Context costs and comparative advantages in the telecommunications sector in Portugal and China

This Work Project aims to discuss the Context Costs and Comparative Advantages of the Telecommunications sector both in Portugal and China. The work was built mostly on primary research by interviews with relevant people (business persons, University Professors and Agencies directors), and by economic data publicly available. A list of context costs and comparative advantages was drawn for each country and possible resolutions suggestions were made in the end. The context costs depend heavily on the economic situation of the countries and it should be taken into account when assessing the degree of magnitude of each cost of context. The competitive advantages of each country were drawn in comparison with one another. Some key results stand out: firstly, Portugal’s costs of context depend mainly on governmental decisions, uncertainties and instability and China’s cost of context depend primarily on cultural norms, mainly the Guanxi; second, the telecommunications sector shares most of its context costs and advantages with other sectors; third, China as an economic power could use the telecommunications sector as a way to further develop and boost its economy.

Sources of comparative advantages in Brazil

Based on the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek model, this paper investigates relative factor abundance in Brazil, as revealed by its international trade. We study two different time periods: one characterized by high trade barriers (1980 to 1985) and the trade liberalization period (1990 to 1995). Two alternative methodologies are used: the estimation of factor intensity regressions on net exports and the direct computation of factor content in net exports. In the factor intensity regression, we incorporate technological changes that might have occurred over time, and those turned out to be significant. Both methods yield the same results: the Brazilian international trade reveals relative abundance in capital, land and unskilled labor, and scarcity in skilled labor, with qualitatively equivalent results for the two time periods studied.

Selection of dynamic comparative advantages

Considera diversos factores para examinar cómo modifican el principio simple de las ventajas comparativas estáticas y de mercado.

Comparative advantages and the exploitation of environmental resources

Includes bibliography

Industrial policy, comparative advantages and growth

Includes bibliography

The rise and fall in the price of food, fuel and manufactured goods : interdependency between prices and technology determining comparative advantages and development paths

Green innovation, which enables us to extract energy from food crops, caused a food shortage in 2008. Countries suffering severe damage started to reconsider their agricultural policy with the aim of becoming more autonomous. The food price hike of the time looks like a reversal of the celebrated Singer-Prebisch thesis proposed in the 1950s. This paper examines the consequences of this trend on the comparative advantages and development strategies of developing countries. For that purpose, first, trends and short-run fluctuations in the prices of fuel and bio-energy crops are investigated. It is shown that the price series of fuels and the crops are synchronized only after the fuel extracting technology came into effect. Second, the reversal of the Singer-Prebisch thesis is underpinned by the generic form of an endogenous growth model developed by Rebelo (1991). It is shown that as an economy grows, appreciation of the non-reproducible, such as mineral resources and raw labor, over the reproducible, such as capital goods, is the norm rather than an anomaly. Third, the consequences of the food price hike and underlying capital accumulation on the development strategies of labor-abundant and low-income countries are explored. It is concluded that the impact of the food price hikes on the alteration of a development strategy is only incremental, without reinforcement from raw-labor-saving innovation. A case study of inventions by JUKI Corporation, a world-leader in the sewing machine market exemplifies the fact that, of all the major inventions the company have made, raw-labor-saving inventions have not dominated, although JUKI's machines are sold to one of the most raw-labor-intensive industries.

Description of a direct route for the Erie Canal, at its eastern termination, with estimates of its expense, and comparative advantages.

Mode of access: Internet.

Correspondence relative to the comparative advantages of the lighthouse laterns adopted by Corporation of the Trinity house and the Commissioners of northern lighthouses. 1867-1868.

Mode of access: Internet.

Comparative advantages between the United States and Canada, for British settlers : considered in a letter, addressed to Captain Allardyce Barclay of Uru /

Bound with his A descriptive and statistical account of Canada. 2nd ed. 1841.

America and the British colonies : an abstract of all the most useful information relative to the United States of America and the British colonies of Canada, the Cape of Good Hope, New South Wales, and Van Diemen's Island : exhibiting at one view the comparative advantages and disadvantages each country offers for emigration : collected from the most valuable and recent publications, to which are added a few notes and observations /

Mode of access: Internet.

