CEEAplA Working Paper Series 2011
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Browsing CEEAplA Working Paper Series 2011 by Title
Now showing 1 - 10 of 29
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- Azorean savings banks and the 1929 economic crisisPublication . Lopes, Fernando Rosa Rodrigues; Dias, Fátima SequeiraWhat sets the Azorean banking system apart in the Portuguese context is the concentration of Caixas Económicas or Saving Banks accounting for half of these financial institutions in Portugal. These saving banks were promoted and had as shareholders mainly small and medium local traders and landlords with export business. This contrasts with the overwhelming concentration of big traders and traditional landlords as agents of international and national banks. These small institutions were the only network covering most of the islands and preceded the expansion of a national bank network of agencies created mostly after the Second World War. This article examines the effects of the 1929 crisis on the Azorean banking system which was generalized, and had deep and long-lasting effects, using unpublished data taken from the archive of Banco de Portugal. It is a case of contagion, typical of a banking crisis, affecting the credibility and confidence of all the institutions and leading to an interruption of payments for a period of over two years. Bankruptcies are limited to Caixa Bancária Raposo do Amaral and Caixa Económica Socorros Mútuos but the restructuring spreads over a ten year period. The contraction of monetary circulation caused by the banking crisis and the elimination of escudo insulano are also major contributing factors to the long and deep economic crisis that spread from 1929 to 1945. The banking crisis together with the protectionism of European markets and Portuguese colonial policies lead to the reorientation of the agro-export model to mainland Portuguese markets.
- A CGE approach to measuring the impacts of EU structural funds in a small open economyPublication . Fortuna, Mário; Silva, Francisco; Medeiros, AnaThe present work studies the European Union (EU) funds in a regional context, while assessing the impact of EU funds on the gross domestic product (GDP) and employment of the Autonomous Region of the Azores. The theoretical model is based on a modeling platform for the Azorean economy, supported by a dynamic multi-sectoral Computable General Equilibrium model (CGE) - AzorMod, which incorporates the economic behavior of six agents: firms, households, the regional government, the central government, the European Commission and an external sector. Using simulations, we study the impact of eliminating EU funds from the Azorean economy. The study reveals that the absence of EU funds causes a reduction in public consumption and in consumer well-being and an increase in investment. GDP and employment decrease in the first year of the simulations. The GDP level is only recovered at the end of ten years when there are no EU transfers and employment at the end of one year. After this period, the estimated values, without EU funds, exceed the projected values for the scenario that include community funds.
- Criação de empresas em Portugal e Espanha: análise comparativa com base nos dados do Banco MundialPublication . Sarmento, Elsa de Morais; Nunes, AlcinaDo Inquérito ao Empreendedorismo do Banco Mundial (WBGES 2008) resultou uma extensa base de dados de cerca de uma centena de países, baseada em dados dos registos notariais. Com base nesta fonte de informação, exploramse as trajectórias de evolução da criação de empresas entre 2000 e 2007 entre dois países geográfica e economicamente próximos, Portugal e Espanha, e destes países relativamente à União Europeia e à OCDE, bem como a outros países e fontes de informação. Análises anteriores, com base noutras fontes de informação, apontam para taxas de criação de empresas em Portugal superiores às de Espanha. Os dados do WBGES permitem validar essas conclusões. Porém, Portugal evidencia uma volatilidade superior no registo de empresas. Em 2001, o elevado acréscimo no registo de novas empresas representa um fenómeno isolado e específico para Portugal, não havendo paralelo nem nos países europeus da coesão, nem ao nível da média da União Europeia. O projecto Empresa na Hora não teve um impacto visível a nível do registo de empresas, considerando a evolução ao longo deste período. Por outro lado, Espanha detém uma densidade empresarial considerável, não só do total de empresas registadas, mas também do registo de novas empresas, apesar de Portugal apresentar taxas de crescimento médias superiores do registo de novas empresas, indiciando maiores taxas de sobrevivência empresarial que as existentes em Portugal. No entanto, de acordo com os dados dos registos de criação de empresas, apesar de Portugal e Espanha apresentarem densidades empresariais superiores à média da União Europeia e da OCDE, possuem taxas de registo de novas empresas relativamente mais baixas, o que leva a concluir por uma relativa menor dinâmica empresarial na criação de novas empresas. Finalmente, constata-se que as taxas de criação de empresas baseadas no WBGES 2008 são menos elevadas do que as obtidas quando se considera o universo de empresas economicamente activas. Este facto indica que análises comparativas de empreendedorismo não devem considerar isoladamente os dados oficiais de registo de empresas, devendo ser complementadas com outras fontes de informação, onde esteja representado o universo relevante de empresas que se encontrem efectivamente em actividade.
