The economic consequences of Portuguese State’s movement towards business sector

Over the last 36 years, the relationship with the Portuguese state-owned enterprises registered several dynamics: nationalizations, privatizations and corporatization of public services. However, until now the State Business Sector from a national accounts perspective was never analyzed. Based on data collected and compiled for the first time at Statistics Portugal, this PhD thesis aims to test, analyzing in eight dimensions, whether the weight of the State Business Sector increased and if it contributed positively to the Portuguese economy, from 2006 to 2010. In addition to this analysis, an overview of the economic theory of state intervention in the economy, the paradigm changes of public policy in the international context, the evolution of the Portuguese State Business Sector since 1974, accompanied with a business and national accounting perspective between 2006 and 2010, are also presented. The results allow us to conclude that, in general, the weight of the State Business Sector in the Portuguese economy increased and had a tendency of a positive contribution to its economic growth. The State Business Sector also contributed positively to the nominal labour productivity (although with a decreasing trend of contribution to growth over the period under review) and the profitability of the non-financial corporations sector (although impairing the overall ratio of this sector). Nonetheless, the State Business Sector contributed negatively to the fairness in compensation of employees (although with an improvement trend) and to the competitiveness of labour cost, investment and sectorial sustainability of the Portuguese economy (reinforced by a falling trend). The results also suggest that the State Business Sector had an economic behaviour closer to a welfare maximizing model than to a profit maximizing model. This distinct performance with respect to the institutional sector in which is included, highlights the need to study and reassess the relationship of the state with public corporations, in light of agency theory using micro-data. Lastly, contributions to improve the economic performance of the State Business Sector and future prospects of evolution are presented.

Russian Enterprise Restructuring - the Effect of Privatisation and Market Liberalisation on the Performance of Large Enterprises

The fundamental question in the transitional economies of the former Eastern Europe and Soviet Union has been whether privatisation and market liberalisation have had an effect on the performance of former state-owned enterprises. This study examines the effect of privatisation, capital market discipline, price liberalisation and international price exposure on the restructuring of large Russian enterprises. The performance indicators are sales, profitability, labour productivity and stock market valuations. The results do not show performance differences between state-owned and privatised enterprises. On the other hand, the expansion of the de novo private sector has been strong. New enterprises have significantly higher sales growth, profitability and labour productivity. However, the results indicate a diminishing effect of ownership. The international stock market listing has a significant positive effect on profitability, while the effect of domestic stock market listing is insignificant. The international price exposure has a significant positive increasing effect on profitability and labour productivity. International enterprises have higher profitability only when operating on price liberalised markets, however. The main results of the study are strong evidence on the positive effects of international linkages on the enterprise restructuring and the higher than expected role of new enterprises in the Russian economy.

Analysis of resource use efficiency of the spinning mills in Kerala

This thesis discusses the factors which influence the productive and financial performance of the spinning mills in Kerala. The study will also help to assess the effect of ongoing reforms in the industrial sector in India. The main objective of the study is to identify and analyse the factors affecting the efficiency of the spinning mills. The unique feature of the study is that it compares the performance of private sector in relation to its public counterparts and also performance of small sector in relation to medium sector. The study is carried out with reference to the relative performance of differmills in Kerala and to identify the sources of differences in performance. The study covers twenty one spinning mills in Kerala, of which ten are in the private sector, four under NTC, three under co—operat;ive sector and four under KSTC.Measured in terms of firm-size fifteen belong to small size with a spindleage of less than 26,000 and six are in the medium size with a spindleage of 26,000 to 50,0OO.1 The period of study is 1982-83 to 1991-92. Hence, only those companies, of which data of 10 years upto 1991-92 wereavailable, are taken for study.

The economics of chemical industry in kerala

The main purpose of the present study is to examine the growth and development problems of a new industry ,the chemical industry in the state of kerala. Problems of productivity and efficiency are studied with respect to the different branches of the industry such as fertilizers and insecticides basic inorganic and organic chemicals drugs and pharmaceuticals and miscellaneous chemicals. A study of partial input output linkages between the different chemical units is also attempted. The chemical industry is generally characterized by high linkage effects .These linkages could be used to generate subsidiary industries and thereby help in the growth and diversification of the industry. The efficiency of the working of individual units is also studied to understand the problems involved and to suggest remedial measures.

