Drivers of Agricultural Physical Capital Development: Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses. Factor Markets Working Paper No. 18, February 2012

This paper aims to identify drivers of physical capital adjustments in agriculture. It begins with a review of some of the most important theories and modelling approaches regarding firms’ adjustments of physical capital, ranging from output-based models to more recent approaches that consider irreversibility and uncertainty. Thereafter, it is suggested that determinants of physical capital adjustments in agriculture can be divided into three main groups, namely drivers related to: i) expected (risk-adjusted) profit, ii) expected societal benefits and costs and iii) expected private nonpecuniary benefits and costs. The discussion that follows focuses on the determinants belonging to the first group and covers aspects related to product market conditions, technological conditions, financial conditions and the role of firm structure and organization. Furthermore, the role of subjective beliefs is emphasized. The main part of this paper is concerned with the demand side of the physical capital market and one section also briefly discusses some aspects related to supply of farm assets.

Will improved access to capital dampen the need for more agricultural land? A CGE analysis of agricultural capital markets and world-wide biofuel policies. Factor Markets Working Paper No. 48, May 2013

This paper analyses the consequences of enhanced biofuel production in regions and countries of the world that have announced plans to implement or expand on biofuel policies. The analysis considers biofuel policies implemented as binding blending targets for transportation fuels. The chosen quantitative modelling approach is two-fold: it combines the analysis of biofuel policies in a multi-sectoral economic model (MAGNET) with systematic variation of the functioning of capital and labour markets. This paper adds to existing research by considering biofuel policies in the EU, the US and various other countries with considerable agricultural production and trade, such as Brazil, India and China. Moreover, the application multi-sectoral modelling system with different assumptions on the mobility of factor markets allows for the observation of changes in economic indicators under different conditions of how factor markets work. Systematic variation of factor mobility indicates that the ‘burden’ of global biofuel policies is not equally distributed across different factors within agricultural production. Agricultural land, as the pre-dominant and sector-specific factor, is, regardless of different degrees of inter-sectoral or intra-sectoral factor mobility, the most important factor limiting the expansion of agricultural production. More capital and higher employment in agriculture will ease the pressure on additional land use – but only partly. To expand agricultural production at global scale requires both land and mobile factors adapted to increase total factor productivity in agriculture in the most efficient way.

Simulation Results of AgriPoliS about Diminishing Capital Subsidies and Restrictions. Factor Markets Working Document No. 55, June 2013

This paper investigates the impacts of high interest rates for borrowed capital and credit restrictions on the structural development of four European regions. The method used is the model AgriPoliS which is a spatial-dynamic agent-based model. It is able to provide aggregated results at the regional level, but very individual results as well by considering farms as independent entities. Farms can choose between different investment options during the simulation. Several scenarios with different interest rates for borrowed capital on the one hand as well as with different levels of credit restrictions on the other hand are tested and compared. Results show that higher interest rates have less impact on declining production branches than on expanding ones. If they have the possibility farms invest in the most profitable production branch which relative profitability might have changed with high interest rates. Credit restrictions lead farms to choose smaller and cheaper investments than expensive and large ones. Results also show that income losses in both cases due to under-investment compared to the reference situation are partially compensated by lower rental prices. The impacts on structural change also differ depending on the region and the initial situation. In summary, credit subsidies or imperfections on credit markets might have indirect impacts on the type of dominant investment and therefore on the whole regional agricultural sector as well.

The grand divergence: global and European current account surpluses. Bruegel Working Paper 2015/08, 13 August 2015

Global current account imbalances widened before the 2007/2008 crisis and have narrowed since. While the post-crisis adjustment of European current account deficits was in line with global developments (though more forceful), European current account surpluses defied global trends and increased. We use panel econometric models to analyse the determinants of medium-term current account balances. Our results confirm that higher fiscal balances, higher GDP per capita, more rapidly aging populations, larger net foreign assets, larger oil rents and better legal systems increase the medium-term current account balance, while a larger growth differential and a higher old-age dependency ratio reduce it. European current account surpluses became excessive during the past twelve years according to our estimates, while they were in line with model predictions in the preceding three decades. Generally, the gap between the actual current account and its fitted value in the model has a strong predictive power for future current account changes. Excess deficits adjust more forcefully than excess surpluses. However, in the 2004-07 period, excess imbalances were amplified, which was followed by a forceful correction in 2008-15, with the exception of European surpluses.

