Occupational safety in China: safety climate and its influence on safety-related behavior

The improvement of health and safety standards within the organizational context is an important issue of global concern. China’s occupational health and safety (OHS) has increasingly drawn national and international attention as it has not kept pace with its globalization of production and trade. The traditional approach to managing workplace safety in China has focused on the technical aspects of engineering systems and processes, and it has attributed the majority of workplace accidents and injuries to unsafe working conditions instead of the unsafe work practices of employees. However, there has been a fundamental shift in the safety management research carried out in many countries and across diverse industries, which aims to measure the impact of attitudinal, organizational, cultural, and social dimensions on occupational safety. This article examines the relationship between safety climate and safety-related behavior in the Chinese context and draws implications for the management of occupational safety in China.

Coal - the black gold of economic growth in China: empirical evidence and the role of cleaner coal technologies in recent time

Coal comprises 70 per cent of China’s primary energy source and 80 per cent of China's electricity generation. This study investigates the long-run relationship between coal consumption-economic growth nexus considering both supply and demand side models in a multivariate framework over the period of 1978 and 2010. Our innovation in this paper is to include a coal-to-electricity efficiency indicator into the economic growth model ; and trade exposure in coal demand. Using Autoregressive Distributed Lag bounds testing approach, we find improvement in coal-to-efficiency indicator causes almost 35 per cent increase in real GDP in the long-run. The Toda-Yamamoto approach of causality test indicates unidirectional causality from coal consumption to economic growth; feedback effect both for coal-to-electricity efficiency indicator to economic growth and openness to coal consumption. For robustness check, using the generalised forecast error variance decomposition method we forecast the validity of causal relationships beyond the sample horizon. The paper suggests the role of advanced coal technologies will play a significant role along with other environmental and energy policies in maintaining sustainable economic growth in China .

Call auction transparency and market liquidity: Evidence from China

This paper uses the natural experiment offered by the Shanghai Stock Exchange to investigate the impact of opening call auction transparency on market liquidity. We find that the dissemination of indicative trade information during the pre-open call auction session leads to an overall improvement in stock liquidity in the continuous trading session. Bid-ask spreads narrow in the first trading hour because adverse selection risk fell significantly and there is less price volatility in the continuous market. This effect is greater for actively traded securities than illiquid securities. Our findings are robust for different lengths of sample period, different lengths of trading hours after market open, and stocks that had (and had not) reformed the share split structure during our research period.

An explanation of capital structure of China's listed property firms

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of the capital structure of listed property firms in China.Design/methodology/approach– The study is based on quantitative methods such as dynamic panel data models and a panel data set containing financial and accounting data for all listed property companies from 2006 to 2010 in China.Findings– The findings confirm that the state-own shares, the fixed asset values, the total size of assets and profitability have a positive and significant impact on the leverage ratio of listed property firms in China. The negative impact of the tax shields and the currency ratio, and significant impact of state-own shares on capital structure cannot be explained by existing capital structure theory but the unique property market regulation environment and market conditions in China.Research limitations/implications– The findings confirm the applicability of trade-off theory (except for the correlation between leverage and the tax shield) on property companies in China. They also highlight the importance of government policies and special market conditions in explaining the financing behaviour of property companies in transaction countries like China.Practical implications– Complimentary policies should be established along with property market restriction policies to offset their unequal negative effect on property companies with less state-owned shares. Furthermore, government should invest efforts to eliminate the discrimination credit treatment of banks against property companies with non-existent or few state-owned shares.Originality/value– The special financial behaviour of China's property firms and the unique financial and property market conditions highlight the necessity of researching the capital structure of listed property firms in China. However, most of the existing literature focuses on the company financial behaviour in developed countries, and very few studies have been done concerning property firms’ financing behaviour in emerging economies such as China, and this research prospects to fill this blank.

O uso comercial da internet por micro, pequenas e médias empresas de Porto Alegre : um estudo exploratório sobre as empresas do trade point Porto Alegre

