Working Papers

We look at data for Management and Skills demand of firms in existing databases and we highlight the strong positive relationship between both variables. We devise a model that explains this relationship and calibrate it in order to present quantitative results and compare those results with the estimated ones. We discover that a simple model with Management as Technology can replicate well the estimated influence of Management in the skills demand of firms. We also present evidence of the influence of the subitems of Management on skills’ demand and discovered that aside from the talent component of Management, target and performance components greatly influence the demand for skills.

Recent evidence suggests that fertility rates are (and will be expected to remain in the future) below the replacement level for several countries and especially for the most technological advanced ones, which indicates that the World population will start decreasing sooner or later. In the light of this, we reconsider the Empty Planet result – Jones (2022) – and include human capital and class size effects in R&D endogenous growth models with decreasing population. We find that the introduction of human capital mitigates, or even overcomes, the Empty Planet result. In particular, under some mild conditions, our setting allows obtaining simultaneous long-run economic growth and secular productivity stagnation.

We extend a two-sector endogenous growth model based on human capital accumulation along two different directions. First, by postulating that individuals may invest time-resources not only in the accumulation of human capital (general knowledge) but also in the accumulation of financial literacy (specific financial knowledge). Second, we maintain that the efficiency with which savings are transferred intertemporally may improve over time, e.g. through the presence of a financial system. We use the model to analyze the relationship between financial literacy and economic growth in the long run. We show that the properties of the balanced growth path equilibrium critically depend on how human capital and financial literacy affect the efficiency of the financial system. Moreover, finance promotes long-run economic growth through two alternative channels, driven either by dynamics of financial returns or by human capital accumulation, respectively. By calibrating the model to the US economy over the 1950-2019 period, we quantitatively assess the effect of financial literacy on long-term growth and the relative magnitude of the two channels.

This paper provides new empirical evidence on entry and competition in the Portuguese market of retail pharmacies after its deregulation in 2004. We estimate the market-size thresholds required for pharmacies to enter the market and analyse the toughness of competition in the market. There are three main findings in the paper. First, entry thresholds decreased over the years, which led to better coverage and availability of pharmaceutical services. Second, the toughness of competition among pharmacies increased and the deregulation of over-the-counter drug sales contributed to the expansion of services provided by pharmacies. Third, population restrictions that prevailed in the market were too restrictive and should be reconsidered by regulation authorities.

Considering the diversity of definitions and understandings of some concepts related to sustainability and its importance in the context of the supply chain, the main objective of this paper is to clarify andpropose a conceptual framework to help clarify the concept of supply chain sustainability. Based on a comprehensive literature review, different perspectives and ideas are considered for understanding the meaning of supply chain sustainability. Also, the main differences between some concepts that have been used interchangeably with the meaning of sustainability are pointed out. In the proposed framework, a focus on the triple bottom line approach and the supply chain stakeholders’ expectations at intra and inter-organizational levels are considered.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the macroeconomic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic in the European Union (27 countries) and, particularly, in four of its economies – Germany, Spain, Italy and Portugal. For this purpose, a counterfactual analysis was conducted based on an ARIMA forecasting model through which the behavior of a set of macroeconomic variables (Gross Domestic Product, public debt, inflation rate, public deficit, and unemployment rate) is examined in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic against a hypothetical scenario without pandemic. In general, the results point to a significantly better performance of all variables in the four countries and in the European Union if the Covid-19 pandemic had not existed. In a scenario without the Covid-19 pandemic, all countries would have achieved higher product levels, showing, however, relatively weaker economic growth rates when compared to the pandemic situation, namely in 2021 and 2022. The results also point to budget surpluses in Germany and Portugal, in 2020, 2021 and 2022, as well as a sharp reduction (over 20 percentage points) in Spanish public debt. In 2021 and 2022, there is also a lower inflationary pressure for the European Union, Germany, Spain and Italy, after a very sharp rise in prices in 2020. Regarding the labor market, with the exception of Germany and European Union, where the unemployment rate would be relatively higher, especially in 2022, and the remaining countries would register lower unemployment rates.

We reassess the relationship between robotization and the growth in productivity in the light of new data and methods. We discover that the effect of robot density in the growth productivity substantially decreased in the post-2008 crisis period. Moreover, in this more recent period, the less strong positive effect of robot density in the growth of productivity is mostly derived from negative effect of hours worked in productivity, showing that robots lost part of their capacity to increase productivity through value-added. By means of quantile regression, we also learn that the effect of robots on labor productivity is stronger for low productivity sectors and that in the most recent period, the effect of robotization in all sectors, felt significantly throughout the distribution, with special emphasis in the
most productive sectors. This highlights one of the possible sources of the secular stagnation in the era of robotization and artificial intelligence technologies.

The degree of co-movement between currencies remains an important subject for international trade and monetary integration across countries. However, the economic literature has given limited answers about the directional relationships among currencies, and whether they have a leader or a driver. Using the Hodrick-Prescott filter and the wavelet methodology, this paper analyzes exchange rate synchronization for a set of twelve currencies belonging to different  monetary areas covering the period between January 1980 and July 2020. The empirical results reveal that: i) the U.S. dollar still plays an essential role as a foreign exchange anchor; ii) the euro shows an out-of-phase relationship with the vast majority of currencies, including with the other European currencies; iii) the British pound seems to have departed significantly  from the European single currency; iv) the Brazilian real leads the Chinese yuan for most of the sample, and both currencies record great dissimilarities with the other currencies; v) in the absence of short-term foreign exchange market frictions, average bilateral distances between currencies are smaller, and vi) during the international financial crisis, exchange rates became more synchronized.

In most advanced economies productivity growth has been hampered by barriers that allow zombie firms to survive. We examine the effectiveness of institutional reforms in Portugal that were aimed to improve efficiency in insolvency framework. Estimates show that reallocation barriers declined. The reforms appear to have larger and more effective results in zombie recovery than in exit. Firm size plays a major role in tackling zombie-entrenchment. The decline in barriers has also implied a lower distortion in the economy-wide selection process. The new setting seems to be more desirable than forcing zombie exit at all costs.

This paper examines the influence of human capital on labour market resilience in the seven Portuguese NUTS-2 over the period 1995-2018. We define resilience as the ability of regional employment to recover from a shock to output over the business cycle. We use the Local Projection (LP) methodology applied to a SVAR model with three variables - employment, human capital, real GDP - and the output gap as the switching variable for the identification of recession and expansion regimes. We explore SVAR specifications that condition the response of the labour market to two scenarios: (a) the shock to GDP occurs during recessions; and (b) the shock to GDP occurs during expansions. The comparison of the employment responses to GDP shocks between the two regimes is informative about the degree of resilience of the labour market. We find evidence of: (i) distinct effects in terms of the sign and amplitude of GDP shocks on regional employment according to the level of educational attainment of the employees; (ii) labour market resilience and jobless recoveries in several regions; and (iii) different regional reactions of human capital to GDP shocks depending on the regime.

