Ownership, control and corporate valuation of Brazilian companies

We study the direct and indirect ownership structure of Brazilian corporations and their market value and risk by the end of 1996 and 1998. Ownership is quite concentrated with most companies being controlled by a single direct shareholder. We find evidence that indirect control structures may be used to concentrate control even more rather than to keep control of the company with a smaller share of total capital. The greater the concentration of voting rights then less the value of the fmn should be due to potential expropriation ofrninority shareholders. We fmd evidence that when there is a majority shareholder and when indirect ownership structures are used without the loss of control, corporate valuations are greater when control is dilluted through the indirect ownership structure. This evidence is consistent with the existence of private benefits of control that can be translated as potential minority shareholder expropriation.

Electoral control in the presence of gridlocks

This article presents a game-theoretic partisan model of voting and political bargaining. In a two-period setup, voters ¯rst elect an executive incumbent and the legislators from a pool of candidates belonging to di®erent parties. Once elected, the executive and the legislature bargain over a budget. Party origin and a relevant parameter of the economy, the state of the world, in°uence the bargaining cost, such that political gridlocks may occur. At the end of the ¯rst period voters observe the outcome of bargaining but do not observe the true estate of the world, and decide whether or not to reelect the same parties for the Executive and the Legislature. The model con¯rms the very recent literature by showing that voters tend to have more °exible reelection criteria when they believe the true state of the world is likely to be unfavorable. On the other hand, when voters believe the true state of the world is likely to be favorable, they become more demanding in order to reelect the incumbents. In particular, there will be government shutdown with positive probability in equilibrium. Gridlocks occur due to the imperfect information of voters and they constitute indeed an information revelation mechanism that improves electoral control in the second period.

Determinants of differential pricing of equity classes in the Brazilian equity market

We examine the differential pricing of equity classes between voting and non-voting shares in Brazilian listed companies with particular emphasis on privatized companies, and we discuss the role of majority control, liquidity, and governance issues that may influence these differentials over time. We include a brief discussion on the Brazilian corporate law system, its impact on controlling and minority shareholders, and the characteristics of the Brazilian privatization process, before proceeding to the econometric analysis. We find empirical evidence to support that liquidity is a major component for determining this differential pricing over time. Other variables, such as the ratio of non-voting equity to total equity, type of majority control, and changes in regulation signal the high level of agency costs between majority controllers and minority shareholders in explaining the differential pricing of equity classes.

A Theory of voter experimentation in repeated elections

Nesse artigo, eu desenvolvo e analiso um modelo de dois perí odos em que dois polí ticos competem pela preferência de um eleitor representativo, que sabe quão benevolente é um dos polí ticos mas é imperfeitamente informado sobre quão benevolente é o segundo polí tico. O polí tico conhecido é interpretado como um incumbente de longo prazo, ao passo que o polí tico desconhecido é interpretado como um desa fiante menos conhecido. É estabelecido que o mecanismo de provisão de incentivos inerente às elei cões - que surge através da possibilidade de não reeleger um incumbente - e considerações acerca de aquisi cão de informa cão por parte do eleitor se combinam de modo a determinar que em qualquer equilí brio desse jogo o eleitor escolhe o polí tico desconhecido no per íodo inicial do modelo - uma a cão à qual me refi ro como experimenta cão -, fornecendo assim uma racionaliza cão para a não reelei cão de incumbentes longevos. Especifi camente, eu mostro que a decisão do eleitor quanto a quem eleger no per odo inicial se reduz à compara cão entre os benefí cios informacionais de escolher o polí tico desconhecido e as perdas econômicas de fazê-lo. Os primeiros, que capturam as considera cões relacionadas à aquisi cão de informa cão, são mostrados serem sempre positivos, ao passo que as últimas, que capturam o incentivo à boa performance, são sempre não-negativas, implicando que é sempre ótimo para o eleitor escolher o polí tico desconhecido no per íodo inicial.

