Sustainable and equitable retirement in a life course perspective

We argue that long term sustainability of social security systems requires not only better equilibrium between the proportion in retirement and in employment but also an equitable distribution of the additional financial burden that aging inevitably will require. We examine how a proportional fixed ratios model of burden sharing between the aged and non-aged will establish inter-generational equity. Additionally we address the question of intra-generational equity and argue that the positive association between lifetime income and longevity requires more progressive financing of pensions and of care for the elderly.

Business Organization and Coordination in Marketing Specialty Hogs: A Comparative Analysis of Two Firms from Iowa, November 2005

We study business organization and coordination of specialty-market hog production using a comparative analysis of two Iowa pork niche-marketing firms. We describe and analyze each firms management of five key organizational challenges: planning and logistics, quality assurance, process verication and management of �credence attributes,� business structure, and profit sharing. Although each firm is engaged in essentially the same activity, there are substantial differences across the two firms in the way production and marketing are coordinated. These differences are partly explained by the relative size and age of each firm, thus highlighting the importance of organizational evolution in agricultural markets, but are also partly the result of a formal organizational separation between marketing and production activities in one of the firm.

Estratègies de marketing per assolir l'èxit : llançament d'una revista per a joves

Actualment, en aquesta societat és difícil introduir un nou producte al mercat degut alshàbits de consum adquirits per la població. Per tal de superar aquests obstacles, el marketing actual s'ha tornat més complex i sofisticat. Per tot això, s’analitzaran els passos que s'han de seguir per tenir èxit a l'hora de llançar un nou producte.Per començar, s’enfocarà el tema en un únic producte, una revista dirigida a un públic entre 16 i 30 anys aproximadament. Així doncs, es suposarà una situació fictícia on una empresa independent, que està intentant introduir una nova publicació al mercat de la premsa escrita, contractarà un estudi de marketing per decidir els continguts de la revista, a quin tipus de consumidors estarà dirigida i analitzar els punts forts i febles de la competència per saber quina directriu hauria de seguir l’estratègia comercial.Seguidament, es decidirà la marca de la revista: el títol i el disseny del logotip. El preu òptim de llançament, els mitjans de comunicació que s’utilitzarien per donar a conèixer la revista, quins canals de distribució es seguirien i quins serien els punts de venda. Per tot això, es realitzaran enquestes i es faran diversos estudis sobre l’entorn general de l’empresa i la situació actual del sector.Amb tot això volem aconseguir el següent objectiu: ¿Quines estratègies de marketings'haurien de seguir per assolir l'èxit?

Collective Marketing Arrangements for Geographically Differentiated Agricultural Products: Welfare Impacts and Policy Implications, May 2006

This paper examines the incentive of atomistic agricultural producers within a specific geographical region to differentiate and collectively market products. We develop a model that allows us to analyze the market and welfare effects of the main types of real-world producer organizations, using it to derive economic insights regarding the circumstances under which these organizations will evolve, and describing implications of the results obtained in the context of an ongoing debate between the European Union and United States. As the anticipated fixed costs of development and marketing increase and the anticipated size of the market falls, it becomes essential to increase the ability of the producer organization to control supply in order to ensure the coverage of fixed costs. Whenever a collective organization allows a market (with a new product) to exist that otherwise would not have existed there is an increase in societal welfare. Counterintuitively, stronger property right protection for producer organizations may be welfare enhancing even after a differentiated product has been developed. The reason for this somewhat paradoxical result is that legislation aimed at curtailing the market power of producer organizations may induce large technological distortions.