Trade policy in a dynamic Heckscher-Ohlin model

The Import Substitution Process in Latin Amer ica was an attempt to enhance GDP growth and productivity by rising trade barriers upon capital-intensive products. Our main goal is to analyze how an increase in import tariff on a particular type of good affects the production choices and trade pattern of an economy. We develop an extension of the dynamic Heckscher-Ohlin model – a combination of a static two goods, two-factor Heckscher-Ohlin model and a two-sector growth model – allowing for import tariff. We then calibrate the closed economy model to the US. The results show that the economy will produce less of both consumption and investment goods under autarky for low and high levels of capital stock per worker. We also find that total GDP may be lower under free trade in comparison to autarky.

Economic growth and complementarity between stages of human capital

We study the impact of the different stages of human capital accumulation on the evolution of labor productivity in a model calibrated to the U.S. from 1961 to 2008. We add early childhood education to a standard continuous time life cycle economy and assume complementarity between educational stages. There are three sectors in the model: the goods sector, the early childhood sector and the formal education sector. Agents are homogenous and choose the intensity of preschool education, how long to stay in formal school, labor effort and consumption, and there are exogenous distortions to these four decisions. The model matches the data very well and closely reproduces the paths of schooling, hours worked, relative prices and GDP. We find that the reduction in distortions to early education in the period was large and made a very strong contribution to human capital accumulation. However, due to general equilibrium effects of labor market taxation, marginal modification in the incentives for early education in 2008 had a smaller impact than those for formal education. This is because the former do not decisively affect the decision to join the labor market, while the latter do. Without labor taxation, incentives for preschool are significantly stronger.

The Brazilian real estate securitization market: determinants of pricing

Analisamos os determinantes de precificação de Certificados de Recebíveis Imobiliários (CRIs) com relação ao ativo objeto e níveis de garantias, controlando por variáveis de tamanho, prazo e rating. Verifica-se um prêmio médio adicional em CRIs de 1,0 p.p. quando comparados com debêntures de prazos semelhantes e de mesmo rating. A justificativa desse prêmio é analisada em duas frentes: (a) apesar de CRI seguir relativa padronização, encontramos que o papel pode representar diferentes níveis de risco e ativos-objeto; e (b) essa falta de padronização leva a níveis de precificação diferenciados por suas características específicas de riscos. Os diferentes níveis de risco são percebidos pelas diversas garantias utilizadas sendo que 41% das emissões possuem garantias pessoais de originadores (aval ou fiança). Conclui-se que existe, em geral, uma diferença de retornos positiva (o spread médio na emissão dos CRIs indexados à inflação foi de 321 bps superior à curva de juros de mercado), sendo mais preponderante a depender do segmento (prêmio para os segmentos residencial e loteamentos) e mitigado pelo nível de garantias oferecido. É possível verificar um prêmio médio de 1,4 p.p. para os segmentos residencial e de loteamentos. Algumas características das emissões foram analisadas como controle (tamanho, prazo e, por fim, das notas e origem da agência avaliadora de rating). Os CRIs de maior volume e maior prazo apresentam spreads menores. Quanto ao rating, os CRIs apresentam efeitos diversos a depender do segmento. Para CRIs residenciais, o efeito é positivo (redução de spread) caso a emissão seja avaliada por alguma agência de rating, enquanto que para os CRIs comerciais, o efeito é negativo. O efeito pode ser positivo para os CRIs comerciais (redução de spread) em caso de avaliação por agência de rating internacional ou possuir notas de rating superiores à nota ‘A’.