This case study applies Monte Carlo-based real options to analyse the expansion of a port. A stochastic model is defined for the Santarém port, in Brazil, and the optimal moment for expanding the terminal is determined. The application resorts to a common spreadsheet and a simulation add-in, allowing the quantification of both the value of expanding the terminal and the flexibility to determine when to expand.  The results allow us to conclude that deterministic cash flow models, based on the expected value, may lead to important biases in projects with capacity constraints. We also conclude that the expansion option may have a high value, which is strongly determined by the initial conditions, and that the expansion thresholds (the values of demand that trigger the expansion) change significantly along the project.

Does corporate debt overhang affect investment over the medium term? To uncover this association, I measure debt overhang with a concept of debt accumulation or debt boom, and combine leverage with liquid assets to capture financial constraints. Using a large US firm-levelpanel over 1985Q1-2019Q1, I find that debt overhang leads financially vulnerable firms to cutpermanently back on investment: a 10 p.p. increase in the three-year change in the leverageratio is associated with lower investment growth of 5 p.p. after five years compared to the mostresilient firms. I also find that vulnerable firms experience weaker intangible capital growth inthe aftermath of debt booms. Finally, I find that general equilibrium effects dominate, stressingthe risk that firm-specific debt booms in a subset of firms may spill over to the rest of theeconomy.

In this paper, we devise a forward-looking methodology to determine efficient credit portfolios under the IFRS 9 framework. We define and implement a credit loss model based on prospective point-in-time probabilities of default. We determine these probabilities of default and the credits’ stage allocation through a credit stochastic simulation. This simulation is based on the estimation of transition matrices. Using data from 1981 to 2019, in a non-homogeneous Markov chain setting, we estimate transition matrices conditional on the global real gross domestic product growth. This allows considering the effects of the economic cycle, which are of great importance in bank management. Finally, we develop a robust optimization model that allows the bank manager to analyze the tradeoff between the annual average portfolio income and the corresponding portfolio volatility. According to the proposed bi-objective model, we compute the efficient credit portfolios constructed based on 10-year maturity credits. We compare their structure to those generated by the IAS 39 and CECL accounting frameworks. The results indicate that the IFRS 9 and CECL frameworks generate efficient credit portfolios whose structure penalizes riskier-rated credits. In turn, the riskier efficient credit portfolios under the IAS 39 framework concentrate entirely on speculative-grade credits. This pattern is also encountered in efficient credit portfolios constructed based on credits with different maturities, namely 5 and 15 years. Moreover, the longer the maturity of the credits that enter into the composition of the efficient portfolios, the more the speculative-grade credits tend to be penalized.

A number of recent scientific articles have studied the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and firm’s performance, though not all came in the scope of international entrepreneurship (IE). Researchers often test mediating or moderating variables that help explain this relationship. The extensive academic findings lead us to a wide range of mediating/moderating variables and to a lack of consensus in this domain. This study is in scope of IE literature, and it aims to provide new and robust insights supported by consistent empirical findings and to adopt this structural-model approach as a reference in the absence of academic consensus. Specifically, the paper examines the contribution of intrapreneurship to both the firm’s international orientation (IO) and performance in light of the IE guidelines. To this end, we examine how the EO of Portuguese exporters influences corporate performance taking into account the meditating effect of their IO on the EO – performance association through structural equation modelling. Results confirm that IO positively and significantly mediates the relationship between EO and corporate performance. EO and IO were also found to have a direct and positive effect on corporate performance. These findings confirm the relevance of intrapreneurship and international commitment to a better organisational performance and gives us empirical support to conclude that effort taken in these domains could enhance the exporters’ performance. Moreover, this study makes an empirical and theoretical contribution to the IE topic and therefore aims to be a reference to the literature in this domain.

This paper compares the performance of efficient portfolios based on the Markowitz (1952) mean-variance model with portfolios with high skewness. The assumption that the return of assets follows the normal distribution is the basis of the mean-variance model. However, the return of financial assets often deviates from the normal distribution, namely due to positive skewness, which may offer some advantages to investors. Previous literature reports several obstacles that make it difficult to include skewness in portfolio optimization, and that there is a trade-off between return and skewness maximization. Mean-variance optimization versus the search for positive skewness is addressed in this paper by estimating comparative performance ratios between mean-variance efficient portfolios and portfolios with high skewness. The paper also estimates probit models which highlight the probability of obtaining higher return from portfolios with  high skewness than from mean-variance optimized portfolios. The probability given by our estimations is, in general, relatively low, which suggests that mean-variance optimization must be preferred to the search for positive skewness as method of portfolio choice.

Making use of a two-country, two-sector, New Keynesian model with essential and non-essential goods we assess the macroeconomic consequences of a labor supply shock in the Euro Area. Our model incorporates health status in the households' maximization problem which depends on the time devoted to leisure. Health status is linked to the consumption of non-essential goods, such that the demand for non-essentials is decreasing with contemporaneous health. After calibrating the model for the case of Portugal and the rest of the Euro Area, our simulations show that, a labor supply shock affecting only the latter, reduces the demand for non-essential goods, generates inflation in the Portuguese economy and pushes both regions into economic recession, depriving households from essential goods. If the labor supply shock affects both economies, the negative income effect dominates the decreased demand effect for non-essential goods and that stagflation is a plausible scenario. In addition, our calibration scheme allows us to conclude that the asymmetric effects across economies may be due to different price rigidities between sectors and to different production structures between countries.

This paper describes WISER CD (Welfare Intervention by the State and Economic Resilience - Comprehensive Dataset) a cross-country panel dataset that includes relevant indicators for the analyses of the relationship between the welfare state and aggregate macroeconomic performance, highlighting human capital and inequality as the channels of transmission. WISER CD covers 36 OECD countries over the period 1980-2017 resulting in 1085 variables from primary sources and five constructed variables for the measurement of human capital. We gathered data from a range of primary data sources that were grouped in six relevant dimensions: economic growth; welfare state; human capital; inequality; control variables; government size and financing. Two additional datasets were generated with no missing values, although at the cost of a shorter time coverage and more limited cross-country availability. The former broaden the options faced by researchers in terms of econometric methodologies (and others) for the investigation of the relationship under analysis.