Uma grande evolução aconteceu no mundo com o surgimento da Internet. Ela causou um espantoso aumento das comunicações, que passaram a ser em tempo real e com uma abrangência mundial. Foi a democratização da informação. A Internet serve como uma grande ferramenta para as empresas, principalmente com a globalização dos mercados, fenômeno que cresce cada dia mais e atinge a todos. A globalização fez com que as organizações se tornassem globais, e a Internet funciona como um elo de ligação entre empresas, fornecedores e consumidores. Este trabalho consistiu na realização de uma pesquisa survey exploratória com o objetivo de verificar e descrever o uso potencial da Internet como ferramenta de auxílio à realização de negócios de caráter global, nas micro, pequenas e médias empresas de Porto Alegre. A amostra das empresas pesquisadas foi extraída do Trade Point Porto Alegre, por ser essa uma entidade que tem por objetivo auxiliar as empresas a realizarem operações globais. Com relação ao mercado global, o trabalho identificou que quase todas as empresas acreditam que ele tenha oportunidades de negócios. Os principais meios para entrar nesse mercado são a participação em feiras e rodadas de negócios, contato pessoal e o Trade Point. A Internet já está disseminada no meio empresarial, todas as empresas já a conhecem, e boa parte das empresas realizam operações que podem ser auxiliadas pela rede, como comunicação, promoção de produtos e acompanhamento pós-venda. Identificou-se que as microempresas são as que menos acreditam no mercado internacional, mas apontaram que a Internet pode ajudá-las em suas atividades. Já as pequenas empresas são as que atuam no mercado internacional e acreditam que a Internet possa ajudá-las em algumas atividades. Por fim, as médias empresas, também atuam no mercado internacional, principalmente com as exportações, e são as que já estão utilizando a Internet. O Trade Point se mostrou um serviço bem requisitado pelas empresas, principalmente as que atuam com o comércio internacional. As principais vantagens citadas foram a centralização de informações e a geração de novos negócios.

Is China a Northern Partner to Mercosul?

We contrast Free Trade Areas involving Mercosul and the EU25, the US and China, respectively, using a new CGE model and associated database. Roughly, the China FTA lies halfway the other two, a bias towards the US pattern being suggested. When considering China a new Northern partner, protective deals don’t seem advisable. China’s advantages should prevail when facing the US or the EU: its need of capital goods, for instance, may open profitable cross-exchanges. China’s emergence can be a positive factor, if placed in an enlarged policy space where, together with its Asian neighbours, it counter-balances the US-EU polarity.

Sources of comparative advantages in Brazil

Based on the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek model, this paper investigates relative factor abundance in Brazil, as revealed by its international trade. We study two different time periods: one characterized by high trade barriers (1980 to 1985) and the trade liberalization period (1990 to 1995). Two alternative methodologies are used: the estimation of factor intensity regressions on net exports and the direct computation of factor content in net exports. In the factor intensity regression, we incorporate technological changes that might have occurred over time, and those turned out to be significant. Both methods yield the same results: the Brazilian international trade reveals relative abundance in capital, land and unskilled labor, and scarcity in skilled labor, with qualitatively equivalent results for the two time periods studied.

Past and future of the bankruptcy law in Brazil and Latin America

This paper studies the Bankruptcy Law in Latin America, focusing on the Brazilian reform. We start with a review of the international literature and its evolution on this subject. Next, we examine the economic incentives associated with several aspects of bankruptcy laws and insolvency procedures in general, as well as the trade-offs involved. After this theoretical discussion, we evaluate empirically the current stage of the quality of insolvency procedures in Latin America using data from Doing Business and World Development Indicators, both from World Bank and International Financial Statistics from IMF. We find that the region is governed by an inefficient law, even when compared with regions of lower per capita income. As theoretical and econometric models predict, this inefficiency has severe consequences for credit markets and the cost of capital. Next, we focus on the recent Brazilian bankruptcy reform, analyzing its main changes and possible effects over the economic environment. The appendix describes difficulties of this process of reform in Brazil, and what other Latin American countries can possibly learn from it.

Trade or investment? location decisions under regional integration

This paper studies the production and trade patterns that may arise between two different countries if plant location is introduced as a first step in the producers' decision making. A three-stage game is used: the first deals with location and the next two with capacity and final sales decisions. Demand and cost structures differ by country, and the latter contain specific elements related to the foreign operation. The structure of possible Nash-equilibria is examined and an analysis of the changes in the solution, if the countries engage in an integration process, is made. As in previous models, though global welfare gains may not be very high, single country ones may be considerable, due to changes in the location of the plants. However, even if full integration takes place, global Marshallian welfare may decrease. Conditions which determine a tendency towards multinationalisation are obtained. Assuming a move toward integration, conditions are also provided to characterize when exporting will be preferred to local production. The fact that producers may retain a certain discriminating power, notwithstanding the elimination of barriers to arbitrage, creates a tendency to locate production in the country where prices are higher. This explains why welfare gains may not be obvious. An empirical illustration, with real data from two MERCOSUL countries (Brazil and Argentina) illustrates the possible outcomes.

A brief history of Brazil's growth

The paper studies Brazil’s economic growth and begins with a brief overview of events that marked the country’s development from her discovery to the 19th century. It then divides the years between 1900 and 2008 into four periods. The breaks in regime occur in 1918, 1967 and 1980, according to the methodology created by Bai and Perron (1998, 2003). The use of the accounting methodology serves the analysis of the behavior of productivity in the previously identified different phases of the post-World War II period. High inflation might have been a reason for the decline in productivity observed between 1980 and mid-1990s. The paper shows that terms of trade have a significant effect on economic growth and output fluctuations. Other factors (such as fiscal stimulus or easy access to foreign finance) also matter for output accelerations in the short run. From 2004 to 2008, terms of trade improvement and debt reduction brought economic progress. The emergence of a new era in this millennium will depend on wiser fiscal policies than those of the past.

