A experi??ncia do microempreendedor individual na amplia????o da cobertura previdenci??ria no Brasil

O mercado de trabalho brasileiro ?? caracterizado por elevada informalidade e por alto grau de desprote????o previdenci??ria. Entre os principais componentes da referida desprote????o est??o os chamados trabalhadores por conta pr??pria, que respondem por grande parcela do total de desprotegidos. Nesse sentido, a amplia????o da cobertura passa, necessariamente, por medidas que ampliem a prote????o social dos trabalhadores por conta pr??pria. J?? foram tomadas medidas no passado como, por exemplo, o Plano Simplificado, sem impacto significativo. Mais recentemente, foi institu??do o Programa MicroEmpreendedor Individual, que, depois de dois anos do in??cio do seu funcionamento em n??vel nacional, j?? registrava 2,1 milh??es de ades??es. O referido programa combina tratamento tribut??rio diferenciado e favorecido; simplifica????o e racionaliza????o da burocracia; apoio aos microempreendedores e benef??cios pela formaliza????o. O artigo apresenta a l??gica do programa e sua evolu????o, bem como discute os riscos, cuidados e necessidades de avan??os adicionais.

The tale of a Trojan horse or the quest for market access? China and the World Trade Organization

In 2001, China finally joined the WTO. The accession of China was looked forward to by many WTO members and China itself. However, observers had some fears that the Chinese accession would prove to be a Trojan horse, disrupting the working of the WTO. This paper looks into the Chinese accession and its involvement in the WTO Dispute Settlement and argues that these fears seem so far to be unfounded.

Measuring fund performance using multi-factor models: evidence for the Portuguese market

This paper examines the performance of Portuguese equity funds investing in the domestic and in the European Union market, using several unconditional and conditional multi-factor models. In terms of overall performance, we find that National funds are neutral performers, while European Union funds under-perform the market significantly. These results do not seem to be a consequence of management fees. Overall, our findings are supportive of the robustness of conditional multi-factor models. In fact, Portuguese equity funds seem to be relatively more exposed to smallcaps and more value-oriented. Also, they present strong evidence of time-varying betas and, in the case of the European Union funds, of time-varying alphas too. Finally, in terms of market timing, our tests suggest that mutual fund managers in our sample do not exhibit any market timing abilities. Nevertheless, we find some evidence of timevarying conditional market timing abilities but only at the individual fund level.

A taxonomy for virtual enterprises

The purpose of this paper is to present a taxonomy able to contribute to building a framework within the domain of Virtual Enterprises (VE), to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and contributions to knowledge, as well as for trust building among VE stakeholders. A VE taxonomy currently does not exist, and this lack is felt in the ambiguous way that some concepts are addressed, leading to a fragment understanding that hinders the development of the science of VE integration and management. The structure of the taxonomy developed is based on the view of the system as a 5-tuple consisting of Input, Control, Output, Mechanism, and Process, which is the underlying system-view in the well-know IDEF0 diagramming technique. In particular, this taxonomy addresses the VE extended lifecycle that implies the use of a meta-organization called Market of Resources, as an original contribution to the VE theory and practice. The taxonomy presented does not repeat what the literature already includes, or the commonplaces, and it is constructed in a way to be easily complemented with other VE partial taxonomies that may be found in literature. Some suggestions for extensions to other interrelated domains (as evolution leaves taxonomies in an open or incompleteness state) are given in the text.

Performance of european socially responsible funds during market crises: evidence from France

This paper investigates the performance, investment styles andmanagerial abilities of French socially responsible investment (SRI) funds investing in Europe during crisis and non-crisis periods. Our results show that SRI funds significantly underperformcharacteristics-matched conventional funds during non-crisis periods, but match the performance of their peers duringmarket downturns. The underperformance of SRI funds during good economic states is driven by funds that use negative screens, since funds that use only positive screens performsimilarly to conventional funds across differentmarket conditions. SRI and conventional funds showsignificant differences in risk exposures during non-crisis periods but exhibit much more similar investment styles during crises. Furthermore,we find little evidence of significant differences inmanagerial abilities during bad economic states. Yet, during non-crisis periods, SRI and conventional fund managers exhibit significantly different style-timing abilities and these differences are also related to screening strategies.

Options listing and the volatility of the underling asset: a study on the derivative market function

There are basic misunderstandings on derivative markets. Some professionals believe that they are a kind of casinos and have no utility for the investors. This work looks at the effects of options introduction in the Brazilian market, seeking for another benefit for this introduction: changes in the stocks risk leveI. Our results are the same found in the US and other markets: the options introduction reduces the stocks volatility. We also found that there is a slight indication that the volatility becames more stochastic with this alternative.