This paper analyzes the main determinants of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the member countries of Mano River Union: Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. We use both data at the firm level and at the country level - and employ OLS and ARDL techniques - in order to examine the differences and similarities in FDI drivers across these four countries. Our results show that international trade, investment in infrastructures and access to credit have a positive impact on FDI. While credit and trade have a similar influence across countries, the effect of investment is distinct across Mano River members, which raises political implications for policy coordination among states. We also conclude that policies aimed to boost human capital, as well as political and economic stability, are relevant, as they augment FDI inflows.

Objective: To examine socioeconomic inequality in dietary habits and obesity in Portugal, looking at their evolution from 2005/06 to 2014.  

Methods: Cross-sectional data collected by Statistics Portugal – National Health Survey. Samples used in this study include 18–64-year olds (n=23,049 in 2005/06 and n=10,312 in 2014). The analysis focusses on differences in the prevalence of intake (at main meals) of nine foods across income groups and over time. Multiple logistic regression analysis is adopted to analyse association between socioeconomic factors (income and education) and obesity, controlling for behavioural and demographic characteristics.

Results: Mean prevalence (%) in intake of food in 2005-06/2014 – soup (66/59: P<0.01), beans (22/28: P<0.01), meat (80/80), fish (48/46), carbohydrates (88/88), cakes (26/40: P<0.01). Intake increases with income in both periods for salad, fruit, fish and cakes; in 2014, intake decreases for soft drinks. The ratio between intake in highest income group and intake in lowest income group for fish, salad, cakes and soft drinks, changed from 1.24, 1.13, 1.6, 0.9, in 2005/06, to 1.71, 1.37, 1.2, 0.66, in 2014, respectively. Association between income and obesity is significant only in highest income group (OR about 0.78 in both periods). Risk of obesity is lower for secondary and superior education, compared to basic, in both years (OR=0.616 in 2005/06 and OR=0.820 in 2014, for secondary education; OR=0.525 in 2005/06 and OR=0.608 in 2014, for superior education).

Conclusions: Differences in dietary habits tended to increase in a decade, favouring the better-off. Socioeconomic inequality in obesity is clearer for education than income and persisted over time.

We reassess the impact that robotization has on wages and employment, using a database on US commuting zones from 1990 to 2007. Using an argument based on the transitional dynamics we show that the negative displacement effects of robotization can be surpassed by productivity and reallocation effects, leading to positive effects on employment after a certain level of penetration in industry. In fact, we confirm this effect through regressions that are subject to different robustness checks. Previous evidence according to which robotization always decreases employment and wages are thus not confirmed.

This paper investigates the pricing patterns of 161 IPOs that occurred in 2009-2017 in the Euronext markets of Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon, and Paris. Across all the IPOs, we find a first-day raw return of 1.4% and an industry-adjusted return of 1.2%. After one year, the average raw returns are slightly higher, around 4.5%, and the average adjusted returns are negative, around -2.7%. These first-day returns are lower whilst long-run returns are higher than those reported in other studies, most notably in those that use periods that overlap our sample Healthcare is the industry that presents a higher initial underpricing (2.3% industry-adjusted return), whilst the Technology industry presents the higher year underperformance (-29.5% industry-adjusted return). Mainly, results are in line with the market conditions and investor sentiment hypotheses according to which, when market conditions are bad (crises), uninformed investors are not so active and optimistic in the IPO market, hence initial underpricing and subsequent underperformance tend to be lower.

Since late 2014, Portuguese Governments adopted ambitious minimum wage policies. Using linked employer-employee data, we provide an econometric evaluation of the impact of those policies. Our estimates suggest that minimum wage increases reduced employment growth and profitability, in particular for financially distressed firms. We also conclude that minimum wage increases had a positive impact on firms’ exit, again amplified for financially distressed firms. According to these results, minimum wage policies may have had a supply side effect by accelerating the exit of low profitability and low productivity firms and, thus, contributing to improve aggregate productivity through a cleansing effect.

This article analyzes spatial autocorrelations and the formation of clusters of exports, based on Research and Development (R&D) intensity in Portugal. The central idea is that exports show relative interdependence and spillover effects among nearby regions and a direct relationship with R&D expenditures. It adopts the new taxonomy of the OECD, separating exports by manufacturing and non-manufacturing activities. Methodologically, is was used Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA), utilizing Global Moran's Index and LISA. The results showed the presence of positive spatial autocorrelation of exports and the formation of a cluster of the High-High type for the Porto metropolitan region and Aveiro region. There was no confirmation of positive spatial autocorrelation for R&D expenditures among the regions of Portugal. However, there was both a positive spatial autocorrelation for exports associated with R&D expenditures as well as the formation of a regional cluster with high-high pattern for the Aveiro region. This outcome can be explained, in part, by nationally and internationally recognized universities and research centers surrounding the region, favoring knowledge spillovers across the regions.

Despite some recent evidence according to which different inflation rates have effects on long run growth, endogenous growth theory had advanced little on explaining the mechanics of monetary influence on economic growth. We follow the increasing interest in the issue offering a new explanation for the influence of monetary policy on growth in both long and short run: the cash requirements for households expenditures in education. Quantitatively, the model replicates both the small influence of monetary policy on growth while also highlighting the effects it can have on welfare and allocations of resources throughout different sectors in the economy.

The literature on development has pointed out some deeply-rooted determinants of current economic development. Most research on the field has been devoted to developing countries or specific to single countries. We focus on deeply-rooted determinants of development of European regions, in particular on the influence of human capital. Following an identification strategy using instrumental variables, we approach the historical links between current human capital and the presence of universities and trade guilds in medieval times. We show that human capital is an important determinant of income disparities across European regions, and that trade guilds and universities at 1500 are good instruments to track the exogenous influence of the current levels of human capital. This finding shows robustness to several econometric specifications.

We contribute to the renewable energy consumption-income (and growth) nexus literature by performing an empirical study on a worldwide panel data, also accounting for cross-country dependency using a parsimonious specification that accounts for traditional sources of income differences as well as institutional features of the countries. Our results present either negative or nonsignificant influence of the share of renewable energies consumption to economic growth and income.

We devise a North-South endogenous growth model with international trade and money to study the effects of inflation (and monetary policy) on wage inequality, specialization, and growth. The relationship between monetary policy and wage inequality depends on the fact that skilled-production firms are less credit constrained than unskilled-production firms. Interestingly, inflation affects the structure of production by increasing the production share made by skilled-intensive firms, and decreases economic growth. Furthermore, inflation decreases the difference of wage inequality between countries; shrinking the skill premia difference. Moreover, inflation and trade have opposite effects on wage inequality and on specialization: while trade tends to decrease intra-South wage inequality, inflation tends to increase it; while trade tends to increase the number of different intermediate goods produced with unskilled technology in the South; inflation acts the other way around. Results are confirmed quantitatively.