Paixão empreendedora: neoliberalismo, capital humano e processos seletivos de trainees

O neoliberalismo, do ponto de vista econômico e social, pode ser entendido como a instauração, na sociedade, de relações estritamente mercantis, fazendo com que a lógica da maximização do ganho e do rendimento seja estendida a todos os campos, promovendo a racionalidade econômica como forma de racionalidade em geral. A forma de governamentalidade neoliberal norte-americana, com sua pretensão de transmutar os indivíduos em sujeitos-microempresas e as relações humanas em relações de tipo concorrencial, faz com que os indivíduos passem a ser vistos como “capital humano”. Originalmente, o termo “capital humano” remete a uma teoria que, desenvolvida sob influência do paradigma econômico neoclássico e liderança de Theodore Schultz, foi responsável por assimilar e transferir princípios econômicos para uma realidade anteriormente isenta de significados dessa natureza, fazendo emergir um discurso que associa o humano ao capital, transportando-o, dessa forma, para uma lógica onde ele deve gerir a si mesmo, tal como uma empresa. A empresa é, assim, promovida a modelo de subjetivação, sendo cada indivíduo um capital a ser gerenciado e valorizado conforme as demandas do mercado. É por isso que o modelo de conduta empreendedora, advindo do discurso do capital humano de inspiração neoliberal e de teorias clássicas propostas por Werner Sombart e Joseph A. Schumpeter, acomete os profissionais das organizações sediadas nos países capitalistas. Esse fato é bastante expressivo entre os jovens que procuram inserir-se no mercado de trabalho, principalmente em posições estratégicas valorizadas dentro das organizações, como as de trainee. No Brasil, os programas de trainee são considerados uma estratégia de busca de atração de jovens com perfil diferenciado, sendo uma resposta encontrada por muitas organizações desde 1970 para ganhar vantagem em um cenário econômico altamente competitivo. Esses profissionais são vistos como os “talentos” da organização, sendo treinados para ocuparem cargos estratégicos em um curto espaço tempo. A fim de esclarecer de que maneira o modelo de conduta empreendedora está presente nos processos seletivos de trainee, foi realizada uma análise dos textos que descrevem as competências exigidas na seleção desses jovens, a partir da Análise Crítica do Discurso (ACD) de Fairclough (2001, 2003), a partir das categorias analíticas “modalidade” e “avaliação”, e reflexões acerca da ideologia neoliberal. Chegou-se à conclusão de que o modelo de conduta empreendedora que está presente nos processos seletivos de trainee é marcada pela expressão de um comportamento apaixonado, que, no campo do management, é entendido a partir do conceito de “paixão empreendedora”. A pesquisa desenvolvida é relevante para o campo da Administração, tanto para o campo acadêmico (uma vez que há poucos estudos que têm como objeto de pesquisa a seleção de trainees e que procuram entendê-lo a partir de um viés crítico utilizando-se da análise do discurso do capital humano), como para quem está inserido nas organizações e convive com as dificuldades e desafios de selecionar jovens para programas de trainees, já que levanta questões importantes sobre os impactos dessas iniciativas tanto para os jovens, como para as organizações que os contratam.

The death penalty; a report for the Model penal code project of the American Law Institute.

"Reprinted from tentative draft no. 9 of the Model penal code."

Automotive maintenance data base for model years 1976-1979. Part I. Final report.

Transportation Systems Center, Cambridge, Mass.

Corporate strategies of automotive manufacturers. Volume IV: adaptation of a computer simulation model of the industry. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

An analysis of the automobile market: modeling of the long-run determinants of the demand for automobiles. Volume III: appendices to the Wharton E.F.A. Automobile Demand Model. Final report.

Transportation Department, Washington, D.C.

An analysis of the automobile market: modeling of the long-run determinants of the demand for automobiles. Volume II: simulation analysis using the Wharton E.F.A. Automobile Demand Model. Final report.

Transportation Department, Washington, D.C.

Final impact assessment of the automotive fuel economy standards for model year 1981-1984 passenger cars. NHTSA technical report.

Mode of access: Internet.

An analysis of the automobile market: modeling of the long-run determinants of the demand for automobiles. Volume I: the Wharton E.F.A. Automobile Demand Model. Final report.

Transportation Department, Washington, D.C.