos de pessoas que o frequentam. Durante o ano de 2006 nós entrevistamos 33 pescadores profissionais, 107 pescadores esportivos, 45 turistas e 103 excursionistas para estimar a Disposição a Pagar ( P) de cada categoria e para analisar a influência de fatores socioeconômicos através de regressões logísticas e ANCOVAs. A DAP dos pescadores profissionais foi significativamente influenciada pela idade e escolaridade e a DAP dos pescadores esportivos foi significativamente influenciada pela renda familiar. As variáveis que influenciaram a DAP dos turistas e excursionistas fora o sexo e a escolaridade. valor anual total agregado para manter a Cachoeira nas condições atuais foi estimado em US$ 81.080,00, e US$ 44.055.911,46 para recuperá-la.

Gradually truncated log-normal in USA publicly traded firm size distribution

We study the statistical distribution of firm size for USA and Brazilian publicly traded firms through the Zipf plot technique. Sale size is used to measure firm size. The Brazilian firm size distribution is given by a log-normal distribution without any adjustable parameter. However, we also need to consider different parameters of log-normal distribution for the largest firms in the distribution, which are mostly foreign firms. The log-normal distribution has to be gradually truncated after a certain critical value for USA firms. Therefore, the original hypothesis of proportional effect proposed by Gibrat is valid with some modification for very large firms. We also consider the possible mechanisms behind this distribution. (c) 2006 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Assessment and statistics of Brazilian hydroelectric power plants: Dam areas versus installed and firm power

The Brazilian relief, predominantly composed by small mountains and plateaus, contributed to formation of rivers with high amount of falls. With exception to North-eastern Brazil, the climate of this country are rainy, which contributes to maintain water flows high. These elements are essential to a high hydroelectric potential, contributing to the choice of hydroelectric power plants as the main technology of electricity generation in Brazil. Though this is a renewable source, whose utilized resource is free, dams must to be established which generates a high environmental and social impact. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact caused by these dams through the use of environmental indexes. These indexes are ratio formed by installed power with dam area of a hydro power plant, and ratio formed by firm power with this dam area. In this study, the greatest media values were found in South, Southeast, and Northeast regions respectively, and the smallest media values were found in North and Mid-West regions, respectively. The greatest encountered media indexes were also found in dams established in the 1950s. In the last six decades, the smallest indexes were registered by darns established in the 1980s. These indexes could be utilized as important instruments for environmental impact assessments, and could enable a dam to be established that depletes an ecosystem as less as possible.

Building sustainable values in organizations with the support of human resource management: Evidence from one firm considered as the 'best place to work' in Brazil

Researchers and other professionals unanimously agree that companies should become more sustainable, but this will not happen without the support of human resource management. Paradoxically, there is a lack of information on the support human resource management offers to organizational sustainability applied to real cases. Therefore, this research presents a case study on this topic that was carried out in a leading Brazilian company, which is considered as a model and has been selected as 'the best place to work in the country'. The results provide practical examples of how this family company has been working to guarantee an increasingly sustainable performance with the support of human resources, highlighting the achievements and challenges the company has faced. One of the main results indicates that companies seeking to achieve sustainability need the assistance of the human resource field in order to design a communication system which bridges the gap between practices and sustainable values. © 2012 Management Centre for Human Values.