Exogenous shocks and misattribution of responsibility for economic performance: results from survey experiments

Recent models of economic voting assume that citizens can discount exogenous factors when assessing government's economic performance. Yet there is evidence that Latin American voters do not behave in such way, and attribute to presidents outcomes that are beyond their control. This paper presents three survey experiments designed to explore mechanisms that could potentially correct such misattribution, and therefore contribute to debiasing individual behavior towards government evaluation. Our results provide individual-level evidence of the misattribution found in aggregate studies of electorate behavior, and reinforce psychologist's skepticism towards prospects of mental decontamination, as we found very scant evidence that providing information, raising awareness, or increasing motivation to correct biases infuenced individual's evaluation of president's performance.

Os ciclos econômicos eleitorais e o Programa Bolsa-Família

A partir da disseminação do conhecimento sobre voto econômico no meio político, o incremento da renda real criado pelo Bolsa Família pode criar incentivos para que os governantes aumentem o valor dos repasses ou ampliem a base de famílias cadastradas com intuito de aumentar suas chances de reeleição. A hipótese testada nesse trabalho foi de que o governo influencia os gastos do Programa Bolsa Família e os aumentam anormalmente em períodos pré-eleitorais. Para testar essa hipótese, foram usadas as séries temporais de gastos mensais com o programa e de número de famílias beneficiárias desde janeiro de 2004 até dezembro de 2014. Para isso foram utilizados modelos estatísticos para identificar se estes gastos aumentam anormalmente em períodos que antecedem eleições, controlados por outros fatores que podem influenciar os gastos do programa, tais como PIB Nacional, Receitas e Despesas do Tesouro Nacional, Inflação e Desemprego. Os resultados sugerem a ocorrência de ciclos eleitorais nas eleições presidenciais, nos quais há uma aceleração no número de famílias inscritas no Bolsa Família nos três meses anteriores à campanha com a consequente aceleração dos gastos do programa no mesmo período, porém não há redução no número de famílias inscritas após as eleições e, por fim, que não existem efeitos no período das eleições locais.

Essays on corporate restructuring

Esta tese tem por objetivo examinar as características do processo de decisão em que credores optam pela recuperação judicial ou liquidação da empresa em dificuldade financeira. O trabalho está dividido em quatro capítulos. No segundo capítulo, apresenta-se, de forma sistematizada, referencial teórico e evidências empíricas para apontar resultados importantes sobre estudos desenvolvidos nas áreas de recuperação de empresas e falência. O capítulo também apresenta três estudos de caso com o propósito de mostrar a complexidade de cada caso no que diz respeito à concentração de recursos, conflito de interesse entre as classes de credores e a decisão final sobre a aprovação ou rejeição do plano de recuperação judicial. No terceiro capítulo, analisam-se os determinantes do atraso pertinente à votação do plano de recuperação judicial. O trabalho propõe um estudo empírico dos atrasos entre 2005 e 2014. Os resultados sugerem que: (i) maior concentração da dívida entre as classes de credores possui relação com atrasos menores; (ii) maior quantidade de bancos para votar o plano de recuperação judicial possui relação com maiores atrasos; (iii) o atraso médio na votação diminui quando apenas uma classe de credores participa da votação do plano; (iv) credores trabalhistas e com garantia real atrasam a votação quando o valor dos ativos para garantir a dívida em caso de liquidação é maior; (v) o atraso médio na votação é maior em casos de pior desempenho do setor de atuação do devedor, sendo solicitado pelas classes quirografária e com garantia real; e (vi) a proposta de venda de ativos é o principal tópico discutido nas reuniões de votação do plano nos casos em que o atraso na votação é maior. Por fim, no quarto capítulo, apresenta-se evidência sobre a votação dos credores e a probabilidade de aprovação do plano de recuperação judicial. Os resultados sugerem que: (i) credores trabalhistas estão propensos a aprovar o plano de recuperação mesmo quando o plano é rejeitado pelas demais classes; (ii) planos com propostas de pagamento mais heterogêneas para as três classes de credores possuem menor chance de serem aceitos; (iii) a chance de aprovação do plano diminui nos casos em que mais credores quirografários participam da recuperação; e (iv) planos com proposta de venda de ativos possuem maior chance de serem aprovados. Finalmente, maior concentração da dívida na classe com garantia real diminui a chance de aprovação do plano, e o contrário ocorre na classe quirografária.

