Musem Training Institute - its current status

Museum Training Institute: Kershaw House, 55 Well Street, Bradford, BD1 5PS Britain’s system of vocational training and qualifications has been undergoing a fundamental revolution in recent years. The single most important feature of this revolution is the concept of competence - the ability to perform to the standards required in employment. It is in recognition of this ability that National and Scottish Vocational Qualifications are awarded.

Compositional effects on productivity, labour cost and export adjustments. Bruegel Policy Contribution 2012/11, June 2012

Sectoral shifts, such as shrinkage of low labour productivity and the low-wage construction sector, can lead to apparent increased aggregate average labour productivity and average wages, especially when capital intensity differs across sectors. For 11 main sectors and 13 manufacturing sub-sectors, we quantify the compositional effects on productivity, wages and unit labour costs (ULCs) based and real effective exchange rates (REER), for 24 EU countries. Compositional effects are greatest in Ireland, where the pharmaceutical sector drives the growth of output and productivity, but other sectors have suffered greatly and have not yet recovered. Our new ULC-REER measurements, which are free from compositional effects, correlate well with export performance. Among the countries facing the most severe external adjustment challenges, Lithuania, Portugal and Ireland have been the most successful based on five indicators, and Latvia, Estonia and Greece the least successful. There is evidence of downward wage flexibility in some countries, but wage cuts have corrected just a small fraction of pre-crisis wage rises and came with massive reductions in employment even in the business sector excluding construction and real estate, highlighting the difficulty of adjusting wages downward.

A policy critique of Stansted Airport's expansion to 25 million passengers per annum (MPPA)

In this paper we undertake a preliminary assessment of the regional planning and development implications of BAA Stansted Airport’s planning permission to grow to 25 million passengers per annum (mppa) by 2010. Our concern is not simply to consider the overall growth of the airport on the airport site itself but the nature and type of growth both on- and off-site. In this document we focus on the submitted planning permission documents and test them. The methodology we employed was to draw on published and unpublished numerical estimates of the airport’s growth – particularly including estimates produced by the airport owner, BAA, and their economic and planning consultants DTZ Pieda - and critically, and systematically analyse their figures. We adopted this approach because unless the figures which were employed in the initial calculations were correct then all of the subsequent projections which flow from them - and the polices which could then be based on them – could be flawed. The analysis is divided into two parts – firstly, are the growth forecasts correct?; and secondly, what do these forecasts actually mean in developmental terms? In effect, what we have done is to produce a critique of the existing body of evidence by questioning underpinning assumptions and then draw some preliminary conclusions for the region based on this analysis. A major focus of this report has been analyse the figures involved in the planning application to expand Stansted to 25mppa. Ironically, one of our key findings, that the local impact of Stansted’s proposed expansion in employment terms might well be less than was originally thought, might make it easier to gain the acceptance of the relevant local authorities involved to allow the development to take place. Our main overall findings are that the BAA projections over-estimate the local employment impact of the airport’s proposed growth and under-estimate its potential regional ‘transportation’ employment effect. These two findings are, of course, related to each other in important ways, and we also feel that they have potentially significant medium and long-term economic, competitiveness and planning policy implications for the East of England region

Employee turnover, HRM and institutional contexts

Literature on comparative capitalism remains divided between approaches founded on stylized case study evidence and descriptions of broad trends, and those that focus on macro data. In contrast, this study explores the relevance of Amable’s approach to understanding differences in employment relations practice, based on firm-level micro data. The article examines employee–employer interdependence (including turnover rates) in different categories of economy as classified by Amable. The findings confirm that exit – whether forced or voluntary – remains more common in market-based economies than in their continental counterparts and that institutionalized employee voice is an important variable in reducing turnover. However, there is as much diversity within the different country categories as between them, and across continental Europe. In Denmark’s case, high turnover is combined with high unionization, showing the effects of a ‘flexicurity’ strategy. While employee voice may be stronger in Scandinavia, interdependence is weaker than in continental Europe.

The impact of big-boxes on local retail : What happens when IKEA comes to town?

