Buy, sell and chatter: A case analysis of a Lisbon flea market

This thesis aims explore the sociocultural as well as economic significance of the modern-day flea market, as a form of alternative marketplace system. More specifically, the main goal of the research is to determine the motivation for participation in flea markets of different participants, from vendors to consumers, using an interactionist perspective. By studying these groups in details, I seek to explore the embeddedness of social aspects in economic activity and vice versa. The basic assumption is to put aside the previous notions of the flea market as a second-order system with implied inferiority, and to explore the potential of the flea market to both challenge and complement more formal marketplace systems, by comparing and contrasting the flea market with market venues that belong to the formal sector. Feira da Ladra in Lisbon, Portugal, the oldest a hugely successful flea market in Europe, was chosen to be the research site, where its economic participants were studied in details in various exchanges, using naturalistic observations, semi-structured interviews and a sociocultural perspective.

International placement analysis of the German business market for a Nova Achool of Business and Economics graduate student

Changes in today’s society led to the evolution of professional migrations and individual searches for more suitable professional opportunities and careers outside one’s countries. International Placement is nowadays one of the world’s biggest trends in higher education for the future ahead and an appealing demand of the Millennium generations. The following work project aims to study the German business market identifying the most attractive German companies and respective graduate programs for a Nova School of Business and Economics graduate student. The study’s conclusion relies on concrete strategic suggestions regarding the implementation of the results and practical use of the outcome provided.

Welle tecnologia laser internationalization analysis US market

Welle Laser is a Brazilian company that manufactures marking and engraving machines mainly for large-scale industry segments providing solutions that help increase productivity. Welle laser has 60% market share in Brazil and decided to go internationally in 2015, mainly to increase revenues and diversify business risks. Welle opened an office in Switzerland and celebrated a contract with a Mexican company to distribute their machines in Mexico. The next step for Welle is expanding its operation to USA. In my project I accessed the viability and reasons to enter the US market, the region where Welle should start its operation, and the best entry mode strategy.

Governmental start-up support in the light of allocative market failure : justification, analysis, and design

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Wirtschaftswiss., Diss., 2011

Competition with forward contracts: a laboratory analysis motivated by electricity market design

We use experiments to study the efficiency effects for a market as a whole of adding the possibility of forward contracting to a pre-existing spot market. We deal separately with the cases where spot market competition is in quantities and where it is in supply functions. In both cases we compare the effect of adding a contract market with the introduction of an additional competitor, changing the market structure from a triopoly to a quadropoly. We find that, as theory suggests, for both types of competition the introduction of a forward market significantly lowers prices. The combination of supply function competition with a forward market leads to high efficiency levels.

Asymmetric demand information in uniform and discriminatory call auctions: an experimental analysis motivated by electricity markets

We study the outcomes of experimental multi-unit uniform and discriminatory auctions with demand uncertainty. Our study is motivated by the ongoing debate about market design in the electricity industry. Our main aim is to compare the effect of asymmetric demand-information between sellers on the performance of the two auction institutions. In our baseline conditions all sellers have the same information, whereas in our treatment conditions some sellers have better information than others. In both information conditions we find that average transaction prices and price volatility are not significantly different under the two auction institutions. However, when there is asymmetric information among sellers the discriminatory auction is significantly less efficient. These results are not in line with the typical arguments made in favor of discriminatory pricing in electricity industries; namely, lower consumer prices and less price volatility. Moreover, our results provide some indication that discriminatory auctions reduce technical efficiency relative to uniform auctions.

Political economics and normative analysis

The approaches and opinions of economists often dominate public policy discussion. Economists have gained this privileged position partly (or perhaps mainly) because of the obvious relevance of their subject matter, but also because of the unified methodology (neo-classical economics) that the vast majority of modern economists bring to their analysis of policy problems and proposed solutions. The idea of Pareto efficiency and its potential trade-off with equity is a central idea that is understood by all economists and this common language provides the economics profession with a powerful voice in public affairs. The purpose of this paper is to review and reflect upon the way in which economists find themselves analysing and providing suggestions for social improvements and how this role has changed over roughly the last 60 years. We focus on the fundamental split in the public economics tradition between those that adhere to public finance and those that adhere to public choice. A pure public finance perspective views failures in society as failures of the market. The solutions are technical, as might be enacted by a benevolent dictator. The pure public choice view accepts (sometimes grudgingly) that markets may fail, but so, it insists, does politics. This signals institutional reforms to constrain the potential for political failure. Certain policy recommendations may be viewed as compatible with both traditions, but other policy proposals will be the opposite of that proposed within the other tradition. In recent years a political economics synthesis emerged. This accepts that institutions are very important and governments require constraints, but that some degree of benevolence on the part of policy makers should not be assumed non-existent. The implications for public policy from this approach are, however, much less clear and perhaps more piecemeal. We also discuss analyses of systematic failure, not so much on the part of markets or politicians, but by voters. Most clearly this could lead to populism and relaxing the idea that voters necessarily choose their interests. The implications for public policy are addressed. Throughout the paper we will relate the discussion to the experience of UK government policy-making.