This study investigates the effect of the political connections of members of banks' Boards of Directors on the remuneration of these boards, taking into account the gender diversity of their members. Using a panel of observations on 77 banks supervised by the ECB for the period 2013 to 2017, and the generalized method of moments (GMM), our results show that, when analyzing linear effects, political connections have a negative impact on the remuneration of the members of the banks' Boards of Directors, reducing them. However, when investigating the possible moderating effect, we found that when gender diversity is high, there is a non-linear, inverted U-shaped relationship between the political connections and the remuneration of members of the Boards of Directors of banks. Our results also show that the differentiating characteristics of the female gender, accentuate the negative effects of political connections on remuneration, making the institution's interests to be privileged at the expense of those of its personal agendas. Overall, these general results prove to be robust across different choices of the measures used for gender diversity.

We develop a directed technical change model with two sectors, tradable and non-tradable, and dynamic firms’ decisions to invest in R&D in the presence of financial constraints. The model establishes a linkage between R&D decisions, product and process innovations, future productivity, profits, and credit constraints. The model is estimated using Portuguese firms’ data of the tradable and non-tradable sectors. We find that the previous R&D investments raises the innovating probabilities, the innovating probabilities are higher in the tradable sector, and the startup costs of innovation tend to be higher than the maintenance costs. The results also show complementary between the R&D benefits and the firm’s financial strength, diminishing marginal returns to capital on innovation benefits, and high heterogeneity of the innovation costs across industries. Finally, when the firms’ financial strength and the trade-off between tradable and non-tradable goods are considered, the R&D benefits in the non-tradable sector do not compensate its cost given the higher productivity and innovation probabilities of the tradable sector. As a result, the R&D investments in the tradable sector illustrates a misallocation of financial resources.

In this paper we perform a quantitative analysis, under the IFRS 9 framework, on the tradeoff of classifying a financial asset at amortized cost versus at fair value. We define and implement a banking impairment model in order to quantify the forward-looking expected credit loss. Based on the suggested impairment model we conduct a backtest on the 10-year Portuguese Government bonds, for the time period from January 2003 to December 2019. The Portuguese bonds’ history constitutes a very rich data set for our experiment, as these bonds have experienced significant downgrades during the 2011-2014 financial crisis. We suggest a quantitative and systematic approach in order to find efficient allocations, in an income/downside comprehensive income bi-dimensional space. Resorting to stochastic simulation, we show a possible approach to mitigate the estimation error ingrained in the proposed bi-objective stochastic model. Finally, we assess the out-of-sample performance of some of the suggested efficient allocations.

We devise a generalized Directed Technical Change growth model in which firms spend resources in lobbying activity. As expected, the presence of lobbying distorts the skill premium and economic growth. Lobbying also contributes to a lower technological-knowledge bias toward the skill-sector and constitutes a possible explanation for the diverging empirical evidence on the relationship between the skill premium and the relative supply of skills. An increase in the relative lobbying power of the skilled intensive intermediate goods firms can lead to an increase or decrease in the skill premium, depending on the elasticity of substitution between the skilled and unskilled sectors. Lobbying also introduces possibility of a dual economy, with two different steady states, one characterized by low growth and another by high growth, depending on a threshold level of the lobbying power and on the elasticity of substitution. Quantitative exercises show that lobbying can indeed be quite important in distorting the skill premium and the economic growth.

We show that the labor share of income is an important factor affecting the mechanisms behind fiscal consolidation programs, thus requiring consideration when evaluating fiscal multipliers across countries. We calibrate a life-cycle, overlapping generations model to match key characteristics of different European economies and evaluate the recessive impacts of fiscal consolidation programs. We find a positive relationship between the labor share and the impact fiscal multipliers generated by our model. This result directly follows from the higher weight of labor on production and the lower opportunity cost of leisure present in economies with a higher labor share. Following the impact period, the relationship between the labor share and the fiscal multipliers is dependent on the type of fiscal instrument employed in the consolidation.

The present study investigates the effect of gender diversity on the impact of board members' political connections on banking performance. Using panel data on 83 banks supervised by the European Central Bank (ECB) for the period 2013-2017, our results suggest that when gender diversity is high, there is a U-shaped nonlinear relationship between political connections and banking performance. Empirical evidence also indicates that differentiating characteristics of women, such as greater ethical concern and risk aversion, help mitigate the negative effects of political connections on banking performance, safeguarding the institutions’ interests from the adverse effects of personal agendas. In addition, our results also suggest that a minimum of 14% gender diversity can actually contribute to a greater social justice and beneficial structural change. Overall, these general conclusions seem fairly robust, being drawn from several versions of the regression model adopted in the study, using different sets of control variates and different gender diversity measures.

We examine the long- and short-run relationships between USD/EUR official rates and implicit exchange rates, through Bitcoin as a currency vehicle, over the period from March 07, 2016 to November 22, 2019. The results show that the two exchange rates are cointegrated and that the cointegrating vector is not statistically different from the theoretical one that results from the law of one price. In the short-run, the implied rate Granger-causes the official reference rate. Our main conclusion is that Bitcoin USD and EUR prices incorporate fundamental information from the USD/EUR official exchange rate

The aim of this paper is to analyze the performance of several models for forecasting exports. We collected data on Portugal’s real exports of goods and on the variables suggested by models based on the assumption of perfect competition and of monopolistic competition. We estimated Vector Autoregressive (VAR) models with those variables and compared the performance of the forecasts produced by those models with the forecasts obtained from simpler, univariate models, namely ARIMA models and Holt’s linear trend model. We consider four alternative frameworks in which the forecasts might be produced. These scenarios correspond to “static forecasts”, “recursive forecasts”, “dynamic forecasts” and “dynamic forecasts with known exogenous variables”. We also consider the computation of recursive forecasts including dummies related to the international financial crisis. The best model (according to the root mean squared error of the forecasts in the period since the start of the international financial crisis) depends on the scenario considered for the computation of the forecasts. The theory-based models do not produce forecasts that are clearly better than the forecasts produced by the simpler univariate models. In addition, the impact of the international financial crisis appears to be better represented by a temporary shock than by a permanent shock (with a constant effect). The results cast doubts on the relevance of traditional measures of competitiveness for the evolution of exports. As a consequence of the above, it is not clear that discussions of competitiveness that put the emphasis on costs, namely on wages, or on the exchange rate provide useful guides to policy.