- A dynamic analysis of repeat visitorsPublication . Moniz, Ana Isabel ArrudaThis paper introduces the Dynamic Probit model to analyse the underlying reasons behind repeat visits to the Azores Islands. The advantage of the model is that it allows investigating for lags in the covariates as well as for endogeneity in the covariates enabling a more accurate view of the repeat visits phenomenon in a specific tourism island destination. From the model estimation it is clear that the number of visits to the Azores Islands is a time effect that should be analyzed only with dynamic models permitting to identify persistent variables that attract the repeat tourists. The repeat tourist is supported by multiple variables such as overall satisfaction with the destination and specific satisfaction with destination attributes. However, the most important covariates are the destination attributes that are the persistent attractors of the repeat visitor. Related policy implications are derived.
- Empirical analysis of the Hsia option-pricing based model cost of capitalPublication . Neves, João C.; Pimentel, PedroThe cost of capital is a fundamental concept in strategic decisions such as capital investments, capital structure, new issues, mergers and acquisitions, spin-offs and other corporate restructurings. This paper explores empirically the option-based model developed by Hsia (1991) for estimating the cost of equity and the cost of capital of the firm. The composition of the sample in this exploratory study is all 17 non-financial companies listed in the Euronext Lisbon that are included in the market index PSI20. The Hsia model is used for estimating the cost of equity and the cost of capital of the firm for these 17 companies and is compared to the estimates obtained from the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and the traditional weighted average cost of capital (WACC). The difference between the means of the cost of equity estimated by Hsia model and CAPM is not statistically significant at 1% level and their correlation of 46.2% is statistically significant at 1% level. However, the differences at the individual level are quite large. One of the limitations found in this study was the inconsistency on the computation of the cost of debt. The problem arise from the fact that the cost of debt do not follow the pattern expected in the theory, but we also find that the Hsia model is unable to deal with potential inconsistencies of the financial market.
- Estimating the impacts of eliminating fisheries subsidies on the small island economy of the AzoresPublication . Fortuna, Mário; Carvalho, Natacha; Rege, SameerSubsidies that reduce the costs incurred by fishers and increase profits for the industry can insulate fishers from economic signals, countering the economic incentive to stop fishing when it is unprofitable. Subsidies can thus be a major impediment to achieving economically productive fisheries, exacerbating overexploitation and delaying the necessary industry adjustments, particularly in the absence of effective management systems. Although some fisheries are profitable without government support, several studies have shown that many European fishing fleets are either running losses or returning low profits. In most cases operating costs are higher than gross revenue, resulting in a negative net contribution of fisheries to the economy, the deficit of which is largely funded by subsidies. Thus the cost of fishing to the public budget exceeds the total value of the catches. Recently, fishery subsidies have received much attention with a mounting literature on the urgent need to reduce capacity-enhancing subsidies and begin focusing on developing a profitable and sustainable industry that can adapt to changing economic and environmental conditions. Simple economic models showing how subsidies affect profits and therefore provide incentives for increased fishing effort have accompanied a number of overviews of subsidies published by leading intergovernmental and research institutions. A number of case studies have also illustrated the critical link between fleet capacity and subsidies and that some categories of subsidies are more distorting than others. However, most of the studies have been limited to estimating the value of these subsidies, and usually at the multinational or global level. None so far, to our knowledge, has estimated the economy-wide impact of reducing or eliminating fishing subsidies even though there is a growing consensus that subsidies should gradually be terminated. Moreover, the Fisheries Secretariat believes that capacity enhancing and fuel subsidies should be stopped immediately. Nonetheless, the new financial instrument of the CFP, the European Fisheries Fund (EFF 2007-2013), although an improvement on its previous homologous (FIFG 2000-2006), contains some ambiguous elements, which could open up for further increase of fishing capacity. A long-term approach is needed that encompasses more fundamental changes than using for example more efficient engines that initially reduce fuel consumption but in the long-run worsen the situation by contributing to increasing fishing effort on already overexploited stocks. On account of the global fisheries crises, highly subsidised fisheries and the anticipated reforms of the CFP, this study aims at estimating the impact of eliminating cost-reducing and capacity-enhancing fisheries subsidies on the Azorean economy. In particular, this study sets out to measure the impact of such a shock on various macro and micro variables pertaining to the regional economy using a dynamic CGE model based on a SAM for the Azores.