Regional productivity variation and the impact of public capital stock: an analysis with spatial interaction, with reference to Spain

In this paper we examine whether variations in the level of public capital across Spain‟s Provinces affected productivity levels over the period 1996-2005. The analysis is motivated by contemporary urban economics theory, involving a production function for the competitive sector of the economy („industry‟) which includes the level of composite services derived from „service‟ firms under monopolistic competition. The outcome is potentially increasing returns to scale resulting from pecuniary externalities deriving from internal increasing returns in the monopolistic competition sector. We extend the production function by also making (log) labour efficiency a function of (log) total public capital stock and (log) human capital stock, leading to a simple and empirically tractable reduced form linking productivity level to density of employment, human capital and public capital stock. The model is further extended to include technological externalities or spillovers across provinces. Using panel data methodology, we find significant elasticities for total capital stock and for human capital stock, and a significant impact for employment density. The finding that the effect of public capital is significantly different from zero, indicating that it has a direct effect even after controlling for employment density, is contrary to some of the earlier research findings which leave the question of the impact of public capital unresolved.

La participation des consommateurs à la construction de l'autorité des normes internationales : vers une économie politique internationale de la traduction

Cette thèse explore les implications politiques de la montée en puissance des normes internationales sur nos sociétés contemporaines et pose la problématique des dynamiques participatives des représentants des consommateurs au sein des formes de pouvoir non étatique à l'aide du cas de l'Organisation internationale de normalisation (ISO). Le renforcement du pouvoir des normes internationales et autres spécifications techniques soulève d'importants enjeux démocratiques qui portent aussi bien sur la représentativité des acteurs qui les élaborent, sur l'articulation des prérogatives publiques et privées dans la gouvernance de la mondialisation, que sur le rôle de l'expertise dans la reconnaissance de ces nouvelles formes de pouvoir. La participation du monde associatif intervient sur ces différents enjeux de manière complexe. Cette recherche s'inscrit à la suite des études en relations internationales/économie politique internationale sur les formes d'autorité non étatique et s'inspire du concept de traduction issu de la sociologie des sciences et techniques pour mettre en lumière le rôle des spécifications techniques dans la construction d'une société de consommation centrée sur la liberté de choix et la façon dont les associations de consommateurs se saisissent des arènes de normalisation pour y faire valoir des préoccupations collectives, leur expertise et leur identité. Cette thèse défend l'idée que les consommateurs participent à la construction de l'autorité des normes internationales par leur rôle dans la traduction qui permet de relier les spécifications techniques au fonctionnement des marchés, au cadre réglementaire de la loi et aux préoccupations sociétales. L'analyse repose sur une observation ethnographique des délibérations d'un comité technique de l'ISO, une recherche-­‐action, la réalisation d'entretiens et la consultation de documents d'archives de l'ISO. -- This thesis explores the political significance of the rise of international standards on contemporary societies and questions the participatory dynamics of consumers' representatives within nonstate forms of power, using the case of the International organization for standardization (ISO). The power granted to international standards and other technical specifications raises important democratic issues regarding the representativity of standard-­‐ writers, the public-­‐private relationships involved in this form of governance or the expertise sustaining the recognition of such new forms of power. The participation of civil society associations affect such issues in complex ways. This research relies on international relations/international political economy approaches of nonstate authority and takes inspiration from the concept of translation developed by science and technology studies to highlight the crucial role played by technical specifications in building a consumer society based on the freedom of choice as well as how consumers' associations take stock of standardization arenas to promote collective issues and claim their expertise and identity. This thesis argues that consumers contribute to the construction of the authority of international standards through their role in the translation that links international standards to the market society, the regulatory state as well as to societal preoccupation. The analysis is based on an ethnographic observation of deliberations within an ISO technical committee, a research-­‐action, interviews as well as on the consultation of ISO archives.

Which firms want PhDs? The effect of the university-industry relationship on the PhD labour market

PhD graduates hold the highest education degree, are trained to conduct research and can be considered a key element in the creation, commercialization and diffusion of innovations. The impact of PhDs on innovation and economic development takes place through several channels such as the accumulation of scientific capital stock, the enhancement of technology transfers and the promotion of cooperation relationships in innovation processes. Although the placement of PhDs in industry provides a very important mechanism for transmitting knowledge from universities to firms, information about the characteristics of the firms that employ PhDs is very scarce. The goal of this paper is to improve understanding of the determinants of the demand for PhDs in the private sector. Three main potential determinants of the demand for PhDs are considered: cooperation between firms and universities, R&D activities of firms and several characteristics of firms, size, sector, productivity and age. The results from the econometric analysis show that cooperation between firms and universities encourages firms to recruit PhDs and point to the existence of accumulative effects in the hiring of PhD graduates.