At the time of joining the European Economic Community (precursor to the European Union) and the Eurozone, Portuguese agents were very optimistic about the level of development that the country would be able to achieve as a result of being a member of those economic areas. In this paper we describe the changes occurred in the Portuguese economy since joining the European Union and later the Eurozone. In addition, we provide estimates of the evolution of the expectations of Portuguese agents with respect to long-term real per capita GDP, based on a simple intertemporal macroeconomic model. Over the period under analysis, there was an impressive progress in standards of living. Before joining the euro, Portuguese agents were optimistic about long-term income. Expectations remained high until the onset of the debt crisis, at which time expectations collapsed. A slow recovery is visible in our estimates for the most recent years.

In this paper we investigate the impact of corruption on economic growth in Portugal over the period 1980-2018. The empirical approach makes use of a VAR model inspired by the standard Cobb-Douglas aggregate production function. The VAR model includes the capital stock, hours worked, total factor productivity and the corruption perceptions index (CPI) of Transparency International. The CPI combines several sources of information on the level of corruption in each country. The scale of this index goes from 0, the highest level of corruption, to 10, the lowest level. The magnitude of the estimated effect of corruption on economic growth in the unrestricted VAR model is large (and positive), but statistically not significantly different from zero. However, the results from the estimation of a structural VAR model with economically plausible long-run restrictions indicate modest gains from reducing corruption. 

The Zeuthen-Hicks bargaining model connects strategic and axiomatic bargaining models by providing a description of the behavior of each party, and showing that the entire process leads to the axiomatically founded Nash bargaining solution. In its original formulation, the model treats parties asymmetrically by considering different decision alternatives of the focal party (who can either accept the opponent's offer or make a counteroffer, but not quit the negotiation) and the opponent (who can accept the focal party's offer or quit the negotiation, but not make a counteroffer). We extend the model to consider the full set of possible actions from both sides, which requires explicit modeling of the expectations of the parties concerning outcomes and outside options that become available during the process. We show analytically that under the assumption of concave utilities of both parties, the bargaining process converges to the nonsymmetric Nash bargaining solution. This result provides a new interpretation of the parameters of the nonsymmetric Nash bargaining solution, linking them to behavior in the bargaining process. Furthermore, we perform a simulation study to analyze the outcomes for non-concave utilities.

In this article, we argue that inflation increases complexity pertaining to knowledge

production (or R&D). Then, we expand a recently developed complexity index based

on entropy to include the effect of inflation. As a result of this new mechanism in an

endogenous growth model, inflation is no longer superneutral. In the model, inflation

can decrease economic growth in a nonlinear way, a sudden upward shock on inflation

can severely hurt economic growth and an inflation cut can be responsible for a take-off.

These effects are illustrated quantitatively.

In this paper we introduce NIESIM (Network Information Economics SIMulation), a software for simulating a mobile communications scenario and studying the value of information in the context of mobile network management. The modelling principles and the simulation strategy used to design and develop NIESIM software are introduced, along with simulation results. We consider an application of NIESIM to support the definition of the grade of service in a network that is exposed to failures. An exploratory discussion of the findings and their implications to future work is also presented.

A new approach is considered to estimate risk-neutral densities (RND) within a kernel regression framework, through local cubic polynomial estimation using intraday data. There is a new strategy for the definition of a criterion function used in nonparametric regression that includes calls, puts, and weights in the optimization problem associated with parameters estimation. No-arbitrage restrictions are incorporated in the problem through equality and bound constraints. This yields directly density functions of interest with minimum requirements needed. Within a simulation framework, it is demonstrated the robustness of proposed procedures. Additionally, RNDs are estimated through option prices associated with two indices, S&P500 and VIX.

This paper consists of a literature review of the impact of High Performance Work Systems (HPWS) on employee outcomes such as job satisfaction and organizational affective commitment, based on employees’ perceptions. After reviewing the strategic importance of Human Resources Management, we draw on theories like AMO and Social Exchange to understand the impact of HPWS on employee outcomes, suggesting possible relations that can shed some light into the “blackbox” of HPWS-performance linkage. 

The present text is focused on the evaluation of the influence that determinants of loan contracts’ design may have on loan renegotiation. This general purpose is faced with the possible simultaneity of determination of some such factors (namely the use of collaterals and loan interest rate) and the likelihood of contract renegotiation. Naturally, this simultaneity corresponds to an issue of endogeneity of these factors within econometric models of the conditional probability of renegotiation. If neglected, covariates’ endogeneity causes model misspecification, translating into unreliable empirical assessments of the marginal effects of all renegotiation determinants on the probability of loan redesign. Building on the theory of incomplete contracts, suggesting that the possibility of contract renegotiation is already anticipated at the contracting date, the empirical findings of the paper, based on a dataset provided by a Brazilian bank, provide strong indication that this can indeed be the case. Accordingly, the empirical assessment of the marginal contributions of important variables to the likelihood of renegotiation is revisited, thereby enabling a deeper understanding of renegotiation processes.

This paper investigates the commonalities and differences between benign credit booms and those that end up in banking crises by employing a Multinomial and a Sequential Logit model over a panel of industrial and developing countries. Some economic, political and institutional factors are found to play an important role in understanding the credit booms dynamics. In particular, this study shows that the quantity and price of credit, liquidity in the economy, economic growth, openness of the economy, government orientation, political stability and Central Bank independence are relevant to explain not only the occurrence of credit booms but also – and most importantly – whether they end up in a systemic banking crisis or not. While a better economic environment and Central Bank independence are essential for both industrial and developing countries to avoid credit booms from going badly, political factors seem to exert a stronger influence in developing countries.

This paper addresses measurement error (ME) of double bounded variables, of which fractional variables, defined on the interval [0,1], constitute a prominent example. The text discusses consequences of ME and suggests a specification test sensitive to ME of such variables. Given the latter’s bounded support, ME is not independent of the original error-free variate, a fact that invalidates classical ME assumptions as a framework for the test. This is circumvented with a score test of independence between the error-free variate and ME, under which the latter becomes degenerate at zero and their joint distribution, specified as a copula function, reduces to the original variable’s distribution. This procedure yields a specification test of the distribution of the error-free variable, valid under mild assumptions on the marginal distribution of ME and under departures from the specified copula. The test’s finite-sample behaviour is also evaluated through a set of simulation experiments.

The present article studies the determinants of banking spreads, allowing for the possibility that the impact of some of these determinants on spreads may differ according to the particular loan type. This concern is fostered by both theoretical and empirical evidence supporting the general idea that the hetero-geneity of banks’ loan portfolios should be taken into account when studying the drivers of spread. This approach is distinct from previous work in the liter-ature, usually utilizing a single interest margin per bank, in order to measure the impact of its determinants. Using a dataset of observations on various per-sonal loan categories and the Difference GMM approach, the present study es-timates that marginal effects of, respectively, banks’ risk aversion, credit risk, and market share on spreads differ significantly according to whether the loan is a consumer loan, a paycheck-linked credit line or a revolving credit line for individuals. These findings suggest, accordingly, that central banks and regula-tory agencies should observe the composition of banks’ loans portfolios when writing their policies aiming at spread reduction.