The development of large discount retailers, or big-boxes as they are sometimes referred to, are often subject to heated debate and their entry on a market is greeted with either great enthusiasm or dread. For instance, the world’s largest retailer Wal-Mart (Forbes 2014) has a number of anti- and pro-groups dedicated to its being and the event of a Wal-Mart entry tends to be met with protests and campaigns (Decamme 2013) but also welcomed by, for instance, consumers (Davis & DeBonis 2013). Also in Sweden, the entry of a big box is a hot topic and before IKEA’s opening i Borlänge 2013, the first in Sweden in more than five years, great expectations were mixed with worry (Västerbottens-Kuriren 2011).The presence of large scale discount retailers is not, however, a novel phenomenon but a part of a long-term change in retailing that has taken place globally over the past couple of decades (Taylor & Smalling, 2005). As noted by Dawson (2006), the trend in Europe has over the past few decades gone towards an increasing concentration of large firms along with a decrease of smaller firms.This trend is also detectable in the Swedish retail industry. Over the past decade, the retailing industry in Sweden has increased by around 190 Billion SEK, and its share of GDP has risen from 2,7% to 2,9%, while the number of employees have increased from 200 000 to 250 000 (HUI 2013). This growth, however, has not been distributed evenly but rather it has been oriented mainly towards out-of-town retail clusters. Parallel to this development, the number of large retailers has risen at the expense of market shares of smaller independent firms (Rämme et al 2010). Thereby, the presence of large scale retailers is simply part of a changing retail landscape.The effects of this development, where large scale retailing agents relocate shopping to out-of-town shopping areas, have been heavily debated. On the one hand, the big-boxes are accused of displacing independent small retail businesses in the city-centers and the residential areas, resulting in, to some extent, reduced employment opportunities and less availability for the consumers - especially the elderly (Ljungberg et al 2006). In addition, as access to shopping now tends to require some sort of a motorized vehicle, environmental aspects to the discussion have emerged. Ultimately these types of concerns have resulted in calls for regulations against this development (Olsson 2010). On the other hand, the proponents of the new shopping landscape argue that this evolution implies productivity gains, the benefits of lower prices and an increased variety of products (Maican & Orth 2012). Moreover it is argued that it leads to, for instance, better services (such as longer opening hours) and a creative destruction transformation pressure on retailers, which brings about a renewal of city-centerIIretail and services, increasing their attractivity (Bergström 2010). The belief in benefits of a big box entry can be exemplified by the attractivity of IKEA, and the fact that municipalities are prepared to commit to expenses amounting up to hundreds of millions in order to attract the entry of this big-box. Borlänge municipality, for instance, agreed to expenses of about 350 million SEK in order to secure the entry of IKEA, which opened in 2013 (Blomgren 2009).Against this backdrop, the overall effects of large discount retailers become important: Are the economic benefits enough to warrant subsidies or are there, on the contrary, some very compelling grounds for regulations against these types of establishments? In other words; how is overall retail in a region where a store like IKEA enters affected? And how are local retail firms affected?In order to answer these questions, the purpose of this thesis is to study how entry of a big-box retailer affects the entry region. The object of this study is IKEA - one of the world’s largest retailers, with 345 stores, active in over 40 countries and with profits of about 3.3 billion (IKEA 2013; IKEA 2014). By studying the effects of IKEA-entry, both on an aggregated level and on firm level, this thesis intends to find indications of how large discount retail establishments in general can be expected to affect the economic development both in a region overall, but also on the local firm level, something which is of interest to both policymakers as well as the retailing industry in general.The first paper examines the effects of IKEA on retail revenues and employment in the municipalities that IKEA chose to enter between 2000 and 2011; Gothenburg, Haparanda, Kalmar and Karlstad. By means of a matching method we first identify non-entry municipalities that have a similar probability of IKEA entry as the true entry municipalities. Then, using these non-entry municipalities as a control group, the causal effects of IKEA entry can be estimated using a treatment-control approach. We also extend the analysis to examine the spatial impact of IKEA by estimating the effects on retail in neighboring municipalities. It is found that a new IKEA store increases revenues in durable goods trade with 20% in the entry municipality and the number of employees with 17%. Only small, and in most cases statistically insignificant, negative effects were found in neighboring municipalities.It appears that there is a positive net effect on durables retail sales and employment in the entry municipality. However, the analysis is based on data on an aggregated municipality level and thereby it remains unclear if and how the effects vary within the entry municipalities. In addition, the data used in the first study includes the sales and employment of IKEA itself, which could account for the majority of the increases in employment and retail. Thereby the potential spillover effects on incumbent retailers in the entry municipalities cannot be discerned in the first study.IIITo examine effects of IKEA entry on incumbent retail firms, the second paper in this thesis analyses how IKEA entry affects the revenues and employment of local retail firms in three municipalities; Haparanda, Kalmar and Karlstad, which experienced entry by IKEA between 2000 and 2010. In this second study, we exclude Gothenburg due to the fact that big-box entry appears to have weaker effects in metropolitan areas (as indicated by Artz & Stone 2006). By excluding Gothenburg we aim to reduce the geographical heterogeneity in our study. We obtain control municipalities that are as similar as possible to the three entry municipalities using the same method as in the previous study, but including a slightly different set of variables in the selection equation. Using similar retail firms in the control municipalities as our comparison group, we estimate the impact of IKEA entry on revenues and employment for retail firms located at varying distances from the IKEA entry site.The results generated in this study imply that entry by IKEA increases revenues in incumbent retail firms by, on average, 11% in the entry municipalities. In addition, we do not find any significant impact on retail revenues in the city centers of the entry municipalities. However, we do find that retail firms within 1 km of the IKEA experience increases in revenues of about 26%, which indicates large spillover effects in the area nearby the entry site. As expected, this impact decreases as we expand the buffer zone: firms located between 0-2 km experiences a 14% increase and firms in 2-5 km experiences an increase of 10%. We do not find any significant impacts on retail employment.