- Estimation of the milk production function : application of the incomplete gamma function in the São Miguel Island (Azores)Publication . Silva, Francisco; Batista, Maria da Graça Câmara; Ponte, Rui Alexandre ViveirosThe Incomplete Gamma Function was used to explain the behavior of 305 days of lactation of dairy cows on São Miguel Island in the Azores. Ultimately, 330,127 observations of the daily production of these animals were used to estimate the production functions and income per animal of each lactation. Lactations were checked, as were the months of cow calving that maximized production and income for each lactation. The conclusion was that the fourth and fifth lactations maximized the income and production per animal for the 305 days of production. The calving between the months of October and December was shown to maximize the accumulated production of lactation whereas calving between the months of August and December contributed to maximizing the accumulated income per lactation. The management of livestock directed toward the maximization of the income of the dairy farm must take into account that insemination of these animals will have to take place between the months of December and March so that calving can occur in the intended months and lactation can start at the time of the year conductive to optimal income. The management of livestock lactation of a dairy farm on São Miguel Island demonstrated that it was possible to increase production and income per animal by up to 25%, while the management of calving months was shown to also maximize production and income per animal by up to 9%. However, the low adjustment value of the model (R2 of 25%) pointed to the weak adaptation of the Incomplete Gamma Function to the data used.
- Evaluation of the surrender and the minimum guaranteed rate of return options in life insurance productsPublication . Pimentel, Pedro; Pereira, RicardoThis paper aims to value a Guaranteed Investment Contract (GIC), offered by insurance companies, with a minimum rate of return and an option to surrender the contract (surrender option) at any time before the maturity date. The valuation framework uses a set of different models to value each one of these two options included on a GIC contract commercialized by a Portuguese financial group. We estimate that the surrender option value is around 1.18 percent of the net premium and that the value for the minimum guaranteed rate of return option varies between 0 an 7 percent, according to the used model.
- Fuel price transmission mechanisms in PortugalPublication . Silva, Francisco; Batista, Maria da Graça Câmara; Elias, Nelson PachecoThis study aims to analyze the behavior of fuel prices at the pump (unleaded gasoline and diesel) in Portugal, relative to positive and negative variations in Brent Crude Oil prices. Applying an autoregressive distributed lags model (ARDL) to weekly time series data for the period of January 2004 through May 2009, we detected some signs of asymmetry in the transmission price mechanism. However, these patterns are not statistically significant enough to reject hypotheses of symmetry in the price adjustment mechanisms of fuels in Portugal.
- High Speed rail transport valuation and conjuncture shocksPublication . Couto, Gualter; Nunes, Cláudia; Pimentel, PedroIn the present paper we derive the optimal investment policy of investment in the high speed rail (HSR) project, under uncertainty, using the real options analysis (ROA) framework. We assume that the HSR demand, the main source of uncertainty, follows a geometric brownian motion with random jumps, complying with abrupt change of level caused by random events. The occurrence of such events is caused by external shocks. We assess the impact of these shocks in the HSR demand threshold, along with the investment opportunity value, and the option to differ. We consider several distributions for these jumps, and we compare with the base-line case (where exogeneous jumps are not considered).
- «
- 1 (current)
- 2
- 3
- »