The present study examines the impact of family involvement on the debt structure of family businesses. Family corporate involvement is considered in three related but distinct dimensions: capital ownership, firm’s management and corporate control. The marginal effect of each of these three dimensions is specified as a unique regression parameter in a conditional mean model for the proportion of medium- plus long-term debt to total debt. This general strategy calls for an appropriate modelling and estimation approach, taking due account of the response variable’s inherent fractional definition and consequential nonlinear functional form of its conditional expectation, given covariates. Such an approach, combining a probit model for the equation of interest with a control function estimation method, is applied to a panel data set on Portuguese family businesses. Estimation results confirm the uniqueness of the impact of each of the three considered dimensions of families’ corporate involvement on the debt structure of firms.

This paper examines stock returns and dividend growth predictability using dividend yields in seven large developed markets: US, UK, Japan, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Altogether, these countries account for around 85% of the MSCI World Index. We use annual data, and for the US, UK, Japan, and France the time series are long enough to conduct a separate analysis of the pre- and post-IIWW periods. We also study the relationship between the predictability in dividend growth and the degree of dividend smoothness. For the post-IIWW period, returns are predictable in the US and the UK but dividends are unpredictable, while the opposite pattern is observed in Spain and Italy. In Germany, there is some evidence of short-term predictability for both returns and dividends, while in France only returns are predictable. In Japan, neither variable can be forecasted. Generally, there is no clear connection between dividend smoothness and predictability.

The literature that investigates credit booms has essentially focused on their economic determinants. The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of political conditionings and central bank independence. In doing so, a fixed effects logit model is estimated over a panel of 67 countries for the period 1975q1-2016q4. The results show that not only the economic but also the political environment influences significantly the likelihood of credit booms. Even though lending booms have not proven to depend on the electoral cycle, they are less likely when right-wing parties are in office, especially in developing countries, and when the political environment is more unstable. In addition, more independent Central Banks are found to reduce the probability of credit booms. However, when a country’s monetary policy in the hands of a single regional monetary union they are more likely to occur and spread. Some significant differences are also unveiled when comparing industrial with developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to study the relation between Portuguese exports of goods and a set of variables that theoretical models suggest as the main determinants of export behavior. Given that the exchange rate is one of the key variables identified by the theoretical models, we begin by reviewing the evolution of Portugal’s exchange rate policy between the 1977 and 1999, when Portugal joined the European Monetary Union. In addition, we discuss how the exchange rate policy has been related to the issue of competitiveness of Portuguese firms. We then present the theoretical models and proceed to an empirical analysis of their adequacy. The results of our empirical analysis indicate that the perfect competition model does not provide an acceptable representation of the behavior of Portugal's exports of goods. The results improve when the monopolistic competition model is estimated. The estimation of a modified version of the monopolistic competition model suggests that Portugal's exports of goods are very elastic with respect to demand and productivity, but very inelastic with respect to wages. Nevertheless, certain variables are not significant, which indicates that there are problems to be solved either in the theoretical framework or in the empirical approach. The estimates reported support the conclusion that to foster exports a focus on wage costs and on exchange rate fluctuations is probably inefficient or even misguided. Productivity and demand seem to be more important determinants of exports. If one believes in this conclusion, then views

The aim of this study is to analyse the circular linkages between recycling and economic development, where renewable energy plays an additional role in this process. We use a two-equation model, which describes a cumulative causation process with feedback effects, where recycling (among other growth inducing factors) is assumed to be important for sustainable economic development (given by the Human Development Index) and vice-versa. The system of simultaneous equations is estimated by 3sls, both in a static form and introducing dynamics into the model, for a panel of 28 OECD countries over the period 2004-2015. The empirical evidence suggests a strong relationship between the economic development level and the recycling rate with feedback effects, supporting the idea of a circular cumulative causation process driven mostly by higher human capital skills and, to a lesser extent, by innovation. Atmospheric pollution also stimulates the recycling process.

This paper investigates the information transmission between the most important cryptocurrencies - Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple, Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash. We use a VAR modelling approach, upon which the Geweke’s feedback measures and generalized impulse response functions are computed. This methodology allows us to fully characterize the direction, intensity and persistence of information flows between cryptocurrencies. At this data granularity, most of information transmission is contemporaneous. However it seems that there are some lagged feedback effects, mainly from other cryptocurrencies to Bitcoin. The generalized impulse-response functions confirm that there is a strong contemporaneous correlation and that there is not much evidence of lagged effects. The exception appears to be related to the overreaction of Bitcoin returns to contemporaneous shocks.

This paper offers novel insights regarding the role of complexity in both the transitional and the long-run dynamics of the economy. We devise an endogenous growth model using the concept of entropy as a state-dependent complexity effect. This allows us to gradually diminish scale effects as the economy develops along the transitional dynamics, which conciliates evidence on the existence of scale effects in history with evidence of no or reduced scale effects in today’s economies. We show that empirical evidence supports entropy as a “first principle” operator of the complexity effect. The model features endogenous growth, with null or small (positive or negative) scale effects, or stagnation, in the long run. These different long-run possibilities have also policy implications. Then, we show that the model can replicate well the take-off after the industrial revolution and the productivity slowdown in the second half of the XXth century. Future scenarios based on in-sample calibration are discussed, and may help to explain (part of) the growth crises affecting the current generation.

As a multidisciplinary concept, entrepreneurship can be explained by numerous factors. Therefore, the aim of this study is to test empirically the determinants of entrepreneurship (overall and sectoral) in the Portuguese economy. Despite the methodological limitations inherent in such studies, which are mainly due to the incompatibility of some series and the temporal limitations of some data, the novelty involving a cross-sectoral view of the entrepreneurial phenomenon fuels this challenge. For this purpose, we employ an estimation approach based on time series models to confirm (or reject) a diversity of hypotheses. The main results indicate that the determinants of entrepreneurship in industry are significantly different from the determinants of entrepreneurship in the service sector in Portugal. On the other hand, the determinants of entrepreneurship in the service sector are very similar to those explaining the overall entrepreneurial activity, due to the high share of services in total economic activity. The main conclusions of the study can guide institutional decision-makers to adopt adequate policies for promoting entrepreneurship in Portugal. Additionally, strategic routes for the sustainable development of entrepreneurial activity are suggested.