Programa de Promoção da Igualdade de Oportunidade para Todos: experiências de ação afirmativa do Ministério Público do Trabalho (2003-2012)

Nos últimos anos o Brasil tem avançado no sentido de enfrentar as desigualdades raciais. Em 1995, o então Presidente da República Fernando Henrique Cardoso reconheceu oficial e publicamente não apenas a existência da discriminação racial e do preconceito de cor no País, mas também a necessidade de se adotar medidas públicas e privadas para fazer face ao problema. Naquele mesmo ano foi criado o Grupo de Trabalho Interministerial, que teve por incumbência propor ações integradas de combate à discriminação racial e recomendar políticas para a consolidação da cidadania da população negra. Para encaminhar as ações relacionadas ao mercado de trabalho, foi criado em 1996, no âmbito do Ministério do Trabalho, o Grupo de Trabalho para a Eliminação da Discriminação no Emprego e na Ocupação, cuja missão foi definir programas de ações que visassem ao combate da discriminação no emprego e na ocupação. Desde então, temos presenciado uma maior permeabilidade do Estado às demandas e proposições dos movimentos sociais negros. Marcos nesta trajetória foram a criação da SEPPIR – Secretaria de Promoção da Igualdade racial, em 2003, a aprovação do Estatuto da Igualdade Racial, em 2010, e a aprovação, por unanimidade, do sistema de cotas para negros no ensino superior brasileiro, pelo Superior Tribunal Federal, em 2011. Essas, dentre outras, são conquistas inquestionáveis e que revelam que o País vive um período de inflexão no encaminhamento de soluções para os problemas raciais que o assolam. Mas, se por um lado essas conquistas representam grandes vitórias, especialmente quando analisadas sob uma perspectiva retroativa, visto que desde a abolição da escravatura nenhuma ação estatal havia sido direcionada à solução de desigualdades raciais, por outro, muito ainda temos que avançar. Um olhar prospectivo revelará que o fosso criado ao longo desses séculos não poderia ser superado em apenas 20 anos. Muita desigualdade racial ainda resta. E muito ainda resta a ser feito para o seu enfrentamento. Ao “mobilizar conhecimento para a resolução de problemas sociais relevantes” (FARAH, 2012) esta tese busca contribuir para o avanço das políticas de igualdade racial no País, particularmente daquelas voltadas para o mercado de trabalho. Ela se constitui em um estudo de caso do Programa de Promoção da Igualdade de Oportunidade para Todos, uma iniciativa do Ministério Público do Trabalho, que teve por objetivo levar as organizações privadas a adotar ações afirmativas para o enfrentamento das desigualdades de gênero e raça nas relações de trabalho. Para a condução do estudo de caso único, empreendemos uma pesquisa qualitativa, adotando diversas técnicas de pesquisa, como a observação participante, conversas, entrevistas semiestruturadas e análise de documentos e outras materialidades, tendo o pós-construcionismo como sua perspectiva epistemológica (SPINK, 2005). Analisamos o Programa da Promoção da Igualdade de Oportunidade para Todos a partir das seguintes variáveis: sua concepção, implantação e primeiros resultados. Essa análise conduziu-nos a uma revisão da literatura nacional e estrangeira sobre a gestão da diversidade, e da literatura sobre desigualdade categórica durável. Os resultados deste estudo sugerem que, em que pesem as resistências enfrentadas para a sua implantação, o Programa já produziu efeitos positivos, embora também apontem seus limites e ajustes necessários para futuras políticas que visem à redução de desigualdade racial no mercado de trabalho no País.

