Trabalho e trabalhadores da pesca industrial no Pará face à metamorfose do capital

O mundo do trabalho passa por grandes transformações, as quais englobam novas tecnologias e formas de organização dos fatores produtivos no processo de produção de mercadorias. Novos modelos de organização do trabalho têm surgido e se mesclado com as práticas fordistas, o que tem influenciado diretamente sobre a utilização da mão-de-obra no processo produtivo. Neste contexto, este estudo procurou analisar de que maneira as práticas do processo de reestruturação produtiva estão acontecendo em um setor de atividade: o da pesca industrial, levando em consideração as particularidades do desenvolvimento dessa atividade extrativa, da forma de estruturação das empresas que compõem este setor para se manter no mercado e/ou ganhar novos mercados e, a maneira de inserção dos trabalhadores nas atividades de captura e processamento da produção pescada. A análise foi realizada entre as empresas que constituem o parque industrial pesqueiro do Distrito de Icoraci, que concentra a maior parcela da pesca industrial no Estado do Pará, estudando de que forma as estratégias adotadas pelas indústrias processadoras e microempresas de captura, diante das mudanças no mercado consumidor e da diminuição dos principais recursos explorados, têm repercutido sobre os trabalhadores ocupados nas atividades de captura e processamento.

Evaluation of maturity levels in the management of product development: case studies in the capital goods industry

In recent approaches to the management of product development process (PDP), maturity levels have attracted the attention of practitioners and researchers. The CMMI model contributes to evaluate the maturity levels and improvement of the product development process management. This paper, based on CMMI model, analyzes the practices adopted in two companies of the capital goods industry, which develop and manufacture equipment upon request. It was observed that on account of market conditioning factors and different practices adapted to PDP management, these companies are at different maturity levels. One company is at the initial level of maturity while the other at the most advanced one. It was also noted that the application of CMMI model can provide improvement to PDP management, as well as present guidelines to achieve higher maturity levels, adequate to companies' needs.

Trade Liberalization, Corn Prices and a Rural Community in Guatemala

Trade liberalization policies in Guatemala have impacted agricultural production. This thesis focuses on how trade liberalization has happened, what have been the impacts at a national level and describes how a community has adapted to the implementation of these policies. The implementation of trade was influenced by several, international and national institutions. Among the international institutions are the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the United States Agency for International Development. At the national level the institutions that have partaken in shaping the trade policies are the military and the owners of capital and labor. The implementation of trade policies at a national level has affected national corn prices, population level diets and to some extent reduced poverty levels. At a local level trade liberalization policies have impacted land holdings, increased intensification of agriculture, including agrochemical, machinery and crop plantations per year, and consumption rates of corn have been affected. Maximization of the benefits and minimization of the detrimental effects can happen with the implementation of policies that promote food security, improve access to health and education, and prevent environmental and human health consequences from the intensification of agriculture and at the same time continue with the production of non-traditional agricultural products.

Corporate Venture Capital: How established firms use external resources to create new competencies

This Doctoral Dissertation is triggered by an emergent trend: firms are increasingly referring to investments in corporate venture capital (CVC) as means to create new competencies and foster the search for competitive advantage through the use of external resources. CVC is generally defined as the practice by non-financial firms of placing equity investments in entrepreneurial companies. Thus, CVC can be interpreted (i) as a key component of corporate entrepreneurship - acts of organizational creation, renewal, or innovation that occur within or outside an existing organization– and (ii) as a particular form of venture capital (VC) investment where the investor is not a traditional and financial institution, but an established corporation. My Dissertation, thus, simultaneously refers to two streams of research: corporate strategy and venture capital. In particular, I directed my attention to three topics of particular relevance for better understanding the role of CVC. In the first study, I moved from the consideration that competitive environments with rapid technological changes increasingly force established corporations to access knowledge from external sources. Firms, thus, extensively engage in external business development activities through different forms of collaboration with partners. While the underlying process common to these mechanisms is one of knowledge access, they are substantially different. The aim of the first study is to figure out how corporations choose among CVC, alliance, joint venture and acquisition. I addressed this issue adopting a multi-theoretical framework where the resource-based view and real options theory are integrated. While the first study mainly looked into the use of external resources for corporate growth, in the second work, I combined an internal and an external perspective to figure out the relationship between CVC investments (exploiting external resources) and a more traditional strategy to create competitive advantage, that is, corporate diversification (based on internal resources). Adopting an explorative lens, I investigated how these different modes to renew corporate current capabilities interact to each other. More precisely, is CVC complementary or substitute to corporate diversification? Finally, the third study focused on the more general field of VC to investigate (i) how VC firms evaluate the patent portfolios of their potential investee companies and (ii) whether the ability to evaluate technology and intellectual property varies depending on the type of investors, in particular for what concern the distinction between specialized versus generalist VCs and independent versus corporate VCs. This topic is motivated by two observations. First, it is not clear yet which determinants of patent value are primarily considered by VCs in their investment decisions. Second, VCs are not all alike in terms of technological experiences and these differences need to be taken into account.