Analyzing the competitive advantages of Saudi Arabia with Porter's model

Jasimuddin, Sajjad, 'Analyzing the competitive advantages of Saudi Arabia with Porter's model', Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing (2001) 16(1) pp.59-68 RAE2008

Skill distribution and comparative advantage: a comparison of China and India

This paper empirically examines the different comparative advantages of two emerging economic giants, China and India, in relation to the different skill distribution patterns in each country. By utilizing industry export data on China and India from 1983 to 2000, we find that a country with a greater dispersion of skills (i.e., India, especially in the earlier years) has higher exports in industries with shorter production chains, whereas a country with a more equal dispersion of skills (i.e., China, especially in the later years) is found to have higher exports in industries with longer production chains. The causal relationship is fairly robust across different specifications. This empirical evidence supports our assumption that the likely mechanism for these results is the negative impact of low-skilled workers on input quality, which accumulates and becomes larger as the length of production chains and the proportion of low-skilled workers in the economy increase.

Decagonal quasicrystals

Following the discovery of two dimensional quasicrystals in rapidly solidified Al-Mn alloys by us and L. Bendersky in 1985, a number of fascinating studies has been conducted to unravel the atomic configuration of quasicrystals with decagonal symmetry. A comprehensive mapping of the reciprocal space of decagonal quasicrystals is now available. The interpretation of the diffraction patterns brings out the comparative advantages of various indexing schemes. In addition, the nature of the variable periodicity can be addressed as a form of polytypism. The relation between decagonal quasicrystals and their crystalline homologues will be explored with emphasis on Al60Mn11Ni4 and 'Al3Mn'. It will also be shown that decagonal quasicrystals are closely related to icosahedral quasicrystals, icosahedral twins and vacancy ordered phases.

A economia política do agronegócio no Brasil: o legado desenvolvimentista no contexto da democratização com liberalização

O objetivo central desta tese foi analisar em que medida, no contexto das décadas de 1990 e 2000, o agronegócio, ao mitigar desajustes nas contas externas e contribuir para o esforço de estabilização dos preços, recebeu incentivos públicos e também benefícios privados, para isso valendo-se da intermediação política de seus representantes em atividade no Congresso Nacional. Inspirada em trabalhos dedicados ao estudo da distribuição de recursos necessários à modernização da produção agrícola, a análise explora explicações possíveis para dados recentes da distribuição do crédito rural subsidiado com base em variáveis de concentração da propriedade de terras e outras, com destaque para aquelas referentes à localização geográfica das propriedades rurais, ao nível educacional dos seus gestores e ao grau de organização dos mesmos. São ainda analisados debates no Congresso que revelam como a escassez de recursos fiscais pode ter acirrado disputas que trouxeram à tona a preocupação diferenciada dos chamados deputados ruralistas com o apoio governamental de que a agricultura empresarial ainda se faz dependente. As mudanças observadas no crédito rural brasileiro desde os anos 1980 revelam uma semitransição no sentido da maior participação de recursos privados e de uma concentração menor de recursos controlados entre grandes produtores. Porém, o processo não eliminou efeitos da capacidade de captação de recursos financeiros de grandes proprietários, que nela parecem ter encontrado compensações em um ambiente hostil criado por políticas de ajuste macroeconômico. Em perspectiva mais ampla, o arcabouço institucional da economia política do agronegócio constitui uma das variáveis básicas para uma caracterização do modus operandi do capitalismo brasileiro. A dependência do setor em relação a recursos controlados e subsidiados pelo Sistema Nacional de Crédito Rural põe em questão a retórica que outrora associava ao Estado apenas as mazelas do da economia e nenhuma de suas virtudes. sendo paradigmático o caso do agronegócio no Brasil, tratado muitas vezes como exemplo de sucesso exclusivo da aliança entre o espírito de empresa do setor privado e as vantagens comparativas do País em termos de recursos naturais. Ao mesmo tempo, a centralidade da intervenção do Estado no desenvolvimento econômico observado no Brasil é o elemento que mais fortemente questiona tentativas de detectar correspondências dominantes com economias liberais tipicamente anglo-saxônicas ou economias tipicamente eurocontinentais.