Citizens and the future of multilateralism in a polycentric world at 2030: the perspectives of emerging countries for the trading system: the impasse of WTO, the trends of mega agreements, the logic of value chains and the advent of consumers concerns on international trade

A new paradigm is modeling the World: evolutionary innovations in all fronts, new information technologies, huge mobility of capital, use of risky financial tools, globalization of production, new emerging powers and the impact of consumer concerns on governmental policies. These phenomena are shaping the World and forcing the advent of a new World Order in the Multilateral Monetary, Financial, and Trading System. The effects of this new paradigm are also transforming global governance. The political and economic orders established after the World War and centered on the multilateral model of UN, IMF, World Bank, and the GATT, leaded by the developed countries, are facing significant challenges. The rise of China and emerging countries shifted the old model to a polycentric World, where the governance of these organizations are threatened by emerging countries demanding a bigger participation in the role and decision boards of these international bodies. As a consequence, multilateralism is being confronted by polycentrism. Negotiations for a more representative voting process and the pressure for new rules to cope with the new demands are paralyzing important decisions. This scenario is affecting seriously not only the Monetary and Financial Systems but also the Multilateral Trading System. International trade is facing some significant challenges: a serious deadlock to conclude the last round of the multilateral negotiation at the WTO, the fragmentation of trade rules by the multiplication of preferential and mega agreements, the arrival of a new model of global production and trade leaded by global value chains that is threatening the old trade order, and the imposition of new sets of regulations by private bodies commanded by transnationals to support global value chains and non-governmental organizations to reflect the concerns of consumers in the North based on their precautionary attitude about sustainability of products made in the World. The lack of any multilateral order in this new regulation is creating a big cacophony of rules and developing a new regulatory war of the Global North against the Global South. The objective of this paper is to explore how these challenges are affecting the Tradinge System and how it can evolve to manage these new trends.

Turnout and quorum in referenda

We analyse the effect of turnout requirement in referenda in the context of a group turnout model. We show that a participation quorum requirement may reduce the turnout so severely that it generates a "quorum paradox": in equilibrium, the expected turnout exceds the participation quorum only if this requirement is not imposed. Moreover, a participation quorum does not necessarily imply a bias for the status quo. We also show that in order to induce a given expected turnout, the quorum should be set at a level that is lower than half tha target, and the effect of a participation quorum on welfare is ambiguous. On the one hand, the quorum decreases voters' welfare by misrepresenting the will of the majority. On the other hand, it might also reduce the total cost of voting. Finally, we show that an approval quorum is essentially equivalent to a participation quorum.

Política pública para o idoso : um estudo da cidadania no grupo cabelos de neve do programa conviver em Campina Grande-PB

The main objective of the study about the citizenship development in elderly attended by the Conviver Program of the City Hall of Campina Grande in Paraiba, Brazil was to evaluate how the actions of the Program contribute for the citizenship practice according to the users. The Citizenship analyzed is the existence of political, civil and social rights according to Marshall. For that it was utilized a descriptive research and a study of case based on technical procedure. The research was settled by the people who are benefited by the Conviver Program of the Snow Hair Group and the sample was formed by the active participants that it is in the Group for over ten years, corresponding to a total of ten elderly. For the data collection was utilized basic questionnaire in function of the low schooling of the interviewed, according to Marshall (2002) theory about the citizenship construction from each person. It was utilized the methodological procedure proposed by Bardin (2006), categorical analysis, in the qualitative data analysis, that was divided in four parts. In relation to Political Rights, noted that the program has stimulated your Watched on the exercise of voting and being voted. On the Civil Rights was observed that the Program has given incentive to actions which provide the users the justice rights in and in occupational activities as a job. In relation to Social Rights it was observed that the Conviver Program has contributed in order that its users can lead their lives according to the standards imposed by the society, which have being failed in the education area. As for the type of citizenship it was verified that the Program has given incentive to the served users, becoming more evidence on the speech basis