Iowa Turkey Marketing Council, Independent Auditor's Reports, Financial Statement, Schedule of Findings, December 31, 2004 & 2005

State Audit Reports

The Sustainable Debts of Philip II: A Reconstruction of Spain's Fiscal Position, 1560-1598

The defaults of Philip II have attained mythical status as the origin of sovereign debt crises. Four times during his reign the king failed to honor his debts and had to renegotiate borrowing contracts. In this paper, we reassess the fiscal position of Habsburg Spain. New archival evidence allows us to derive comprehensive estimates of debt and revenue. These show that primary surpluses were sufficient to make the king's debt sustainable in most scenarios. Spain's debt burden was manageable up to the 1580s, and its fiscal position only deteriorated for good after the defeat of the "Invincible Armada." We also estimate fiscal policy reaction functions, and show that Spain under the Habsburgs was at least as "responsible" as the US in the 20th century or as Britain in the 18th century. Our results suggest that the outcome of uncertain events such as wars may influence on a history of default more than strict adherence to fiscal rules.

Comunicação de Marketing na Formação da Imagem dos Destinos Turísticos: o caso de Cabo Verde

Segundo a Organização Mundial do Turismo (OMT), o turismo é a maior indústria do séc. XXI gerando anualmente milhares de milhões de dólares em divisas para a economia de inúmeros países. Por apresentar um conjunto de características muito específicas, o sucesso desta actividade é fortemente condicionado pela imagem que os turistas e potenciais turistas apresentam relativamente a um determinado destino. Apesar de existirem muitos factores que interferem na formação desta imagem, a comunicação de marketing é apontada, pelos investigadores, como um dos elementos que desempenha um papel crucial neste âmbito. O objecto do presente trabalho de investigação é a comunicação de marketing na formação da imagem dos destinos turísticos particularizando o arquipélago de Cabo Verde. O principal objectivo da pesquisa, é analisar a eficácia da comunicação de marketing de três organizações (Cabo Verde – Investimentos, União Nacional dos Operadores Turísticos e operador Soltropico), na promoção do arquipélago de Cabo Verde, enquanto destino turístico, no mercado português. Para a realização deste estudo empírico, foram definidas três hipóteses. Essas hipóteses foram testadas através do cruzamento da informação proveniente de uma entrevista realizada aos directores de marketing de cada uma das três organizações, com os dados obtidos a partir da análise de conteúdo dos instrumentos de comunicação que têm vindo a ser utilizados pelas respectivas entidades para promover o destino e com as respostas de um conjunto de 115 turistas portugueses, a um questionário cujo assunto se encontra relacionado com os principais atributos de Cabo Verde enquanto destino de férias. A investigação realizada permitiu verificar que, de uma forma geral, existe uma sintonia entre os atributos de Cabo Verde que as organizações têm intenção de divulgar, os atributos deste destino que são transmitidos pelos seus instrumentos comunicação e os principais atributos do arquipélago indicados pelos turistas portugueses. Contudo, os resultados do estudo revelam também a necessidade de se introduzir algumas correcções a nível de conteúdos e imagens que se encontram presentes nos instrumentos de comunicação de algumas das organizações, visando a criação de uma imagem mais atractiva deste destino.

Comunicação de Marketing na Formação da Imagem dos Destinos Turísticos: o caso de Cabo Verde

Segundo a Organização Mundial do Turismo (OMT), o turismo é a maior indústria do séc. XXI gerando anualmente milhares de milhões de dólares em divisas para a economia de inúmeros países. Por apresentar um conjunto de características muito específicas, o sucesso desta actividade é fortemente condicionado pela imagem que os turistas e potenciais turistas apresentam relativamente a um determinado destino. Apesar de existirem muitos factores que interferem na formação desta imagem, a comunicação de marketing é apontada, pelos investigadores, como um dos elementos que desempenha um papel crucial neste âmbito. O objecto do presente trabalho de investigação é a comunicação de marketing na formação da imagem dos destinos turísticos particularizando o arquipélago de Cabo Verde. O principal objectivo da pesquisa, é analisar a eficácia da comunicação de marketing de três organizações (Cabo Verde – Investimentos, União Nacional dos Operadores Turísticos e operador Soltropico), na promoção do arquipélago de Cabo Verde, enquanto destino turístico, no mercado português. Para a realização deste estudo empírico, foram definidas três hipóteses. Essas hipóteses foram testadas através do cruzamento da informação proveniente de uma entrevista realizada aos directores de marketing de cada uma das três organizações, com os dados obtidos a partir da análise de conteúdo dos instrumentos de comunicação que têm vindo a ser utilizados pelas respectivas entidades para promover o destino e com as respostas de um conjunto de 115 turistas portugueses, a um questionário cujo assunto se encontra relacionado com os principais atributos de Cabo Verde enquanto destino de férias. A investigação realizada permitiu verificar que, de uma forma geral, existe uma sintonia entre os atributos de Cabo Verde que as organizações têm intenção de divulgar, os atributos deste destino que são transmitidos pelos seus instrumentos comunicação e os principais atributos do arquipélago indicados pelos turistas portugueses. Contudo, os resultados do estudo revelam também a necessidade de se introduzir algumas correcções a nível de conteúdos e imagens que se encontram presentes nos instrumentos de comunicação de algumas das organizações, visando a criação de uma imagem mais atractiva deste destino.

