Long run relationships and price rigidity

I study a repeated buyer-seller relationship for the exchange of a givengood. Asymmetric information over the buyer's reservation price, which issubject to random shocks, may lead the seller to use a rigid pricing policydespite the possibility of making higher profits through price discriminationacross the different satates of the buyer's reservation price. The existence of a flexible price subgame perfect equilibrium is shown for the buyerssufficiently locked-in. When the seller faces a population of buyers whose degree of involvmentin the relatioship is unknown, the flexible price equilibrium is notnecessarily optimal. Thus tipically the seller will prefer to use therigid price strategy. A learning process allowing the seller to screenthe population of buyers is derived abd the existence of a switching pointbetween the two regimes (i.e. price rigidity and price felxibility) isshown.

Relationships of Scincid Lizards (Mabuya spp; Reptilia: Scincidae) from the Cape Verde Islands Based on Mitochondrial and Nuclear DNA Sequences

Partial DNA sequences from two mitochondrial (mt) and one nuclear gene (cytochrome b, 12S rRNA, and C-mos) were used to estimate the phylogenetic relationships among the six extant species of skinks endemic to the Cape Verde Archipelago. The species form a monophyletic unit, indicating a single colonization of the islands, probably from West Africa. Mabuya vaillanti and M. delalandii are sister taxa, as indicated by morphological characters. Mabuya fogoensis and M. stangeri are closely related, but the former is probably paraphyletic. Mabuya spinalis and M. salensis are also probably paraphyletic. Within species, samples from separate islands always form monophyletic groups. Some colonization events can be hypothesized, which are in line with the age of the islands. C-mos variation is concordant with the topology derived from mtDNA.

O mercado de Obrigações Corporate em Cabo Verde, potencialidades de crescimento e desenvolvimento. Estudo de Caso: Empréstimo Obrigacionista da ASA – Aeroportos e Segurança Aérea, SA

As obrigações constituem uma das formas de eleição de financiamento para as empresas e são um dos instrumentos financeiros mais utilizados em todo o mundo. Destacam-se, como um dos produtos financeiros privilegiados para investidores conservadores visto que, asseguram contratualmente, a data do pagamento dos juros e do reembolso do empréstimo além do montante dos juros, tratando-se neste caso da modalidade de taxa fixa. Até ao momento, três empresas emitiram Obrigações em Cabo Verde. Electra, Empresa Nacional de Electricidade e Água, SARL, Tecnicil, Sociedade de Imobiliária e Construções, SA e ASA, Empresa Nacional de Aeroportos e Segurança Aérea, SA.

Generating global brand equity through corporate social responsibility to key stakeholders

In this paper we argue that corporate social responsibility (CSR) to various stakeholders(customers, shareholders, employees, suppliers, and community) has a positive effect on globalbrand equity (BE). In addition, policies aimed at satisfying community interests help reinforcecredibility to social responsible polices with other stakeholders. We test these theoreticalcontentions using panel data comprised of 57 global brands originating from 10 countries (USA,Japan, South Korea, France, UK, Italy, Germany, Finland, Switzerland and the Netherlands) forthe period 2002 to 2008. Our findings show that CSR to each of the stakeholder groups has apositive impact on global BE. In addition, global brands that follow local social responsibilitypolicies over communities obtain strong positive benefits in terms of the generation of BE, as itenhances the positive effects of CSR to other stakeholders, particularly to customers. Therefore,for managers of global brands it is particularly productive for generating brand value to combineglobal strategies with the satisfaction of the interests of local communities.

Subset correspondence analysis: Visualizing relationships among a selected set of response categories from a questionnaire survey

It is shown how correspondence analysis may be applied to a subset of response categories from a questionnaire survey, for example the subset of undecided responses or the subset of responses for a particular category. The idea is to maintain the original relative frequencies of the categories and not re-express them relative to totals within the subset, as would normally be done in a regular correspondence analysis of the subset. Furthermore, the masses and chi-square metric assigned to the data subset are the same as those in the correspondence analysis of the whole data set. This variant of the method, called Subset Correspondence Analysis, is illustrated on data from the ISSP survey on Family and Changing Gender Roles.

