A modernização do atraso : os fundamentos da urbanização de Vitória-1889-1930

Esta dissertação volta-se para a investigação da modernização da cidade de Vitória durante a passagem do século XIX ao XX. Trata-se, especificamente, da tentativa de compreender a modernização de Vitória no seu conteúdo arcaico, no sentido de, no conjunto das estratégias do poder, preservarem-se interesses de estruturas sociais anteriores, para um novo contexto econômico e sociopolítico. O referencial teórico de análise pressupôs apreender a cidade (seu espaço construído) articulada à estrutura econômica, enquanto condições urbanas necessárias à reprodução do capital. Para tal efeito, foi necessário compreender as implicações da metamorfose da riqueza, representada anteriormente pela propriedade do escravo e transferida para a propriedade da terra. Nessa tarefa, investigamos a hegemonia dos interesses da instância mercantil-exportadora do capital que dominou o aparelho de Estado e dirigiu o processo. A interferência dessa fração do capital no processo foi compreendida a partir da estruturação do poder no Espírito Santo processada na reorganização das bases da produção de café na transição do trabalho escravo para o livre. Através da modernização da cidade, foram criadas novas alternativas de valorização do capital por intermédio da construção da cidade (habitações, edifícios públicos, infraestrutura e serviços urbanos). Contudo, não se verificou de forma significativa desdobramento do excedente acumulado na esfera do comércio em atividades produtivas modernas (multiplicadoras da riqueza). Nesse processo, surge a perspectiva de a valorização da propriedade imobiliária como expressão do desenvolvimento das condições gerais da produção e da reprodução do trabalho possibilitar rendas futuras crescentes ao capital. O que indica uma urbanização fundamentalmente dominada pelos interesses mercantil-exportadores e patrimonialistas, revelando um forte traço de atraso da modernização da cidade em seu papel de centro comercial da economia regional.

Trajetória do crescimento da cidade de Colatina

It approaches the growth of the city of Colatina-ES, the county seat that has urban economy and urban population, and territory with most of the rural area. Rural areas, however, contribute little to the city s economy and are largely environmentally degraded, idle and waiting for recovery. The objective is to understand the growth of the city of Colatina, and the factors and consequences of this growth. Land division projects, investments and interventions in urban and rural areas were collected for the analysis. As a median-sized city characterized by central and regional polarity, but outside of the main investments in the state, Colatina seeks to take advantage of its situation of commercial warehouse city and road junction to stay alive in the regional economy. The citys economy is based on trade and services, but seeks to attract investment to the industry and logistics. The expansion of the city since the early formation follows the road system, which creates a dispersed spatiality. The characteristics of the urban growth of Colatina are the result of economic development strategies, interests in the property market and a government that abstains from urban control. These factors lead a sprawl urbanization that presents itself costly and not sustainable for urban and rural areas because it creates segregation, higher infrastructure costs, low-density and monofunctional urban spaces, pollution, and worsening of environmental depletion. The challenges for sustainable growth of the city of Colatina depends on a municipal and regional planning, which qualifies and diversifies its urban areas, avoids unnecessary expansion of the urban perimeter, retrieves its environmental degraded areas and leverages the agricultural activities in a productive and less aggressive way to the environment

Análise e gestão de risco de vendas a crédito

Mestrado em Contabilidade e Gestão de Instituições Financeiras

Services innovation and economic performance: An analysis at the firm

In this paper we estimate a model linking innovation effort and economic performance, along the lines of the Mairesse and Mohnen (2003) model. We examine this relationship in the context of services sectors instead of Research and Development intensive manufacturing sectors. Much effort has already been made to explore the innovation-performance relationship for manufacturing sectors but it is still much understudied for services, particularly for Portugal. In this paper we aim to take a step in fulfilling this gap. We use new firm level data for ten services sectors from the Second Community Innovation Survey of Portugal, to estimate the model.

Determinants of Portuguese trade: 1986-2010

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Should my company use Bitcoin?

This work project analyses the possibility for a company to trade their goods and services for bitcoins, by joining the Bitcoin network. It analyses the technological and business requirements to join the Bitcoin Network by looking at Bitcoin’s potential to act as a mean of exchange for trade, unit of account and store of value. The analysis points to the motives, benefits and risks for investors to use the Bitcoin as a traditional currency and recommends on strategies for addressing those risks and maximizing benefits. Other than companies this report, to a lesser extent, will also analyse the Bitcoin from an investor’s point of view, this is, should an investor buy bitcoins for trade and make savings on a regular and everyday basis? A major finding in this work project is that companies could start using the Bitcoin system as a legit form of payment since the benefits of using this technology outweigh the costs and risks, given the right approach. This form of payment will contribute for the upgrade of a company’s business’ image, attract a new pool of consumers and businesses that already trade in bitcoins and pressure existing financial institutions and electronic payment vendors to upgrade their service levels.