China na América Latina: uma análise da perspectiva dos investimentos diretos estrangeiros

Este trabalho discute a dinâmica dos investimentos diretos da China para as economias mundiais e, particularmente, para a América do Sul. Após mais de três décadas de intenso crescimento econômico e de forte aumento de sua participação no comércio mundial, a economia chinesa vem realizando crescentes investimentos no exterior. No caso das economias da América do Sul, a influência comercial chinesa tem alterado substancialmente a importância de tradicionais parceiros comerciais e mesmo a importância do Brasil na região. Os fluxos de investimentos diretos, mesmo que ainda em pequena escala, indicam o mesmo caminho de aumento de sua influência sobre as diversas economias da região, especialmente na exploração de fontes de materiais primais e de alimentos. Com isso, a China reforça não somente pela via comercial, mas também pelos influxos de investimentos, a característica agrícolaprimária das economias da região.

Empirical evidence of trade credit uses of brazilian publicly-listed companies

This research provides empirical evidence on the use of trade credit as either a substitution or a complement to bank debt for listed companies in Brazil, controlling for the firms reputation, as stated by Alphonse, Ducret and Séverin (2006). The sample consists of 263 publicly-listed companies for 2006. Our findings support all three hypotheses. We provide evidence that trade credit may be used as a signal for the firm’s quality.

New evidence on trade liberalization and productivity growth

Although the subject of a large number of studies, the debate on the links between trade reform and productivity growth is still unresolved and most studies at the micro level have not been able to establish a relationship between the two phenomena. Brazil provides a natural experiment to study this issue that is seldom available: it was one of the closest economies in the world until 1988, when trade reform was launched, and intra-industry data are available on an annual basis before, during and after liberalization. Using a panel of industry sectors this paper tests and measures the impact of trade reform on productivity growth. Results confirm the association between the former and the latter and show that the magnitude of the impact of tariff reduction on the growth rates of TFP and output per worker was substantial. Our data reveal large and widespread productivity improvement, so that the estimations in this paper are an indication that liberalization had an important effect on industrial performance in the country. Cross-sectional differences in protection are also investigated.

Fuel ethanol price drivers in the Atlantic basin : Brazil & the U.S. traders perspectives

Como a oportunidade de exportação de etanol combustível é muito recente, o agronegócio carece de literatura para formação de gestores e estrategistas. Este trabalho tem como objetivo descrever o mecanismo de formação de preços de etanol tanto no Brasil como nos Estados Unidos da America. Decupei as variáveis que impactam na formação de preços, custo de produção de etanol de cana-de-açúcar, custo da logística e desidratação no Caribe, custo do etanol de milho e fiz algumas análises de cenários de formação de preços das principais variáveis e consegui organizar este conhecimento em um gráfico que contém no eixo superior preço do etanol hidratado na usina no Brasil e no eixo inferior o preço do bushel de milho em Chicago cujas interceções nas retas da taxa do dólar e do preço do gás natural, fornecem no eixo Y o preço do produto no porto de Nova York, ficando uma visualização simples das possibilidades da janela de exportação. A metodologia permite assumir diferentes cenários de oferta, demanda e preços e estabelecer diferentes estratégias de comercialização.

A cross-country study on trade credit supply and financial crisis

O objetivo deste trabalho de pesquisa é investigar a oferta de crédito comercial durante períodos de crise financeira em seis países diferentes: Brasil, França, Alemanha, Itália, Espanha e Reino Unido, foram utilizadas informações de empresas de capital aberto entre 2000 e 2011. A literatura internacional documenta que durante o pico de crises financeiras a oferta de crédito comercial aumenta pois as companhias usam o crédito comercial como substituto e/ou complemento ao crédito bancário, apesar de após o momento de pico esta oferta diminui significantemente porque as empresas enfrentam problemas de liquidez causado por escassez de crédito. Mesmo que somente existam evidências pontuais de que a oferta de crédito comercial aumentou durante a crise financeira global de 2008, o efeito pós-crise é perceptível durante a crise Europeia de 2011, pois as empresas europeias diminuíram a oferta de crédito comercial, também evidenciando que estas companhias estavam confrontando problemas de administração de liquidez. Em relação ao uso de crédito comercial como ferramenta de transmissão de capital, nenhuma evidência foi encontrada para provar sua existência em tempo de crise financeira.