Worldwide, demand for blood and blood products has increased. It is important to work on donor recruitment strategies. Because in developed countries the young have been more reluctant to donate, it is particularly pertinent to assess their motivations. In addition, there is sparse evidence regarding this research topic in Portugal. Using a self-administered questionnaire by a sample of university students and adopting multiple logistic regression analysis, the aims of this study are to assess attitudes, knowledge and motivations regarding blood donation and to identify factors associated with donation among young donors.

This paper studies the relationship between the electricity spot and futures prices in the Iberian electricity market, with a special focus on the ex-post risk premium of monthly futures contracts. The study covers the period from 1 July 2006 to 31 March 2017, during which 128 monthly futures contracts were traded. We show that the risk premium is dynamic and presents on average a negative value. Within contracts, the risk premium presents a non-linear dependence on the remaining trading days until maturity. There is no statistical evidence for rejecting the unbiased forward hypothesis of the futures prices. However, the sequence of futures prices near maturity has some predictive power on the risk premium.

This paper analyses the relationship between health human capital and economic growth for a maximum sample of 92 countries over the period 1980-2010 applying the methodology proposed by Canay (2011) for regression by quantiles (Koenker 1978; 2004; 2012a,b) in a panel framework. This approach allows for the identification of different impacts of the explanatory variables across the growth rate distribution. According to Mello & Perelli (2003), quantile regression allows to capture countries’ heterogeneity and assess how policy variables affect different countries according to their position on the conditional growth distribution. Quantile regression analysis allows us to identify those growth determinants that do not have the expected relationship with growth and hence determine the policy implications specifically for under-performing versus over achieving countries in terms of output growth. Our findings indicate that better health is positively and robustly related to growth at all quantiles, but the quantitative importance of the respective coefficients differs across quantiles in some cases, with the sign of the relationship greater for countries that recorded lower growth rates. These results apply to both positive (life expectancy, consumption of calories per person per day) and negative (infant mortality rate, prevalence of undernourishment in populations) health status indicators. Given the predominantly public nature of health funding, cuts in health expenditures should thus be carefully balanced even in times of public finances sustainability problems, particularly in times of growth slowdowns, since a decrease in the stock of health human capital can be particularly harmful for growth for under achievers.

Two main issues, closely related to each other, have occupied the European Central Bank in recent years: the sovereign debt crisis and the possibility of deflation in the Euro Zone. In this paper we discuss the causes, the consequences and the policy options regarding deflation. In addition, we assess the magnitude of the risk of deflation in the Euro Zone. For this purpose, we will employ the methodology of Kilian and Manganelli (2007). Our results suggest that the threat of deflation in the Euro Zone is related to the international financial crisis and to the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. Thus, the probability of deflation in the Euro zone increased in recent years. Nevertheless, it appears to have subsided in 2017, justifying the view taken by the ECB’s Governing Council, according to which deflation is no longer a problem for the Euro zone.

Following the Great Recession, many European countries implemented fiscal consolidation policies aimed at reducing government debt. Using three independent data sources and three different empirical approaches, we document a strong positive relationship between higher income inequality and stronger recessive impacts of fiscal consolidation programs across time and place. To explain this finding, we develop a life-cycle, overlapping generations economy with uninsurable labor market risk. We calibrate our model to match key characteristics of a number of European economies, including the distribution of wages and wealth, social security, taxes and debt, and study the effects of fiscal consolidation programs. We find that higher income risk induces precautionary savings behavior, which decreases the proportion of credit-constrained agents in the economy. Credit-constrained agents have less elastic labor supply responses to fiscal consolidation achieved through either tax hikes or public spending cuts, and this explains the relationship between income inequality and the impact of fiscal consolidation programs. Our model produces a cross-country correlation between inequality and the fiscal consolidation multipliers, which is quite similar to that in the data.

The relationship between renewable energy sources and economic growth has attracted the interest of researchers in recent years. However, the analysis has focused mostly on measuring the impact of renewable energy consumption on economic performance (such as economic growth) that does not reflect the quality of standards of living. We employ a different approach measuring the impact of renewable energy consumption on the Human Development Index (HDI) that considers these qualitative characteristics associated with better health and educational standards along with income performance. Additionally, we develop a simultaneous equation system approach that describes the interrelations between economic variables, renewable energy and pollution emissions with feedback effect tendencies. We provide robust evidence using panel data for a set of 28 OECD countries over the period 2004-2015. The system of equations is estimated by 3sls considering a static and dynamic specification of the model. It is shown that renewable energy consumption along with human and physical capital are important factors for explaining the sustainable development level of the countries considered. Renewable energy consumption is mostly determined by higher levels of human capital, the R&D spending and the stage of countries’ development. Factors like the stage of development, total energy consumption, renewable energy consumption and standard levels of education are important elements for explaining environmental pollution (measured by CO2 emissions per capita).  It is also established a non-linear relationship between the countries` stage of development and carbon emissions. 

The purpose of this paper is to describe the evolution of China’s exchange rate policy, relate it to the international competitiveness of the Chinese economy and assess the claims that China has been manipulating the exchange rate to foster its competitiveness. We begin by reviewing the historical evolution of China’s exchange rate policy. We then describe the implications of the constraint represented by the “trilemma” (or “impossible trinity”) of international economics for China’s economic policy. We assess whether the Renminbi can meet the requirements to be considered an international reserve currency. We also propose to evaluate the degree of currency manipulation by looking at the magnitude of the exchange rate forecast errors. Our interpretation of the test is that currencies subject to higher degrees of manipulation should be easier to forecast. We find that the magnitude of the forecast errors associated with the Chinese currency’s exchange rate is not noticeably smaller than the magnitudes observed for other currencies. This leads us to conclude that our test does not corroborate the view that China is a notorious currency manipulator. Countries wishing to improve their international competitiveness may therefore look to China’s history for insights. However, it is unlikely that policies oriented to setting the exchange rate to artificial values will find support in China’s exchange rate policy in recent years. Our conclusion runs counter the common view on China’s exchange rate policy.

The European economic and monetary integration of Portugal should be analyzed from a historical perspective, taking into account not only economic but also political aspects.Despite its colonial heritage, Portugal is a country of emigrants in which Europe holds a very important part. Portuguese people have a European feeling they do not forget a dictatorship that has lasted almost half a century. The incomes of Portuguese are nowadays much higher as also the level of fixed capital - especially in infrastructure - and human capital than before European integration. The recent economic problems of the Portuguese economy are the result of imbalances that developed during the years after the Democratic Revolution. The absence of more appropriate policies for a monetary zone with a fixed exchange rate and with financial shocks caused by the reduction of interest rates and the massive entry of structural funds is responsible for the poor performance of the Portuguese economy after 2002 At present the banking crisis and public debt does not allow the exit of the Euro. But in spite of this constraint Portuguese governments and the great majority of the political parties envisage a deeper integration on the monetary union.

