The shadow economy in Portugal: An analysis with the MIMIC approach

The paper estimates the Portuguese Shadow Economy (SE) from 1977 to 2004 and tests the statistical relationships between the SE and other economic variables. In order to carry out the econometric analysis, a multiple indicators multiple causes (MIMIC) model with means and intercepts is applied. The main causes of the Portuguese SE are analyzed and economic policies to reduce it are suggested. An appraisal on the reliability of estimates and an alternative benchmark strategy for the MIMIC approach are proposed.shadow economy, MIIMIC model, Portugal

Transformation of agricultural sector of Ukrainian economics: some social and economic results

Agricultural sector of Ukrainian economics is in the period of transformations, which are accompanied by increase of negative tendencies in the social sphere: depopulation of significant territories, worsening of living conditions for rural population, increasing of mass poverty, growing unemployment, sharp income differentiation. High social losses against a background of development of large-scale commercial production, land concentration and capitalization of production are leading to increase of social tensions in society thus hampering country's exit from the crisis. Ukrainian economic science and practice of reforms hasn't been ready that social processes in the economics under reforms are complicated and inconsistent: some of them are contributing to economic increase, other vice versa are influencing in the opposite way. Currently the relevant task is development of the efficient social policy promoting structural and institutional rebuilding of economics, stimulating sustainable economic growth. In order to solve this task it's very important to bring economics out of shadow, which is based on humiliatingly low level of wages in Ukraine, prearranged by the inadequate shares of income distribution between the labor and the capital. Processes of land concentration, attraction of industrial capital and creation of large-scale integrated commercial structures in agricultural sector are strengthening shadowing of economics and increasing disproportions in such distribution. With the existence of the shadow economics nominal and real increase of salaries doesn't necessarily mean increase of standards of living for country's population. For instance, average monthly wage in Ukrainian agriculture grew 4,5 times from 1999 to 2006, but the share of wages in Gross added value (GAV) dropped almost two times. In the industry wage increase 5,3 times leaded to wage drop in by 14,3% GAV. And only in service and construction the respective ratio grew by 4,3% and 3%. In the country with the transitional economics it's impossible to improve standards of living for population by simple wage increase without simultaneous actions aimed at bringing the economics out of the shadows. The biggest threat of low standards of living of Ukrainians is that there're falling numbers of rural population and large territories are being depopulated. Identification of main trends for development of modern society and social factors of economic growth should promote identification of main directions for social and economic policy of the state during establishment of new rural way of living in Ukraine. Keywords: agricultural transformations, rural development policy, depopulation of rural territories, social factors of economic growth.agricultural transformations, rural development policy, depopulation of rural territories, social factors of economic growth., Agricultural and Food Policy,

Learning from Zũni War Gods Repatriating Alternative Dispute Resolution for Practice and Research

This article applies lessons learned from the Zu˜ni people of the southwestern United States about successful and sustainable intervention as a metaphor to address common tensions among alternative dispute resolution (ADR) scholars and practitioners. These tensions are found in professionalisation, institutionalisation and identification of best practices. Through example of Zu˜ni efforts to repatriate sacred artefacts known as Ahuy: da, I argue that ADR is an intervention that works best through direct and ongoing dialogue rather than rigid adherence to a set of standards. The problem lies in how such adherence can limit and distort rather than inform or support best practices in research as well as mediation practice. I propose qualitative, ethnographic field research as a way to address this problem, and provide an example from ongoing study of a US family court mediation programme

An agile business process improvement methodology

Adoption of business process improvement strategies are now a concern of most organisations. Organisations are still facing challenges and finding transient solutions to immediate problems. The misalignment between IT solutions and organisational aspects evolves across space and time showing discrepancies. Unfortunately, existing business process approaches are not according with continuous business process improvement involving business stakeholders. Considering this limitation in well-known Business Process (BP) methodologies, this paper presents a comparative study of some approaches and introduces agility in the Business Process and Practice Alignment Methodology (BPPAM). Our intention is to present observed problems in existing approaches and introduce agility in our proposal to address features, like the alignment between daily work practices and business process descriptions, in a simple and agile way. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V

UWG -TRNSYS Simulation Coupling for Urban Building Energy Modelling

This paper presents a new methodology to carry out building performance simulation at the district scale integrating the building thermal model TRNSYS with the climate model ‘Urban Weather Generator’ (UWG). The integrated methodology is designed to include the microclimatic modifications induced by urban environments on buildings’ cooling load calculation. The impact of shadows, air temperature increase and urban radiant environment on building cooling performance has been highlighted for hot arid climates (Antofagasta, Chile). Results indicate that the impact of urban context on energy performance of buildings at the neighbourhood scale varies significantly with building typology and urban tissue densit

Shadow economy, tax morale, governance and institutional quality: A panel analysis

This paper analyses how governance or institutional quality and tax morale affect the shadow economy, using an international country panel and also within country data. The literature strongly emphasizes the quantitative importance of these factors to understand the level and changes of shadow economy. However, the limited number of investigations use cross-sectional country data with a relatively small number of observations, and hardly any paper has investigated tax morale and provides evidence using within country data. Using more than 25 proxies that measure governance and institutional quality we find strong support that its increase leads to a smaller shadow economy. Moreover, an increase in tax morale reduces the size of the shadow economy.Shadow economy; tax morale; governance quality; government intervention; corruption