STRATEGIES TO SURPASS THE VULNERABILITY OF THE SMALL ISLAND STATES WITH FEW RESOURCES: THE CASE OF CAPE VERDE

The problem of small Island Developing States (SIDS) is quite recent, end of the 80s and 90s, still looking for a theoretical consolidation. SIDS, as small states in development, formed by one or several islands geographically dispersed, present reduced population, market, territory, natural resources, including drinkable water, and, in great number of the cases, low level of economic activity, factors that together, hinder the gathering of scale economies. To these diseconomies they come to join the more elevated costs in transports and communications which, allies to lower productivities, to a smaller quality and diversification of its productions, which difficult its integration in the world economy. In some SIDS these factors are not dissociating of the few investments in infrastructures, in the formation of human resources and in productive investments, just as it happens in most of the developing countries. In ecological terms, many of them with shortage of natural resources, but integrating important ecosystems in national and world terms, but with great fragility relatively to the pollution action, of excessive fishing, of uncontrolled development of tourism, factors that, conjugated and associated to the stove effect, condition the climate and the slope of the medium level of the sea water and therefore could put in cause the own survival of some of them. The drive to the awareness of the international community towards its problems summed up with the accomplishment by the United Nations in the Barbados’s Conference, 1994 where the right to the development was emphasized, through the going up the appropriate strategies and the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of the SIDS. The orientation of the regional and international cooperation in that sense, sharing technology (namely clean technology and control and administration environmental technology), information and creation of capacity-building, supplying means, including financial resources, creating non discriminatory and just trade rules, it would drive to the establishment of a world system economically more equal, in which the production, the consumption, the pollution levels, the demographic politics were guided towards the sustainability. It constituted an important step for the recognition for the international community on the specificities of those states and it allowed the definition of a group of norms and politics to implement at the national, regional and international level and it was important that they continued in the sense of the sustainable development. But this Conference had in its origin previous summits: the Summit of Rio de Janeiro about Environment and Development, accomplished in 1992, which left an important document - the Agenda 21, in the Conference of Stockholm at 1972 and even in the Conference of Ramsar, 1971 about “Wetlands.” CENTRO DE ESTUDOS AFRICANOS Occasional Papers © CEA - Centro de Estudos Africanos 4 Later, the Valletta Declaration, Malta, 1998, the Forum of Small States, 2002, get the international community's attention for the problems of SIDS again, in the sense that they act to increase its resilience. If the definition of “vulnerability” was the inability of the countries to resist economical, ecological and socially to the external shocks and “resilience” as the potential for them to absorb and minimize the impact of those shocks, presenting a structure that allows them to be little affected by them, a part of the available studies, dated of the 90s, indicate that the SIDS are more vulnerable than the other developing countries. The vulnerability of SIDS results from the fact the they present an assemblage of characteristics that turns them less capable of resisting or they advance strategies that allow a larger resilience to the external shocks, either anthropogenic (economical, financial, environmental) or even natural, connected with the vicissitudes of the nature. If these vulnerability factors were grouped with the expansion of the economic capitalist system at world level, the economic and financial globalisation, the incessant search of growing profits on the part of the multinational enterprises, the technological accelerated evolution drives to a situation of disfavour of the more poor. The creation of the resilience to the external shocks, to the process of globalisation, demands from SIDS and of many other developing countries the endogen definition of strategies and solid but flexible programs of integrated development. These must be assumed by the instituted power, but also by the other stakeholders, including companies and organizations of the civil society and for the population in general. But that demands strong investment in the formation of human resources, in infrastructures, in investigation centres; it demands the creation capacity not only to produce, but also to produce differently and do international marketing. It demands institutional capacity. Cape Verde is on its way to this stage.

