Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2004-12"
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- The development of the Portuguese hotel Business, 1950-1995Publication . Câmara, Maria BeneditaThis paper looks at the expansion of tourism in Portugal in the general context of the southern European countries, and focuses on the development of the hotel business in Portugal between 1950 and 1995. Some writers hold that the entrepreneurial fabric in the package holiday and mass tourism business is fragmented, overly dependent on tour operators, and usually adverse to foreign investment. We propose to analyse foreign investment in the hotel business over this period. Tourism is also seen as a sector little favoured for investment by the State, even though it is noted that Portugal in the seventies was an exception to this general rule. We propose to analyse public and private investment in the hotel business and to examine whether any changes took place over this period in the average size of hotels and of firms in this sector. We shall also seek to relate investment in capital goods with the growth in the number of occupations in the hotel sector requiring an average level of qualifications. On the basis of a typology of occupations in the hotel trade we will establish whether there was any improvement in a sector which is traditionally viewed as not absorbing a very large proportion of skilled labour. Finally, we will examine increases in unit labour costs and trends in those costs to determine what percentage they represent of total costs, together with the efforts made to save on such costs. The basis for this analytical exercise is the relationship between productivity gains and competitiveness in the hotel sector. This point is very important when we consider how productivity growth has been observed in services compared to commodity production. Angus Maddison points out that the general view is that productivity growth tends to be slower on services due to the intrinsic character of many personal services and partly because of measurement conventions, which sometimes exclude the possibility of productivity growth.
- An exploration of asset returns in a production economy with relative habitsPublication . Budría, SantiagoThis paper explores asset returns in a production economy with habit forming households. I show that a model with capital adjustment costs and relative habits is consistent with salient financial facts, such as the equity premium, the market price of risk, and the riskfree interest rate. These predictions are not at odds with good business cycle predictions. In the model economy investment is strongly procyclical and more volatile than output, which in turn is more volatile than consumption. Moreover, consumption growth is positively autocorrelated and negatively (positively) correlated with future (past) stock returns.
- First record of Darwin’s Slimehead, Gephyroberyx darwinii (Johnson, 1866) (Beryciformes: Trachichthyidae), in association with Brazilian deep reefsPublication . Bertoncini, Áthila A.; Souza Soares, Guilherme S.; Barreiros, João P.; Gasparini, João L.; Hostim-Silva, MaurícioTrês espécies da família Trachichthyidae ocorrem no sul do Brasil: Paratrachichthys atlanticus, Hoplostethus occidentalis e Gephyroberyx darwinii. Esta última é uma espécie que atinge tamanhos da ordem dos 600 mm (CT), vive na província bentopelágica até profundidades de 1210 metros. É encontrada em águas subtropicais distribuindo-se entre os paralelos 43ºN e 35ºS, sendo utilizada como fonte de alimento no leste do Atlântico central. O presente trabalho reporta a ocorrência de Gephyroberyx darwinii na costa brasileira entre as localidades de Vila Velha (ES) e Rio Grande (RS), em áreas de plataforma externa e talude superior, com profundidades variando de 70 a 520 metros. Suas ocorrências nestas áreas estiveram relacionadas a lances de pesca (onde Lophius gastrophysus é espécie alvo) sobre formações de corais vivos. Dados biométricos e merísticos de três espécimes são apresentados no trabalho.
- Regional and hemispheric impacts of anthropogenic and biomass burning emissions on summertime CO and O3 in the North Atlantic lower free tropospherePublication . Honrath, Richard; Owen, R. Chris; Val Martin, Maria; Reid, J. S.; Lapina, K.; Fialho, Paulo; Dziobak, Michael P.; Kleissl, J.; Westphal, D. L.We report summertime measurements of CO and O3 obtained during 2001–2003 at the PICO-NARE mountaintop station in the Azores. Frequent events of elevated CO mixing ratios were observed. On the basis of backward trajectories arriving in the free troposphere and global simulations of biomass burning plumes, we attribute nearly all these events to North American pollution outflow and long-range transport of biomass burning emissions. There was a high degree of interannual variability in CO levels: median [CO] ranged from 65 ppbv in 2001 to 104 ppbv in 2003. The highest concentrations were associated with transport of Siberian fire emissions during summer 2003, when Siberian fire activity was unusually high. Ozone mixing ratios also increased (by up to ∼30 ppbv) during the fire events. These findings demonstrate the significant hemispheric scale impact that biomass burning events have on background CO and O3 levels. O3 enhancements of similar magnitude were also observed in North American pollution outflow. O3 and CO were correlated during North American outflow events, with a slope averaging 1.0 (d[O3]/d[CO], ppbv/ppbv) when no fire impact was present. This slope is more than 80% larger than early 1990s observations made in the eastern United States and nearshore outflow region, even after accounting for declining U.S. CO emissions and for CO loss during transport to the Azores, and is not consistent with simple dilution of U.S. outflow with marine background air. We conclude that a significantly larger amount of O3 production occurred in the air sampled during this study, and we suggest several potential reasons for this, each of which could imply potentially significant shortcomings in current estimates of the hemispheric impact of North American emissions on tropospheric ozone and should be evaluated in future studies.