Diversificação internacional no contexto brasileiro

Este trabalho contribui a discussão de diversificação internacional no contexto de investidores brasileiros com referência na moeda local (Reais). O trabalho testa as seguintes hipóteses: (1) se a adição de ativos internacionais não aumenta a eficiência (melhora na relação retorno/risco) de carteiras somente com ativos brasileiros, (2) se carteiras de menor risco exigem mais alocações internacionais e, (3) se alocação de ativos é parecida para investidores com referências em dólar ou em reais. Esse trabalho utiliza modelos já conhecidos de fronteiras eficientes com aplicação de técnicas que utilizam rotinas de Monte Carlo para suavizar possíveis erros na estimação dos retornos das classes de ativos, que incorporam ainda incertezas sobre o câmbio. Nas simulações são utilizadas uma cesta de ativos locais e uma cesta de ativos que melhor representa o mercado internacional. Apesar da grande maioria dos investidores brasileiros utilizarem muito pouco ativos internacionais em suas carteiras, seja por motivos de Home Bias, fatores históricos macroeconômicos evidenciados pelas altas taxas de juros ou limitações regulatórias, os resultados empíricos demonstram que existem ganhos de eficiência para as carteiras de investidores brasileiros ao se incluir ativos internacionais na alocação de ativos. Esses ganhos de eficiência são evidenciados para todos os perfis de risco, desde os mais conservadores até os perfis mais agressivos. Os resultados mostram que quanto maior o perfil de risco da carteira, maior é a alocação internacional que maximiza a eficiência da carteira. E por último, a referência da moeda muda significativamente a alocação eficiente de carteiras, carteiras com referência em dólar exigem menos diversificação com ativos em reais do que carteiras com referência em Reais exigem diversificação com ativos internacionais.

O efeito da diversificação na mineração

Neste trabalho, medimos os efeitos da diversificação sob o aspecto de risco e retorno entre os grandes players globais de mineração. Para avaliar a diversificação, primeiramente, foi criado um ranking que relaciona risco, grau de diversificação e retorno das empresas. Foi necessário montar um banco de dados com séries de receita e de proxies de geração de caixa por negócios, o qual não se encontra prontamente disponível na Bloomberg, Economática ou em outras bases de dados públicas. Estimamos os efeitos da diversificação fazendo o uso do CAPM para calcular o beta das empresas e das estatísticas básicas das séries históricas de retornos para encontrar o Índice de Sharpe. Examinamos os demonstrativos financeiros das empresas para entender com maior profundidade seus negócios para uma amostra equivalente a 50% do valor de mercado das top 100 empresas de mineração do mundo para o período entre 2002 e 2014. Por fim, abordamos, sob a forma de estudo de caso, questões relevantes na diversificação como a eficiência e a disciplina na alocação de capital. Nosso estudo confirmou que existe uma correlação negativa entre o risco e o grau de diversificação e que há sinais que sugerem que as companhias mais focadas possuem maior disciplina na alocação do capital, e, com isso geram mais valor para seus acionistas.

Environmental regulation, technology adoption and structural transformation: evidence from Brazilian sugarcane industry

We estimate the effects of the adoption of mechanized agriculture led by a new environmental regulation on structural change of local labor markets within a large emerging country, Brazil. In 2002, the state of S\~{a}o Paulo passed a law outlying the timeline to end sugarcane pre-harvest burning in the state. The environmental law led to the fast adoption of mechanized harvest. We investigate if the labor intensity of sugarcane production decreases; and, if so, if it leads to structural changes in the labor market. We use satellite data containing the type of sugarcane harvesting -- manual or mechanic harvest -- paired with official labor market data.%, also geomorphometric data base for our instrumental variable correction. We find suggestive evidence that mechanization of the field led to an increase in utilization of formal workers and a reduction in formal labor intensity in the sugarcane sector. This is partially compensated by an increase in the share of workers in other agricultural crops and in the construction and services sector. Although we find a reduction in employment in the manufacturing sector, the demand generated by the new agro-industries affected positively the all sectors via an increase in workers' wage.