Soil and water conservation strategies and impact on sustainable livelihood in Cape Verde – Case study of Ribeira Seca watershed

Cape Verde, located off the coast of Senegal in western Africa, is a volcanic archipelago where a combination of human, climatic, geomorphologic and pedologic factors has led to extensive degradation of the soils. Like other Sahelian countries, Cape Verde has suffered the effects of desertification through the years, threatening the livelihood of the islands population and its fragile environment. In fact, the steep slopes in the ore agricultural islands, together with semi-arid and arid environments, characterized by an irregular and poorly distributed rainy season, with high intensity rainfall events, make dryland production a challenge. To survive in these fragile conditions, the stabilization of the farming systems and the maintenance of sustainable yields have become absolute priorities, making the islands an erosion control laboratory. Soil and water conservation strategies have been a centerpiece of the government0s agricultural policies for the last half century. Aiming to maintain the soil in place and the water inside the soil, the successive governments of Cape Verde have implemented a number of soil and water conservation techniques, the most common ones being terraces, half moons, live barriers, contour rock walls, contour furrows and microcatchments, check dams and reforestation with drought resistant species. The soil and water conservation techniques implemented have contributed to the improvement of the economical and environmental conditions of the treated landscape, making crop production possible, consequently, improving the livelihood of the people living on the islands. In this paper, we survey the existing soil and water conservation techniques, analyze their impact on the livelihood condition of the population through a thorough literature review and field monitoring using a semi-quantitative methodology and evaluate their effectiveness and impact on crop yield in the Ribeira Seca watershed. A brief discussion is given on the cost and effectiveness of the techniques to reduce soil erosion and to promote rainfall infiltration. Finally, we discuss the critical governance factors that lead to the successful implementation of such strategy in a country with scarce natural resources.

Audit report on the Iowa Turkey Marketing Council for the years ended December 31, 2006 and 2005

Audit report on the Iowa Turkey Marketing Council for the years ended December 31, 2006 and 2005

A Importância do Marketing no Sector Bancário - Caso Caixa Económica de Cabo Verde

Actualmente as empresas precisam adoptar as melhores praticas de gestão para se sobreviverem neste mercado competitivo e com tendencias em aumentar a competitividade cada vez mais, uma vez que estamos num mercado globalizado. Devido a esses acontecimentos é que o presente trabalho teve como objectivo maior conhecer a importância do marketing no sector bancário. A metodologia utilizada para a concretização desta pesquisa, no que se refere aos objectivos traçados foi a metodologia exploratóoria, onde consegui–se retratar os aspectos teóricos sobre o marketing, o marketing bancário, fazer um breve apanhado do sector e também realizou – se um estudo de caso na Caixa Económica de Cabo Verde - CECV. A fim de responder o problema da pesquisa optou – se pela utilização de duas técnicas de recolha de dados, nomeadamente, realização de uma entrevista com o coordenador de marketing da empresa em estudo e análise documental da mesma e conseguentemente foram analisados e interpretados as informações obtidas. Ficou provado que a empresa utiliza uma filosofia de marketing interno, assim como também se provou que realmente investir em marketing reflete de uma forma positiva evolução da quota do mercado da empresa. De uma forma geral o resultado obtido foi favorável (o que se esperava), constatando que na verdade o marketing é de grande importância na gestão da empresa estudada, pois contribui para o alcance dos seus objectivos.