The competitiveness of domestic rice production in East Africa: A domestic resource cost approach in Uganda

The rapid increase of rice imports in sub-Saharan Africa under the unstable situation in the world rice market during the 2000s has made it an important policy target for the countries in the region to increase self-sufficiency in rice in order to enhance food security. Whether domestic rice production can be competitive with imported rice is a serious question in East African countries that lie close, just across the Arabian Sea, to major rice exporting countries in South Asia. This study investigates the international competitiveness of domestic rice production in Uganda in terms of the domestic resource cost ratio. The results show that rainfed rice cultivation, which accounts for 95% of domestic rice production, does not have a comparative advantage with respect to rice imported from Pakistan, the largest supplier of imported rice to Uganda. However, the degree of non-competitiveness is not serious, and a high possibility exists for Uganda’s rainfed rice cultivation to become internationally competitive by improving yield levels by applying more modern inputs and enhancing labour productivity. Irrigated rice cultivation, though very limited in area, is competitive even under the present input-output structure when the cost of irrigation infrastructure is treated as a sunk cost. If the cost of installing irrigation infrastructure and its operation and maintenance is taken into account, the types of irrigation development that are economically feasible are not large-scale irrigation projects, but are small- and microscale projects for lowland rice cultivation and rain-water harvesting for upland rice cultivation.

General systems perspective on achieving continuous synergy in a project organisation

Studies of construction labour productivity have revealed that limited predictability and multi-agent social complexity make long-range planning of construction projects extremely inaccurate. Fire-fighting, a cultural feature of construction project management, social and structural diversity of involved permanent organizations, and structural temporality all contribute towards relational failures and frequent changes. The main purpose of this paper is therefore to demonstrate that appropriate construction planning may have a profound synergistic effect on structural integration of a project organization. Using the general systems theory perspective it is further a specific objective to investigate and evaluate organizational effects of changes in planning and potentials for achieving continuous project-organizational synergy. The newly developed methodology recognises that planning should also represent a continuous, improvement-leading driving force throughout a project. The synergistic effect of the process planning membership duality fostered project-wide integration, eliminated internal boundaries, and created a pool of constantly upgrading knowledge. It maintained a creative environment that resulted in a number of process-related improvements from all parts of the organization. As a result labour productivity has seen increases of more than 30%, profits have risen from an average of 12% to more than 18%, and project durations have been reduced by several days.

Variation on the effects of the 2003 CAP reform and regional differences in the Italian olive oil sector

This paper analyses the impacts of the 2003 CAP reform on the production of Italian olive oil controlling for the regional differences in olive oil production as well as for the differences between years. Italian olive oil production time series data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network for the 2000-2010 period at regional level is used to examine the effect of the 2003 Fischler reform on the production of olive oil. Production costs and payments received by farmers to support their income are considered. The data were collected at micro level based on a sample of farms representative of the production systems in the country. In order to consider the differences in production among the regions, eight representative regions in terms of surveyed farms are considered: Liguria, Toscana, Umbria, Lazio, Campania, Calabria, Puglia and Sicilia. We found that the most important factors affecting the production of olive oil are the area under olive groves and labour productivity. Results also show no evidence that the level of payments have an impact to the level of production, however, the type of payments has. Future work should explore the impact of the 2003 reform into the technical and production efficiency of the Italian olive oil farmers. It would be interesting to link the measures introduced by the cross compliance and the management practices of the different farms to have a more complete picture of the various parameters influencing the production of olive oil.

A conceptual model of the role of marketing employees in marketing performance

In general, there is a gap in research in marketing in relation to understanding the role of marketing employees in organisational marketing performance. An exception to this is the performance of salespeople as a subset of all marketing employees. Broader human resource management research into the people-performance link is also severely limited The proposed model argues that marketing employees are one of an organisation's strategic assets and are essential to the superior performance of the firm. Based on the People and Performance model (Purcell et al. 2003), the current model conceptualises marketing employee competencies as a precursor to performance outcomes and is, specifically, concerned with identifying and understanding the nature of the marketing employee performance relationship. Of note, where current performance research, in the main, adopts intermediate measures of labour turnover and labour productivity, this model proposes a three-tiered approach to performance measurement.

Fortalecer la productividad y la calidad del empleo: el papel de las disposiciones laborales de los tratados de libre comercio y los sistemas nacionales de capacitación y formación profesional

Prólogo de Alicia Bárcena

Determinantes económicos del salario mínimo en países pequeños y abiertos: una aplicación para Centroamérica

Incluye Bibliografía

Coyuntura Laboral en América Latina y el Caribe: productividad laboral y distribución