The study of the relationship between public debt and economic growth came again to the spotlight with the financial crisis (2007-2008) and with the sovereign debt crisis that followed in Europe. This literature aims to shed light about the sign, magnitude, mechanisms and threshold regimes relating debt to growth and to make policy recommendations with important consequences in terms of government’s policies.

We empirically investigate this relationship for a group of 60 countries for a long-time period (the shorter one from 1970 to 2012) using the historical public debt database (HPDD) built by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and we defend that the empirical strategy underlying most of the studies on this topic should be revised. We claim that: a) the study of the long-memory property of the public debt GDP ratio and stationarity (using the last generation tests) has to be performed as a first step of the empirical analysis, what has been done using 87 countries; b) In the presence of a non-stationary public debt GDP ratio cointegration analysis was used to estimate the relationship between the public debt GDP ratio and output; c) under the no rejection of the null of no cointegration, the above mentioned relationship was studied between the public debt GDP ratio first difference and GDP growth rate using threshold models and searching for thresholds using a wide variety of variables.

The main conclusions of this study are that the debt series have a long memory and should not be analyzed in a short-term framework; additionally, the non-stationarity of the debt series does not allow researchers to apply stationary econometrics methods to model its behavior. This finding implies that the relationship between economic growth and national debt that has been characterizing the literature on the subject, has disputable econometric foundations. We thus recommend our empirical strategy to overcome the above-mentioned drawbacks of the existent empirical literature. Finally, it should be mentioned that the relationship between the public debt GDP ratio first difference and GDP growth rate is always negative despite the different threshold regimes identified.

This paper analyses the determinants of null and blank voting at the 2011 Portuguese legislative elections. An extensive datasets at the parish level and a fractional regression model estimator are used to estimate both voting alternatives. The results found point to some common explanatory patterns as well as to important differences between the two choices. Evidence also indicates that the performance of the local economy, especially unemployment, is important but only for the explanation of blank variations and in more urban areas, where more sophisticated voters reside. Furthermore, results point to the presence of a relevant degree of persistence in both choices and indicate that past electoral choices influence both voting choices in a way that seems to suggest the existence of protest motives.

This paper analyses the price discovery process in the USD/Bitcoin market since the Mt.Gox bankruptcy until the aftermath of the hack attack on Bitfinex (01-Mar-2014 until 30-Nov-2016). The Geweke feedback measures, estimated pairwise using hourly returns, show that there is a positive relationship between the total feedback and market share, measured by trading volume, that most of the information is transmitted between exchanges within an hour, at least for the main four exchanges (Bitfinex, Bitstamp, BTC-e and ItBit), while lagged feedback runs mainly from the major exchange. Other minor exchanges seem to react to price information with some delay and are thus considered as merely satellite exchanges. Bitfinex stands out as the most important exchange in transmitting information to the market: the relative importance of the lagged feedback from Bitfinex to the market is 18.29% while the lagged feedback from the market to Bitfinex accounts only for 0.60% of the total feedback. The volatility in the major exchange in each pair is the main factor explaining the feedback measures, sustaining the claim that the information-based component of volatility increases with the relative dimension of the exchange.  

Non-price competitiveness given by the ratio of the income elasticity of the demand for exports relatively to the income elasticity of the demand for imports is the key factor for measuring the competitiveness of an economy associated with the quality of the produced goods. This factor is essential in the export-led growth theory and the balance-of-payments constraint hypothesis advocated by Thirlwall´s Law (1979). Increasing returns to scale in the production process are also important for generating a cumulative causation growth circle and this factor has been earlier identified by Verdoorn (1949) and later by Kaldor (1966). According to Palley (2002) it is the non-price competiveness (through mostly changes in the income elasticity of the demand for imports) that adjusts to close the gap between the actual and the potential income. Setterfield (2012) on the other hand attributes higher importance to increasing returns to scale as the responsible for closing the income gap, implying changes in the Verdoorn coefficient. The aim of this paper is to shed light to this discussion bringing empirical evidence that shows how the non-price competitiveness (through the income elasticity of imports) and productivity (through increasing returns to scale) react with respect to previous income gaps. It is verified that both factors react significantly to changes in passed income gap but the reaction of the non-price competitiveness is more pronounced. 

ulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia have all benefited from an increase of European Union capital transfers of funds since the demand for European integration. At the same time, foreign direct investments have risen, mainly due to the liberalisation of capital movements. The effects of those funds and the reduction of financial costs can be considered as analogous to the phenomenon known as Dutch Disease. That is to say, the inflow of financial transfers is also considered a curse. In order to eliminate this curse we must take into account the two effects associated with Dutch Disease: the ‘spending effect’ and the ‘resource movement effect’. Public policies have not been appropriate and have not prevented the real exchange rate appreciation, thereby contributing to a poor performance in terms of competitiveness and economic growth. After a descriptive analysis of some variables, we estimate a set of equations that take account of the direct and indirect effects of European Union funds and financial costs on the economy where the effects on the real exchange rate play the major role.

In this paper we conduct an empirical analysis on the performance gains of using high frequency data in portfolio selection. Within a CRRA-utility maximization framework, we suggest the construction of two different portfolios: a low and a high frequency portfolios. For ten different risk aversion levels, we compare the performance of both portfolios in terms of several out-of-sample measures. Using data on fourteen stocks of the CAC 40 stock market index, from January 1999 to December 2003, we conclude that the “fight” is always “won” by the high frequency portfolio for all the considered performance evaluation measures.

Increasing returns to scale are important for economic growth, generating higher levels of productivity. This view was earlier suggested by Verdoorn (1949) and Kaldor (1966) in formulating the basic Laws of economic growth. The later demand-orientated approach based on the export-led growth, gave higher importance to the non-price competitiveness reflected in the income elasticities of trade, as the main determinants of the long-term economic growth, along with external demand. This view was expressed in Thirlwall’s Law (1979) on the balance- of-payments equilibrium growth inspired from the early Harrodian concept of the foreign trade multiplier. This paper aims at considering both concepts, that is, increasing returns to scale (through the Verdoorn’s Law) and non-price competition (through the Thirlwall’s Law) in order to access whether growth adjustments over time are due mostly to productivity changes or due to changes in competitiveness. To do so, we employ a regression analysis which comprises a set of 23 OECD countries over the period 1980-2016. The estimation approach sheds light on whether growth adjustments between the balance-of-payments growth rate and that of actual or potential income are driven by improvements in productivity or improvements in non-price competiveness, or in both.