Services standardization in the United-States and in Europe: an institutional analysis of private authority

This contribution explores the role of international standards in the rules governing the internationalisation of the service economy. It analyses on a cross-institutional basis patterns of authority in the institutional setting of service standards in the European and Amercian context. The entry into force of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1995 gave international standards a major role in harmonising the technical specifications of goods and services traded on the global market Despite the careful wording of the WTO, a whole range of international bodies still have the capacity to define generic as well as detailed technical specifications affecting how swelling offshore services are expected to be traded on worldwide basis. The analysis relies on global political economy approaches to identify constitutive patterns of authority mediating between the political and the economic spheres on a transnational space. It extends to the area of service standards the assumption that the process of globalisation is not opposing states and markets, but a joint expression of both of them including new patterns and agents of structural change through formal and informal power and regulatory practices. The paper argues that service standards reflect the significant development of a form of transnational hybrid authority, that blurs the distinction between private and public actors, whose scope spread all along from physical measures to societal values, and which reinforces the deterritorialisation of regulatory practices in contemporary capitalism. It provides evidence of this argument by analysing the current European strategy regarding service standardization in response to several programming mandate of the European Commission and the American views on the future development of service standards.

The allometry of non-employment. What can compositional data analysis tell us about labour market performance across the UK's regions?

The low levels of unemployment recorded in the UK in recent years are widely cited asevidence of the country’s improved economic performance, and the apparent convergence of unemployment rates across the country’s regions used to suggest that the longstanding divide in living standards between the relatively prosperous ‘south’ and the more depressed ‘north’ has been substantially narrowed. Dissenters from theseconclusions have drawn attention to the greatly increased extent of non-employment(around a quarter of the UK’s working age population are not in employment) and themarked regional dimension in its distribution across the country. Amongst these dissenters it is generally agreed that non-employment is concentrated amongst oldermales previously employed in the now very much smaller ‘heavy’ industries (e.g. coal,steel, shipbuilding).This paper uses the tools of compositiona l data analysis to provide a much richer picture of non-employment and one which challenges the conventional analysis wisdom about UK labour market performance as well as the dissenters view of the nature of theproblem. It is shown that, associated with the striking ‘north/south’ divide in nonemployment rates, there is a statistically significant relationship between the size of the non-employment rate and the composition of non-employment. Specifically, it is shown that the share of unemployment in non-employment is negatively correlated with the overall non-employment rate: in regions where the non-employment rate is high the share of unemployment is relatively low. So the unemployment rate is not a very reliable indicator of regional disparities in labour market performance. Even more importantly from a policy viewpoint, a significant positive relationship is found between the size ofthe non-employment rate and the share of those not employed through reason of sicknessor disability and it seems (contrary to the dissenters) that this connection is just as strong for women as it is for men

A compositional statistical analysis of capital stock

Most of economic literature has presented its analysis under the assumption of homogeneous capital stock.However, capital composition differs across countries. What has been the pattern of capital compositionassociated with World economies? We make an exploratory statistical analysis based on compositional datatransformed by Aitchinson logratio transformations and we use tools for visualizing and measuring statisticalestimators of association among the components. The goal is to detect distinctive patterns in the composition.As initial findings could be cited that:1. Sectorial components behaved in a correlated way, building industries on one side and , in a lessclear view, equipment industries on the other.2. Full sample estimation shows a negative correlation between durable goods component andother buildings component and between transportation and building industries components.3. Countries with zeros in some components are mainly low income countries at the bottom of theincome category and behaved in a extreme way distorting main results observed in the fullsample.4. After removing these extreme cases, conclusions seem not very sensitive to the presence ofanother isolated cases

Permanent demand excess as business strategy: an analysis of the Brazilian higher-education market

Many Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) establish tuition below the equilibrium price to generate permanent demand excess. This paper first adapts Becker’s (1991) theory to understand why the HEIs price in this way. The fact that students are both consumers and inputs on the education production process gives rise to a market equilibrium where some firms have excess demand and charge high prices, and others charge low prices and have empty seats.Second, the paper analyzes this equilibrium empirically. We estimated the demand for undergraduate courses in Business Administration in the State of São Paulo. The results show that tuition, quality of incoming students and percentage of lecturers holding doctorates degrees are the determining factors of students’ choice. Since the student quality determines the demand for a HEI, it is calculated what the value is for a HEI to get better students; that is the total revenue that each HEI gives up to guarantee excess demand. Regarding the “investment” in selectivity, 39 HEIs in São Paulo give up a combined R$ 5 million (or US$ 3.14 million) in revenue per year per freshman class, which means 7.6% of the revenue coming from a freshman class.

Leaving the labour market: event-history analysis of the female workers' transition to housework in Denmark, Germany, Great Britain and Spain

This paper is aimed at exploring the determinants of female activity from a dynamic perspective. An event-history analysis of the transition form employment to housework has been made resorting to data from the European Household Panel Survey. Four countries representing different welfare regimes and, more specifically, different family policies, have been selected for the analysis: Britain, Denmark, Germany and Spain. The results confirm the importance of individual-level factors, which is consistent with an economic approach to female labour supply. Nonetheless, there are significant cross-national differences in how these factors act over the risk of abandoning the labour market. First, the number of trnasitions is much lower among Danish working women than among British, German or Spanish ones, revealing the relative importance of universal provision of childcare services, vis-à-vis other elements of the family policy, as time or money.