Revisiting modern portfolio theory

This paper revisits Modern Portfolio Theory and derives eleven properties of Efficient Allocations and Portfolios in the presence of leverage. With different degrees of leverage, an Efficient Portfolio is a linear combination of two portfolios that lie in different efficient frontiers - which allows for an attractive reinterpretation of the Separation Theorem. In particular a change in the investor risk-return preferences will leave the allocation between the Minimum Risk and Risk Portfolios completely unaltered - but will change the magnitudes of the tactical risk allocations within the Risk Portfolio. The paper also discusses the role of diversification in an Efficient Portfolio, emphasizing its more tactical, rather than strategic character

Gestao tecnologia: um estudo de caso no setor sucroalcooleiro

PEDRO, Edilson da Silva Pedro. Gestão tecnológica: um estudo de caso no setor sucroalcooleiro. 2004. 145f. Dissertaçao (Mestrado em Engenharia de Producao) - Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos, Sao Carlos, 2004.

Turismo de eventos como estratégia no combate à sazonalidade: uma análise na hotelaria de Natal - RN

The aim of this work is to analyse the tourism events and the performance of this segment from market as strategy in the combat of Natal's hotel seasonality, in the executives/managers's vision from this sector. Two searches were realized to turn available this study: Inicialy a bibliographic search involving the concepts associated with the tematic in question so that it arranges the embasament theoric-scientific and a survey from facts through the country search, where it was applicable in the establishments of work's population with the auxiliary from a formulary answered by a personal interview. The analyses techniques through facts were: estatistic descritive and Kolmogorov-smirnov test.Among the results found, it was verified that the main reasons alleged by the hotels to ingress in the segment from the events were the alinement from the competitive company, the diversification in the options in the sense of occupy the establishments during the period of low season and answer to the demand of market. Investigated the profile from the events occured in the Natal hotels referring to the port, public origin , kinds of events and frequency from their realizations, as well as , the capacity from these establishments to attend this segment.It was noticed that in spite of the hotels agree that the events are important estrategies to combat the seasonality, the establishments still suffer with the flutuation, what can be justified from the moment that it's considered that the events also behave from seasonal manner, having more concentration in certain periods from the year. It was evaluated that the main advantage noticed by the realization from the hotels's events is the utilization from alimentation and drinking services, surpassing the advantage from elevation of taxes occupation from the apartments

Pessoas com deficiência no mercado de trabalho: considerações sobre políticas públicas nos Estados Unidos, União Europeia e Brasil

Atualmente, discussões a respeito da construção de uma sociedade inclusiva, ou seja, responsiva às diferenças, têm ocorrido em diversos países. de acordo com os princípios da inclusão social, a participação das pessoas com deficiência na sociedade depende de profundas transformações, cabendo à sociedade prover os suportes necessários para que esses indivíduos tenham acesso a todos os recursos disponíveis no meio social e, além disso, ao convívio de maneira não-segregada. Uma questão importante, nesse sentido, é a elaboração de políticas públicas no âmbito do trabalho voltadas para pessoas com deficiência. Embora o acesso ao trabalho seja considerado um dos principais direitos civis dos indivíduos, as pessoas com deficiência ainda encontram diversas barreiras para ingressar no mercado profissional. Partindo dessas afirmações, este artigo teve como objetivo discutir alguns dos principais aspectos das políticas de emprego adotadas nos Estados Unidos, na União Europeia e no Brasil para favorecer a inserção desses indivíduos no mercado de trabalho. Para tanto, três documentos legais, sendo um Nacional, um procedente dos Estados Unidos e outro, da União Europeia, foram analisados quanto aos itens: a) ano de publicação do documento; b) objetivos; c) definição de deficiência; e d) estratégias de inserção da pessoa com deficiência no mercado de trabalho. A partir das considerações realizadas, pode-se dizer que existem avanços e divergências nas políticas de emprego e que estas estão relacionadas às particularidades de cada um dos contextos; no entanto, existe uma preocupação comum em garantir à pessoa com deficiência o ingresso na atividade profissional.

Viabilidade econômica do cultivo de shiitake em diferentes escalas de produção

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

Chromosome differentiation patterns during cichlid fish evolution

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