O Marketing na Organização de Eventos Turisticos

O presente estudo aborda a temática do marketing na organização dos eventos turísticos da ilha de São Vicente, que tem como objectivo principal analisar a importância da adopção e aplicação das ferramentas do marketing e a sua contribuição para o sucesso desses eventos. A sua realização propiciou uma pesquisa do tipo exploratório com levantamento bibliográfico e de natureza qualitativa, e para alcançar os objectivos definidos desenvolveu-se um estudo de caso sobre o marketing e os eventos turísticos da ilha de São Vicente, com base na aplicação de uma entrevista estruturada aos organizadores e promotores de eventos da ilha. Os resultados da pesquisa foram apresentados e posteriormente propôs-se as linhas estratégicas do marketing para a melhoria dos eventos organizados na ilha. Dos resultados obtidos constatou-se que as empresas organizadoras dos eventos em São Vicente fazem uso das ferramentas do marketing para a divulgação e promoção dos seus eventos, apesar de não disporem de um plano de marketing específico e de ainda existirem algumas insuficiências que necessitam ser colmatadas para que os eventos turísticos ganhem a projecção e reconhecimento nacional e internacional que se pretende. As conclusões a que se chegou foram conseguidas através da análise das entrevistas, e também na qualidade de espectadora e apreciadora desses eventos. Espera-se que o estudo sirva de referência para todos os interessados nessa temática e futuros estudiosos, pesquisadores, ao mesmo tempo que seja uma chamada de atenção para as entidades responsáveis e com competência na área. The present study addresses the theme of marketing in the organization of events of interest in the island of São Vicente, and has as its main objective to analyze the importance of the adoption and implementation of marketing tools and their contribution to the success of such events. The realization initiated with a literature review, exploratory-type investigation, with a qualitative nature. To achieve our objectives we developed a case study on marketing and tourism events on the island of São Vicente, based on the application of a structured interview to the events’ organizers and promoters of the island. The search results were presented, and subsequently we’ve shown some marketing strategies that can be used for the improvement of the events organized on the island. From the results obtained, it was clear that the organizers of events in São Vicente make use of marketing tools for the dissemination and promotion of their events, despite not having a specific marketing plan. Besides, there are still some shortcomings that need to be fulfilled so that touristic events are projected to gain national and international recognition, as intended. The conclusions reached were obtained through analyses of interviews made, and also as a spectator and an appraiser of these events. It is hoped that the study will serve as a reference for anyone interested in this subject: future scholars, researchers, while serving, at the same time, as a reminder to those responsible and competent in the area.

The role of mycorrhizas in more sustainable oil palm cultivation

Oil palm is a significant and developing crop in many developing countries. The introduction of oil palm puts pressure on natural resources because it is often planted in cleared-cut land that previously supported other crops or was forested. This has led to environmental concerns which require attention. Hence it is important that new plantations are managed in a sustainable way to reduce the impact of oil palm cultivation on ecosystems whilst maximising yield and productivity to farmers. The application of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) technology is one option that can benefit both agronomic plant health and ecosystems. AMF have the potential to increase conventional agricultural productivity and are crucial for the sustainable functioning of agricultural ecosystems. This paper provides an insight into how AMF application might benefit oil palm cultivation through more sustainable management and the practical use of AMF for oil palm plantations.

Logistics-production, logistics-marketing and external integration: Their impact on performance

Highly competitive environments are leading companies to implement SupplyChain Management (SCM) to improve performance and gain a competitiveadvantage. SCM involves integration, co-ordination and collaborationacross organisations and throughout the supply chain. It means that SCMrequires internal (intraorganisational) and external (interorganisational)integration. This paper examines the Logistics-Production and Logistics-Marketing interfaces and their relation with the external integrationprocess. The study also investigates the causal impact of these internaland external relationships on the company s logistical service performance.To analyse this, an empirical study was conducted in the Spanish Fast MovingConsumer Goods (FMCG) sector.