Ghana@50 – celebrating the nation: an eyewitness account from Accra /// Arbeitspapiere / Institut für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien ; 83

This article offers an account of the 50th Ghanaian independence-day celebrations during March 2007. The multi-perspective approach examines how celebrations were experienced in the Ghanaian capital Accra by the political elite and the grass roots at a variety of official and unofficial events that took place on 5 and 6 March 2007. During the festivities the authors accompanied Ghanaian friends from different political factions and thus provide close-hand accounts of political controversies over issues regarding how the nation ought to organise and celebrate its Independence Day, controversies which provide important insights into Ghanaian political culture. From this it is clear that the celebrations not only serve as expressions of national pride but also moments of critical reflection on the nation, national values and socio-political unity. These reflections, manifest as disputes about national and ethnic symbols, centre on the conditions and limits of political, social, ethnic and regional inclusiveness. At the same time, underlying such disputes are commonalities resting not on substantive symbols, cultural traits or other objectifiable characteristics, but on a Ghanaian consensus to agree on the issues at stake and on the rules of debate. Controversy thus functions not to divide but rather to strengthen national consciousness and deepen a sense of commonality that Ghanaians generally express as their commitment to ‘unity in diversity’.

Financial Liberalization and Inflationary Dynamics in the Context of a Small Open Economy

The paper develops a short-run model of a small open financially repressed economy characterized by unorganized money markets, capital good imports, capital mobility, wage indexation, and flexible exchange rates. The analysis shows that financial liberalization, in the form of an increased rate of interest on deposits and tight monetary policy, unambiguously and unconditionally causes deflation. Moreover, the results do not depend on the degree of capital mobility and structure of wage setting. The paper recommends that a small open developing economy should deregulate interest rates and tighten monetary policy if reducing inflation is a priority. The pre-requisite for such a policy, however, requires the establishment of a flexible exchange rate regime.

The Impact of Tobacco Production Liberalization on Smallholders in Malawi

Burley tobacco production in Malawi was liberalized to permit production by smallholders in the early 1990s. The purpose of this paper is to show which smallholders began producing burley tobacco after liberalization and which smallholders still continue to produce it. Analysis of the characteristics of burley tobacco producers shows that only smallholders who had adequate farm size and adequate funds could start to produce it. With regard to the farm size requirements, only smallholders who had enough acreage to sell tobacco on the auction floors and who had enough acreage to rotate crops could start to produce. With regard to the financial requirements, only smallholders who could procure funds through informal institutions or who possessed their own capital to meet the necessary agricultural expenditures could start. So, it was only the wealthy households which could start to produce tobacco after liberalization and continue to produce it.

Effects of birth order and sibling sex composition on human capital investment in children in India

The paper explores the effects of birth order and sibling sex composition on human capital investment in children in India using the Indian Human Development Survey (IHDS). Endogeneity of fertility is addressed using instruments and controlling for household fixed effects. Family size effect is also distinguished from the sibling sex composition effect. Previous literature has often failed to take endogeneity into account and shows a negative birth order effect for girls in India. Once endogeneity of fertility is addressed, there is no evidence for a negative birth order effect or sibling sex composition effect for girls. Results show that boys are worse off in households that have a higher proportion of boys specifically when they have older brothers.

New measures of FTA liberalization level

This paper proposes new measures of the liberalization level of free trade agreements (FTAs). Our measures take three issues into account. First, in order to identify the differences in FTA liberalization level over time, we compute the annual liberalization level rather than the level during the whole period. Second, our measure includes information on tariff margins, i.e. the difference between FTA rates and most favoured nation rates. Third, the restrictiveness of rules of origin (RoOs) is also taken into account in order to penalize the liberalization level of products with more restrictive RoOs. In this paper, we compute such measures of FTA liberalization level for three FTAs in Thailand.

Establishing global value chains through the liberalization of trade in services

This paper addresses the importance of establishing global value chains through the liberalization of trade in services. A database has revealed rather disconnected policy arrangements across APEC members in terms of service trade liberalization. While the economic benefits arising from harmonized and liberalized policy across APEC members are widely recognized in the business sector, relevant policy coordination seems to be missing. With this in mind, APEC could work on establishing its own harmonized "service trade commitment table" that would be centered on simple foreign capital participation criteria. This would surely contribute to forming an APEC-wide global value chain.