An optimal level of technology reliance on foreign partners in a global sourcing partnership: components procurement, technology management and market performance

Existing studies on global sourcing strategy have implicitly adopted a cJosed-systems perspective in which sourcing activities are managed within a multinational company across national boundaries. Produd and process innovations and components procurement that are jointly managed by a consortium of cooperating firms have not been examined. In this paper, we empiricallyexamine the issues concerning sourcing partnerships in an open-systems perspective. Findings suggest that even in a sourcing partnership arrangement with a foreign supplier, the principal firm's ability to procure and control the supply of major components has a positive bearing on its market performance.

Global banking: origins and evolution

This article reviews the origins and evolution of global banking and addresses the emerging patterns for the year 2000 and beyond.

Market timing e avaliação de desempenho dos fundos brasileiros

Este trabalho avalia o desempenho de fundos de investimento brasileiros pelo seu market timing, ou seja, pela capacidade de os gestores anteciparem diferenças de retorno das ações em relação a um ativo de renda fixa. Utilizam-se testes - paramétrico e não-paramétrico - desenvolvidos por Henriksson e Merton para a análise do desempenho de 243 fundos, no período de setembro de 1998 a outubro de 2003. Encontra-se evidência de habilidade de market timing para uma minoria de gestores de fundos, resultado que aparentemente se deve à maior facilidade de se preverem grandes diferenças de retorno entre o mercado acionário e a taxa de juros livre de risco.

Key factors in working capital management in the Brazilian market

Many studies have been conducted in corporate finance regarding long-term investment and financing decisions. However, short-term asset investments play a significant role in the balance sheet of companies. Moreover, financial managers dedicate significant amounts of time and effort to the subject of working capital management, balancing current assets and liabilities. This paper provides insights regarding the key factors of working capital management by exploring the internal variables of a number of companies. This study used data from 2,976 Brazilian public companies from 2001 to 2008, and found that debt level, size and growth rate can affect the working capital management of companies.

Earnings management and economic crises in the brazilian capital market

The 2008 economic crisis challenged accounting, either demanding recognition and measurement criteria well adjusted to this scenario or even questioning its ability to inform appropriately entities' financial situation before the crisis occurred. So, our purpose was to verify if during economic crises listed companies in the Brazilian capital market tended to adopt earnings management (EM) practices. Our sample consisted in 3,772 firm-years observations, in 13 years - 1997 to 2009. We developed regression models considering discretionary accruals as EM proxy (dependent variable), crisis as a macroeconomic factor (dummy variable of interest), ROA, market-to-book, size, leverage, foreign direct investment (FDI) and sector as control variables. Different for previous EM studies two approaches were used in data panel regression models and multiple crises were observed simultaneously. Statistics tests revealed a significant relation between economic crisis and EM practices concerning listed companies in Brazil in both approaches used.

O efeito da distribuição sobre o market share em diferentes canais

Apesar dos avanços nos estudos sobre os efeitos das estratégias de canais de distribuição, a relação entre distribuição e participação de mercado é ainda um tópico pouco explorado, especialmente em mercados emergentes. Por essa razão, a proposta central deste artigo é investigar a relação entre a variáveis de distribuição e market share no mercado brasileiro, especificamente no setor de bebidas, comparando dois importantes tipos de canais do mercado de consumo: grandes e pequenos supermercados. Para tanto, foi conduzida uma pesquisa empírica com base em um banco de dados contando com mais de 180 Stock Keeping Unit (SKUs) comercializados por três fabricantes na região sudeste do Brasil. Por meio de análises estatísticas, os resultados indicam existir uma relação convexa e crescente entre as variáveis estudadas, ou seja, existe um ponto de inflexão no qual o crescimento do market share é mais acentuado em razão da distribuição. Além disso, verificou-se que as curvas que descrevem essas variáveis apresentam efeitos diferentes quando comparados grandes e pequenos supermercados.

Scenario Planning and Evaluation of Pricing Strategies in the Portuguese Bulk LPG Market

Portugal has the largest LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) share of primary energy demand in the EU (about 5%). Due to the increasing international cost of LPG in the last years and the high price sensitivity of the consumers the preference for substitute energy sources in new and existing consumers has been increasing. To select the kind of energy, some consumer estimate and compare the total costs while others follow agents (equipment sellers) recommendations. It takes time to build agents perception about the most advantageous source of energy, which is seen as an important resource that drives client resource accumulation and retention. Marketing strategies have to take into consideration some market dynamic effects derived from the accumulation and depletion of these resources. A simple system dynamics model was built, combined with Economic Value Added framework, to evaluate some pricing strategies under different scenarios of LPG international cost.