Eleições, pesquisas e estratégias de marketing: a campanha eleitoral de Micarla de Sousa em Natal (2008)

From the importance that the political science and the social sciences began to give the electoral programs on TV, were examined in that work academic the effects of research in electoral marketing strategies in Gratuitous Timetable of the Electoral Publicity of the marketing year the candidate Micarla de Sousa (PV) in 2008 for the prefecture of Natal. To analyze the marketing strategies of electoral candidate Micarla de Sousa were used three sources of data: the HGPE on the first part, The interview with the coordinator's marketing campaign of Micarla de Sousa, José Ivan and the quantitative research carried out by the Office IBOPE before and during the period of HGPE. In the analysis of electoral programs, was used the qualitative and quantitative approach, taking as objective to verify whether there was some change in marketing strategy in the candidate Micarla HGPE. So the electoral programs that candidate were transcribed and analyzed and then faced with the results of researches electoral IBOPE carried out in the same period. The interview with the coordinator's marketing campaign the candidate Micarla de Sousa brought relevant information on the construction of public image at the time pre-electoral and electoral. In search of IBOPE, socioeconomic variables were regarded assex, age, education and income. With the collection of this data, there was an intersection of information about the voting intentions of Micarla candidate for mayor of Natal and it was checked how his candidacy has increased or decreased within the surveyed segments and how these oscillations marketing strategies directed at the candidate's HGPE for any specific audience. Also, do not forget that the electoral process is influenced by various factors, because this process is dynamic

Rejeição e voto em eleição contemporânea: um estudo de caso da eleição à prefeitura do município de Natal/RN (2012)

Given the importance that political science and social sciences give studies of voting behavior, this study sought to fill this academic discussion another important element that makes up this complex set. From the campaign trail to City Christmas in 2012 work has been undertaken analysis of rejection in the first and second rounds of this election. For this analysis we used two sources of data: quantitative research, conducted by Search Consult the first and second rounds of elections, and the use of focus group technique, performed in the second round of elections. Knowing the various factors that may affect the voting decision, but also the dynamism that pervades a political dispute, seek, with this work, contribute to the deepening of the rejection of studies, aiming to bring subsidies presenting information to better explain the behavior studies election. The results showed that there is a less expressive, the chamda strong rejection. We speak of that rejection based on a political, historical and ideological. The reason for the weak presence of strong rejection seems to be little involvement of voters with politics and, consequently, low knowledge about politics and politicians. We observe, however, evidence of rejection volatile. We refer here to a kind of rejection that develops during the election process depending on the preference of the voter and according to the circumstances of the campaign. The data also lead us to conclude that television is as an instrument for the dissemination of ideas that can contribute in shaping the opinion of viewers. The role of political parties in representing the interests of the people have lost their strength in recent years. The data also show that, to the extent that increases the preference of voters in the electoral process, also increases its rejection

A moralidade e a vida pregressa do candidato como condição autônoma de elegibilidade

The objective of this work was about fixing the free will paradigm as negative evaluation of political rights which presents a new classification dde such rights, producing species: a) conditions of eligibility autonomous (free will), b) eligibility requirements heteronomous (will third party) and c) ineligibility (court decisions / administrative). This morality and life history as a condition of eligibility unattended, making a hermeneutic analysis of art. 14, § 9 of the Constitution, considering the justification of the views of the voting Minister Carlos Ayres Brito Appeal in Ordinary No 1069/2006 of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (where Eurico Miranda). Are fixed concepts of morality and life history from the perspective of the moral act freely and consciously. Has resulted in the identification of the moral virtues of honesty and integrity, which are voluntary acts as a reference to morality and integrity respectively. Justifies the morality and life history as a condition of eligibility unattended. who depend exclusively on the willingness of the candidate. It is noteworthy that the conditions for eligibility as a factual finding does not violate the law and does not allow punitive sanctions or setting a deadline in case of refusal to register the application. Attributed to political parties to take responsibility in their statutes moral criteria for the nomination convention in pre candidates, giving an ethical dimension. Analyzes the law under the Clean Record of morality and life history of the candidate and the possible impact on the electoral context.