Micro-insurance through corporate-NGO partnerships in West Bengal : opportunities and constraints

This Practical Note examines the nascent micro-insurance sector in West Bengal, paying particular attention to the corporate- NGO partnership model for micro-insurance distribution,which has been enabled by India's unique regulatory framework. We challenge the popularconstruction of this model as a 'win - win' for all parties by analysing conflicting understandings of micro-insurance schemes and their purposes by insurance companies, NGOs, and poorvillagers. The article also considers the role of the specific political context of West Bengal inconstricting corporate- NGO micro-insurance

Like Man, Like Woman: Roman Women, Gender Qualities and Conjugal Relationships at the Turn of the First Century

Modern scholarship often discusses Roman women in terms of their difference from their male counterparts, frequently defining them as 'other'. This book shows how Roman male writers at the turn of the first century actually described women as not so different from men: the same qualities and abilities pertaining to the domains of parenthood, intellect and morals are ascribed by writers to women as well as to men. There are two voices, however: a traditional, ideal voice and an individual, realistic voice. This creates a duality of representations of women, which recurs across literary genres and reflects a duality of mentality. How can we interpret the paradoxical information about Roman women given by the male-authored texts? How does this duality of mentality inform us about gender roles and gender hierarchy? This work analyses well-known, as well as overlooked, passages from the writings of Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Suetonius, Quintilian, Statius, Martial and Juvenal and sheds new light on Roman views of women and their abilities, on the notions of private and public and on conjugal relationships. In the process, the famous sixth satire of Juvenal is revisited and its topic reassessed, providing further insights into the complex issues of gender roles, marriage and emotions. By contrasting representations of women across a broad spectrum of literary genres, this book provides consistent findings that have wide significance for the study of Latin literature and the social history of the late first and early second centuries.

Determinants of Corporate Disclosure : A Multicountry, Multilevel Model

Abstract The complexity of the current business world is making corporate disclosure more and more important for information users. These users, including investors, financial analysts, and government authorities rely on the disclosed information to make their investment decisions, analyze and recommend shares, and to draft regulation policies. Moreover, the globalization of capital markets has raised difficulties for information users in understanding the differences incorporate disclosure across countries and across firms. Using a sample of 797 firms from 34 countries, this thesis advances the literature on disclosure by illustrating comprehensively the disclosure determinants originating at firm systems and national systems based on the multilevel latent variable approach. Under this approach, the overall variation associated with the firm-specific variables is decomposed into two parts, the within-country and the between-country part. Accordingly, the model estimates the latent association between corporate disclosure and information demand at two levels, the within-country and the between-country level. The results indicate that the variables originating from corporate systems are hierarchically correlated with those from the country environment. The information demand factor indicated by the number of exchanges listed and the number of analyst recommendations can significantly explain the variation of corporate disclosure for both "within" and "between" countries. The exogenous influences of firm fundamentals-firm size and performance-are exerted indirectly through the information demand factor. Specifically, if the between-country variation in firm variables is taken into account, only the variables of legal systems and economic growth keep significance in explaining the disclosure differences across countries. These findings strongly support the hypothesis that disclosure is a response to both corporate systems and national systems, but the influence of the latter on disclosure reflected significantly through that of the former. In addition, the results based on ADR (American Depositary Receipt) firms suggest that the globalization of capital markets is harmonizing the disclosure behavior of cross-boundary listed firms, but it cannot entirely eliminate the national features in disclosure and other firm-specific characteristics.

Stratigraphical discontinuities, tropical landscape evolution and soil distribution relationships in a case study in SE-Brazil

On a regional summit surface in the county of Piracicaba (SP) within the Peripheric Depression of São Paulo, formed of discontinued flattened tops, there is an abrupt transition between a Typic Hapludox and a Kandiudalfic Eutrudox, together with two stoneline layers. Using stratigraphical, mineralogical, and cartographic studies, this transition and the soil distribution of this surface were studied, correlating them with the different parent materials and the morphoclimatic model of landscape evolution in Southeastern Brazil. The Typic Hapludox was formed on a sandy Cenozoic deposit (Q) that overlies a pellitic deposit of the Iratí formation (Pi), representing a regional erosive discordance. Westwards to the Piracicaba River, this sequence is interrupted by a diabase sill overlain by a red clayey material which gave origin to the Kandiudalfic Eutrudox. Two post-Permian depositional events were identified by the two stonelines and stratigraphical discontinuities. The first event generated the deposition of a sandy sediment in the form of levelled alveoluses on regional barriers, most of these formed by dikes and diabase sills, probably during a drier phase. The second depositional event, leading to the deposition of the red clay was probably the dissection of the previously formed pediplane during a humid climate, followed by another pedimentation process during a later, drier period.