AS RELIGIÕES NAS CELAS: UM ESTUDO DAS OPÇÕES RELIGIOSAS DAS MULHERES AFRO-DESCENDENTES NOS PRESÍDIOS FEMININOS DA CAPITAL PAULISTA

Esta pesquisa estuda como se dá a escolha e a participação das mulheres afrodescendentes nas religiões inseridas nos presídios. Nos concentramos na instituição total denominada prisão. Nesta pesquisa buscamos estudar a religião em dois presídios da capital paulista. Levando em consideração o depoimento das presas, pretendemos estudar como as mulheres afro-descendentes (presas) optam por determinadas religiões. Passamos pela verificação teórica sobre a temática, e confirmamos no campo a situação das mulheres afrodescendentes. Em relação às religiões nesse contexto discutiremos o que a religião significa para as mulheres afro-descendentes, como elas optam, praticam e participam da religião nesses espaços, e qual o sentido da religião escolhida na vida cotidiana no presídio.

AS RELIGIÕES NAS CELAS: UM ESTUDO DAS OPÇÕES RELIGIOSAS DAS MULHERES AFRO-DESCENDENTES NOS PRESÍDIOS FEMININOS DA CAPITAL PAULISTA

Esta pesquisa estuda como se dá a escolha e a participação das mulheres afrodescendentes nas religiões inseridas nos presídios. Nos concentramos na instituição total denominada prisão. Nesta pesquisa buscamos estudar a religião em dois presídios da capital paulista. Levando em consideração o depoimento das presas, pretendemos estudar como as mulheres afro-descendentes (presas) optam por determinadas religiões. Passamos pela verificação teórica sobre a temática, e confirmamos no campo a situação das mulheres afrodescendentes. Em relação às religiões nesse contexto discutiremos o que a religião significa para as mulheres afro-descendentes, como elas optam, praticam e participam da religião nesses espaços, e qual o sentido da religião escolhida na vida cotidiana no presídio.

BigLaw Identity Capital: Pink and Blue, Black and White

This Article advances a new capital framework for understanding the bargain between large law firms and their lawyers, depicting BigLaw relationships not as basic labor-salary exchanges but rather as complex transactions in which large law firms and their lawyers exchange labor and various forms of capital — social, cultural, and identity. First, it builds on the work of Pierre Bourdieu regarding economic, cultural, symbolic, and social capital by examining the concepts of positive and negative capital, exploring the meaning of capital ownership by entities, and developing the notion of identity capital — the value individuals and institutions derive from their identities. Then, the Article advances a capital theory of BigLaw, in which large law firms and their lawyers engage in complex transactions trading labor, social, cultural, and identity capital for economic, social, cultural, and identity capital. Capital analysis sheds new light on the well-documented and troubling underrepresentation of diverse lawyers at BigLaw. It shows that the underrepresentation of women and minority lawyers is not solely the result of exogenous forces outside the control of large law firms such as implicit bias, but rather the outcome of the very exchanges in which BigLaw and its lawyers engage. Specifically, large law firms take into account the capital endowments of their lawyers in making hiring, retention and promotion decisions, and derive value from their lawyers’ capital, for example, by trading on the identity of women and minority lawyers in marketing themselves as being diverse and inclusive to clients and potential recruits. Yet, while BigLaw trades for the identity capital of women and minority lawyers, it fails to offer them opportunities in return to acquire the social and cultural capital necessary for attaining positions of power, resulting in underrepresentation. Moreover, these labor-capital exchanges are often implicit and made by uninformed participants, and therefore unjust. Exactly because the capital framework describes the underrepresentation of diverse lawyers at BigLaw as an endogenous outcome within the control of BigLaw and its lawyers, however, it is a cautiously optimistic model that offers hope for greater representation of diverse lawyers in positions of power and influence. The Article suggests policies and procedures BigLaw can and should adopt to improve the quality of the exchanges it offers to women and minority attorneys and to reduce the underrepresentation of diverse lawyers within its ranks. Employing the concepts of capital transparency, capital boundary, and capital infrastructure, it demonstrates how BigLaw can (1) explicitly recognize the roles social, cultural, and identity capital play in its hiring, retention and promotion apparatuses and (2) revise its policies and procedures to ensure that all of its lawyers have equal opportunities to develop the requisite capital and compete on equal and fair terms for positions of power and influence.

Farm-level Capital: Capital positions, structures, the dynamics of farm-level investments, capital accumulation and leverage positions. Factor Markets Working Paper No. 7, October 2011

This Factor Markets Working Paper describes and highlights the key issues of farm capital structures, the dynamics of investments and accumulation of farm capital, and the financial leverage and borrowing rates on farms in selected European countries. Data collected from the Farm Account Data Network (FADN) suggest that the European farming sector uses quite different farm business strategies, capabilities to generate capital revenues, and segmented agricultural loan market regimes. Such diverse business strategies have substantial, and perhaps more substantial than expected, implications for the financial leverage and performance of farms. Different countries adopt different approaches to evaluating agricultural assets, or the agricultural asset markets simply differ substantially depending on the country in question. This has implications for most of the financial indicators. In those countries that have seen rapidly increasing asset prices at the margin, which were revised accordingly in the accounting systems for the whole stock of assets, firm values increased significantly, even though the firms had been disinvesting. If there is an asset price bubble and it bursts, there may be serious knock-on effects for some countries.

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.