Aplicação de técnicas de aprendizado de máquina no reconhecimento de classes estruturais de proteínas

Nowadays, classifying proteins in structural classes, which concerns the inference of patterns in their 3D conformation, is one of the most important open problems in Molecular Biology. The main reason for this is that the function of a protein is intrinsically related to its spatial conformation. However, such conformations are very difficult to be obtained experimentally in laboratory. Thus, this problem has drawn the attention of many researchers in Bioinformatics. Considering the great difference between the number of protein sequences already known and the number of three-dimensional structures determined experimentally, the demand of automated techniques for structural classification of proteins is very high. In this context, computational tools, especially Machine Learning (ML) techniques, have become essential to deal with this problem. In this work, ML techniques are used in the recognition of protein structural classes: Decision Trees, k-Nearest Neighbor, Naive Bayes, Support Vector Machine and Neural Networks. These methods have been chosen because they represent different paradigms of learning and have been widely used in the Bioinfornmatics literature. Aiming to obtain an improvment in the performance of these techniques (individual classifiers), homogeneous (Bagging and Boosting) and heterogeneous (Voting, Stacking and StackingC) multiclassification systems are used. Moreover, since the protein database used in this work presents the problem of imbalanced classes, artificial techniques for class balance (Undersampling Random, Tomek Links, CNN, NCL and OSS) are used to minimize such a problem. In order to evaluate the ML methods, a cross-validation procedure is applied, where the accuracy of the classifiers is measured using the mean of classification error rate, on independent test sets. These means are compared, two by two, by the hypothesis test aiming to evaluate if there is, statistically, a significant difference between them. With respect to the results obtained with the individual classifiers, Support Vector Machine presented the best accuracy. In terms of the multi-classification systems (homogeneous and heterogeneous), they showed, in general, a superior or similar performance when compared to the one achieved by the individual classifiers used - especially Boosting with Decision Tree and the StackingC with Linear Regression as meta classifier. The Voting method, despite of its simplicity, has shown to be adequate for solving the problem presented in this work. The techniques for class balance, on the other hand, have not produced a significant improvement in the global classification error. Nevertheless, the use of such techniques did improve the classification error for the minority class. In this context, the NCL technique has shown to be more appropriated

Uma Análise de métodos de distriubuição de atributos em comitês de classificadores

The objective of the researches in artificial intelligence is to qualify the computer to execute functions that are performed by humans using knowledge and reasoning. This work was developed in the area of machine learning, that it s the study branch of artificial intelligence, being related to the project and development of algorithms and techniques capable to allow the computational learning. The objective of this work is analyzing a feature selection method for ensemble systems. The proposed method is inserted into the filter approach of feature selection method, it s using the variance and Spearman correlation to rank the feature and using the reward and punishment strategies to measure the feature importance for the identification of the classes. For each ensemble, several different configuration were used, which varied from hybrid (homogeneous) to non-hybrid (heterogeneous) structures of ensemble. They were submitted to five combining methods (voting, sum, sum weight, multiLayer Perceptron and naïve Bayes) which were applied in six distinct database (real and artificial). The classifiers applied during the experiments were k- nearest neighbor, multiLayer Perceptron, naïve Bayes and decision tree. Finally, the performance of ensemble was analyzed comparatively, using none feature selection method, using a filter approach (original) feature selection method and the proposed method. To do this comparison, a statistical test was applied, which demonstrate that there was a significant improvement in the precision of the ensembles