El Misterio de la biblioteca Mil.lènium o cómo promover relaciones colaborativas desde la participación del alumnado = The Mystery of the Mil.lènium Library: How to Promote Collaborative Relationships Through Student Participation

La pedagogía crítica acentúa la falta de neutralidad de la escuela respecto a las relaciones de poder que existen en la sociedad. Su propuesta consiste en modificar las relaciones de poder en el aula en el sentido de transformar las relaciones coercitivas –las que reproducen las relaciones existentes– en relaciones colaborativas partiendo del reconocimiento y la participación de los alumnos en las actividades escolares. Desde esta perspectiva, uno de los objetivos de las actividades es que los niños produzcan «textos identitarios», entendidos como artefactos que los alumnos se pueden apropiar para promover su desarrollo cognitivo. El artículo muestra el trabajo educativo integrado desde Educación Infantil hasta 6.º de Primaria de una escuela de la provincia de Girona en la que el 97% de los alumnos es de origen extranjero y cuyo propósito es incrementar las habilidades lingüísticas orales y escritas en la lengua escolar, así como la utilización de otros lenguajes multimedia. La unidad didáctica consiste en la elaboración de un cuento a lo largo de un curso escolar por parte de todo el alumnado con la ayuda de los profesores, de dos autores y de tres ilustradores. Cada ciclo escolar decide los personajes y el escenario y explicita textualmente el transcurso de la acción. Los ilustradores producen las imágenes y los autores posibilitan la transición de aquello que ha elaborado un ciclo al producto del siguiente. La actividad basada en la participación y la utilización de procedimientos democráticos de decisión se inserta en la propuesta educativa y lingüística de la escuela, así como en sus concreciones curriculares. Los resultados muestran que los textos construidos por los niños se apoyan en sus «fondos de conocimiento» sociales y familiares y constituyen una fuente de progreso en la consecución de las competencias básicas y en la construcción de valores democráticos

Corporate governance and corporate social performance

By integrating the agency and stakeholder perspectives, this study aims to provide a systematic understanding of the firm- and institutional-level corporate governance factors that affect corporate social performance (CSP). We analyze a large global panel dataset and reveal that CSP is positively associated with board independence, but negatively with ownership concentration. These results underscore the idea that the benefits of CSP do not flow to shareholders to the same extent as the costs and that the allocation of resources to CSP is lower when shareholders are powerful. Furthermore, these findings indicate that independent directors should be understood as agents in their own right, not only focused on defending shareholder interests. We also find that CSP is negatively related to investor protection and shareholder-oriented environments, while it is positively related to egalitarian environments. Finally, we jointly analyze firm-level drivers and institutional contexts.

Relationships between soil class and nutritional status of coffee plantations

Farm planning requires an assessment of the soil class. Research suggest that the Diagnosis and Recommendation Integrated System (DRIS) has the capacity to evaluate the nutritional status of coffee plantations, regardless of environmental conditions. Additionally, the use of DRIS could reduce the costs for farm planning. This study evaluated the relationship between the soil class and nutritional status of coffee plants (Coffea canephora Pierre) using the Critical Level (CL) and DRIS methods, based on two multivariate statistical methods (discriminant and multidimensional scaling analyses). During three consecutive years, yield and foliar concentration of nutrients (N, P, K, Ca, Mg, S, B, Zn, Mn, Fe and Cu) were obtained from coffee plantations cultivated in Espírito Santo state. Discriminant analysis showed that the soil class was an important factor determining the nutritional status of the coffee plants. The grouping separation by the CL method was not as effective as the DRIS one. The bidimensional analysis of Euclidean distances did not show the same relationship between plant nutritional status and soil class. Multidimensional scaling analysis by the CL method indicated that 93.3 % of the crops grouped into one cluster, whereas the DRIS method split the fields more evenly into three clusters. The DRIS method thus proved to be more consistent than the CL method for grouping coffee plantations by soil class.

Precarious Work: Agenda and Implications for Corporate Social Responsibility

Precarious work, in contrast to regular, permanent wage work, is commonly associated to insecure and unstable, and often poor quality jobs. The concept of precarious work relates either to a socioeconomic group which allows one to refer it to a "class in itself," or as - pursued more recently - to the precarization process which results in a growing fragmentation of societal structures. Common to both conceptions is that they refer to the exposition of workers to employment instability, limited access to legal and union protection, socially irresponsible and discriminating employment practices, and social and economic vulnerability in general. The present contribution provides an overview of some key issues and future directions of research on precarious work relevant to CSR researchers, policy-makers, and social scientists.