The trading relationship between the EU and Mercosur: the mediatory role of Brazil

Dissertação de mestrado em European and Transglobal Business Law

Search and bargaining in large markets with homogeneous traders

We study pair-wise decentralized trade in dynamic markets with homogeneous, non-atomic, buyers and sellers that wish to exchange one unit. Pairs of traders are randomly matched and bargaining a price under rules that offer the freedom to quit the match at any time. Market equilbria, prices and trades over time, are characterized. The asymptotic behavior of prices and trades as frictions (search costs and impatience) vanish, and the conditions for (non) convergence to walrasian prices are explored. As a side product of independent interest, we present a self-contained theory of non-cooperative bargaining with two-sided, time-varying, outside options.

Colombian international trade from a physical perspective: towards an ecologial "Prebisch Thesis"

Prebisch's approach to economic development was based on the notion that there is an international historical division of labour. Peripheral countries are specialized in exporting primary goods while centre countries export industrial goods. The Terms of trade for peripheral countries tend to deteriorate. This approach can be extendend to ecological issues. The international Centre-Periphery division does not only involve the monetary exchange of goods and capital, but also the physical exchange in which Southern countries provide materials and energy so that Northern countries can develop their socioconomic metabolism. This metabolism process is guaranteed through cheap prices for primary goods. This paper aims to apply and extend Prebisch's thought on unequal exchange, both monetary and ecological, in relation to colombian trade in the period 1970-2002, using material flow analysis.

The intra-industry trade for a high-income country: new empirical evidence for Italy

This paper examines the determinants of Italian intra-industry trade in horizontally and vertically differentiated products, using a dataset which eliminates the effects linked to the hypothesis of homogeneity both between countries - when specific industry characteristics are analysed - and between sectors - within the same country. In this way, within limits, we have tried to address an issue raised by Greenaway et al. in 1999 which, in the light of the current state of the literature on intra-industry trade, does not seem to have been explicitly dealt with. Our paper highlights how strong the impact of this hypothesis could be in the analyses of the determinants of intraindustry trade in the case of Italy.

Trade Costs, International Competition and Selection: The Effects of Unionisation on Market Size

Within a two-country model of international trade in which heterogeneous firms face firm-specific unions, we study the effects of different forms of trade liberalisation on market structure and competitive selection in the presence of inter-country asymmetries in size and labour market institutions. For given levels of trade openness, an increase in a country’s relative unions’ strength reduces the average productivity of its domestic producers but increases that of its exporters. Whilst an unfavourable union power differential, by increasing wages, weakens a country’s firms’ competitive position, the higher wages reinforce standard market access mechanisms to give rise to aggregate income effects. When the initial levels of trade openness are sufficiently low, this ‘expansionary’ aggregate effect can attract industry in the country with stronger unions and also result in an increase in the extensive margin of exports. For sufficiently large inter-country differences in the bargaining power of unions, trade liberalization can then result in a pro-variety effect, with an increase in the total availability of varieties to consumers in both countries, regardless of there being inter-country differences in size.

Factor Proportions and the Growth of World Trade

Most of the expansion of global trade during the last three decades has been of the North-South kind - between capital-abundant developed and labour-abundant developing countries. Based on this observation, I argue that the recent growth of world trade is best understood from a factor-proportions perspective. I present novel evidence documenting that differences in capital-labour ratios across countries have increased in the wake of two shocks to the global economy: i) the opening up of China and ii) financial globalisation and the resulting upstream capital flows towards capital-abundant regions. I analyse their impact on specialisation and the volume of trade in a dynamic model which combines factor-proportions trade in goods with international trade in financial assets. Calibrating this model, I find that it can account for 60% of world trade growth between 1980 and 2007. It is also capable of predicting international investment patterns which are consistent with the data

The Quest for Regulating the Global Diamond Trade

Campaign efforts by NGOs initially put conflict diamonds on the global radar screen in the late 1990s. In response, the Kimberley Process (KP), a negotiation forum between states, NGOs, and industry, was formed to discuss possible solutions to curb the trade in conflict diamonds. Less than three years later, a voluntary, global certification named the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) was adopted. The KPCS regulates the trade of rough diamonds by certifying all legitimate diamonds. This paper outlines the problem of conflict diamonds, how a global campaign raised awareness about the issue, and how the process of solution building unfolded in the KP. My analysis focuses on the diverse set of actors (NGOs, states, and industry) and their changing interactions over the course of the campaign and global regulation efforts. I conclude with several key lessons that capture important elements observed in this case study.

Health at a glance: Europe 2012.