Si bien las economías de América Latina y el Caribe crecieron menos en 2011 que en 2010, se lograron algunos avances en el ámbito laboral y los trabajadores se beneficiaron de un desempeño económico satisfactorio, en un contexto externo cada vez más complejo.La tasa de desempleo descendió de un 7,3% en 2010 a un 6,7% en 2011, debido a un aumento de medio punto porcentual de la tasa de ocupación urbana. Ambas tasas están en niveles inéditos desde hace mucho tiempo. También aumentó la proporción de los puestos de trabajo formales que cuentan con protección social y bajó el subempleo. Los salarios, tanto medios como mínimos, aumentaron en términos reales, aunque moderadamente.El desempeño económico y los resultados laborales fueron muy diferentes entre las subregiones. En América del Sur la tasa de desempleo cayó 0,6 puntos porcentuales, mientras en los países del norte de América Latina cedió 0,4 puntos porcentuales y en los países del Caribe subió 0,2 puntos porcentuales.Por otra parte, los datos muestran que en los mercados laborales persisten importantes brechas y graves problemas de inserción laboral, sobre todo para las mujeres y los jóvenes, que continúan padeciendo niveles desfavorables en cuanto a la tasa de desempleo y a otros indicadores laborales.En la segunda parte de este informe se revisa si los frutos del crecimiento económico y de los aumentos de productividad han sido distribuidos en forma equitativa entre trabajadores y empresas.Entre 2002 y 2008, el período del ciclo económico expansivo más reciente, de los 21 países de la región cuyos datos están disponibles, disminuyó la participación de las remuneraciones en el PIB en 13 de ellos, mientras que solo aumentó en 8. Esto indicaría una redistribución desfavorable a los trabajadores, que resulta preocupante en una región que se caracteriza por tener la distribución de ingreso más desigual del mundo.Esta evolución se explica porque a nivel mundial los salarios han crecido menos que la productividad. Más allá de la dimensión ética del tema, esto pone en peligro la sostenibilidad social y económica del crecimiento. Por ejemplo, una de las raíces de la reciente crisis financiera fue que, ante las pérdidas de ingresos de los asalariados estadounidenses, los hogares financiaron su consumo y su vivienda con un mayor endeudamiento, lo cual demostró no ser sostenible en el largo plazo. La persistencia de este fenómeno debilita tanto la contribución del mercado laboral a la asignación eficiente de los recursos como su función distributiva, con consecuencias negativas para la gobernabilidad democrática.En el debate a nivel global, entre las causas atribuibles a dicho empeoramiento distributivo se destacan la desregulación de los mercados y su impacto en la globalización financiera, un cambio tecnológico que favorece el capital frente al trabajo, así como el debilitamiento de las instituciones laborales. Se requiere, en consecuencia, un esfuerzo de políticas públicas que contribuyan a que los aumentos salariales no queden rezagados frente a los aumentos de productividad. En algunos países de la región, especialmente en América del Sur, se observan progresos interesantes durante la segunda mitad de la década pasada, reflejados en un positivo cambio de tendencia en la participación de las remuneraciones en el producto. Por ejemplo, en el Brasil se aprecia una recuperación de la participación de las remuneraciones en el PIB y se estima que la política de salarios mínimos orientada a la dinámica del mercado interno es una de las razones de este aumento.La región necesita crecer más y mejor. Se requiere incrementar continuamente su productividad como base de mejoras sostenidas del bienestar de la población y para reducir la brecha externa que separa a las economías de América Latina y el Caribe de las más avanzadas. También es imperativo reducir la desigualdad, lo que podría lograrse mediante una reducción de la brecha de productividad entre las empresas más modernas y la gran cantidad de empresas de baja productividad.Como se expone en este informe, durante el período entre 2002 y 2010 la región logró algunos avances, con un incremento anual de la productividad laboral del 1,5%. Estos progresos, sin embargo, están por debajo de los logros de otras regiones, como África subsahariana (2,1%); y, sobre todo, Asia oriental (8,3%, excluidos el Japón y la República de Corea);. Además, en muchos países de la región estas ganancias no se han distribuido de manera equitativa. De ahí la relevancia de asumir este doble reto: avanzar en los incrementos de la productividad y fortalecer los mecanismos para una distribución de las ganancias correspondientes que estimule la inversión y fortalezca los ingresos de los trabajadores y sus hogares.En 2012, la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL); y la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT); estiman que habrá un crecimiento económico regional levemente más bajo que en 2011, en el contexto de una economía mundial caracterizada por el enfriamiento de varios de sus principales motores económicos y una elevada incertidumbre relacionada, sobre todo, con las perspectivas de la zona del euro. Se prevé que la región continúe resistiendo bien en este contexto más adverso, gracias a las políticas que aprovecharon los períodos de un entorno más favorable. Esto se expresaría también en los mercados laborales, por lo que proyectamos un leve descenso de la tasa de desempleo, en un rango de hasta dos décimas de un punto porcentual, hasta alcanzar un 6,5%.

Education in basic skills and training for productive work

Includes bibliography

Potential and limits of health management reform in Chile

Includes bibliography

The dynamics of Mexican manufacturing exports

Includes bibliography

Latin American structuralism and economic theory

Includes bibliography