This second edition of Health at a Glance: Europe presents a set of key indicators of health and health systems in 35 European countries, including the 27 European Union member states, 5 candidate countries and 3 EFTA countries. The selection of indicators is based largely on the European Community Health Indicators (ECHI) shortlist, a list of indicators that has been developed by the European Commission to guide the development and reporting of health statistics. It is complemented by additional indicators on health expenditure and quality of care, building on the OECD expertise in these areas. Contents: Introduction 12 Chapter 1. Health status 15 1.1. Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy at birth 1.2. Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy at age 65 1.3. Mortality from all causes 1.4. Mortality from heart disease and stroke 1.5. Mortality from cancer 1.6. Mortality from transport accidents 1.7. Suicide 1.8. Infant mortality 1.9. Infant health: Low birth weight 1.10. Self-reported health and disability 1.11. Incidence of selected communicable diseases 1.12. HIV/AIDS 1.13. Cancer incidence 1.14. Diabetes prevalence and incidence 1.15. Dementia prevalence 1.16. Asthma and COPD prevalence Chapter 2. Determinants of health 49 2.1. Smoking and alcohol consumption among children 2.2. Overweight and obesity among children 2.3. Fruit and vegetable consumption among children 2.4. Physical activity among children 2.5. Smoking among adults 2.6. Alcohol consumption among adults 2.7. Overweight and obesity among adults 2.8. Fruit and vegetable consumption among adults Chapter 3. Health care resources and activities 67 3.1. Medical doctors 3.2. Consultations with doctors 3.3. Nurses 3.4. Medical technologies: CT scanners and MRI units 3.5. Hospital beds 3.6. Hospital discharges 3.7. Average length of stay in hospitals 3.8. Cardiac procedures (coronary angioplasty) 3.9. Cataract surgeries 3.10. Hip and knee replacement 3.11. Pharmaceutical consumption 3.12. Unmet health care needs Chapter 4. Quality of care 93 Care for chronic conditions 4.1. Avoidable admissions: Respiratory diseases 4.2. Avoidable admissions: Uncontrolled diabetes Acute care 4.3. In-hospital mortality following acute myocardial infarction 4.4. In-hospital mortality following stroke Patient safety 4.5. Procedural or postoperative complications 4.6. Obstetric trauma Cancer care 4.7. Screening, survival and mortality for cervical cancer 4.8. Screening, survival and mortality for breast cancer 4.9. Screening, survival and mortality for colorectal cancer Care for communicable diseases 4.10. Childhood vaccination programmes 4.11. Influenza vaccination for older people Chapter 5. Health expenditure and financing 117 5.1. Coverage for health care 5.2. Health expenditure per capita 5.3. Health expenditure in relation to GDP 5.4. Health expenditure by function. 5.5. Pharmaceutical expenditure 5.6. Financing of health care 5.7. Trade in health services Bibliography 133 Annex A. Additional information on demographic and economic context 143 Most European countries have reduced tobacco consumption via public awareness campaigns, advertising bans and increased taxation. The percentage of adults who smoke daily is below 15% in Sweden and Iceland, from over 30% in 1980. At the other end of the scale, over 30% of adults in Greece smoke daily. Smoking rates continue to be high in Bulgaria, Ireland and Latvia (Figure 2.5.1). Alcohol consumption has also fallen in many European countries. Curbs on advertising, sales restrictions and taxation have all proven to be effective measures. Traditional wine-producing countries, such as France, Italy and Spain, have seen consumption per capita fall substantially since 1980. Alcohol consumption per adult rose significantly in a number of countries, including Cyprus, Finland and Ireland (Figure 2.6.1).This resource was contributed by The National Documentation Centre on Drug Use.

Portraying innovation in the public service of Brazil: Frameworks, systematization and characterization

ABSTRACT Innovation is essential for improving organizational performance in both the private and public sectors. This article describes and analyzes the 323 innovation experiences of the Brazilian federal public service that received prizes during the 16 annual competitions (from 1995 to 2012) of the Award for Innovation in Federal Public Management held by the Brazilian National School of Public Administration (ENAP). It is a qualitative and quantitative study in which were employed as categories for analysis the four types of innovation defined in the Copenhagen Manual: product, process, organizational and communication. The survey results allow us to affirm that there is innovation in the public sector, in spite of the skepticism of some researchers and the incipient state of theoretical research on the subject. It was possible to observe that organizational innovation was the one with the highest number of award- -winning experience, followed respectively by process, communication and product innovation, with citizen services and improvement of work processes being the main highlights. The results showed that, although the high incidence of innovation occurs at the national level, a significant number of innovations also occur at the local level, probably because many organizations of the federal government have their actions spread only at this level of government. Concerning the innovative area, health and education predominate, with almost 33% of initiatives, which can be explained by capillarity of these areas and the fact that both maintain a strong interaction with the user. The contributions of this work include the use of theoretical model of innovation analysis in the public sector in Brazil still upcoming, and the systematization of knowledge in empirical basis for this innovation. In this sense, it also contributes to the development of the theory with the presentation of evidence that the characteristics, determinants and consequences of innovation in the public sector differ not only from innovation in the industry, but also from innovation in services in the private sector.