Profit Persistence in the "Very" Long Run: Evidence from Survivors and Exiters

One of the main shortcomings of the profit persistence literature is the fact that it looks only at surviving companies. This paper uses a unique dataset to analyze profit persitstence in two different stationary series: 85 surviving US companies from 1950-1999 and 72 exiters. While the exiters perform more competitive than the survivors there is still significant evidence for persitstence in both samples. Concentration and growth of the industry as well as size and volatility of profits seem to play an important role in explaining persistence.

A Welfare Comparison Between Export Subsidies and Exchange Rate Depreciation

This paper develops a Bertrand Price Competition model with differentiated goods in which export subsidies are compared to exchange rate depreciation as different government policies for promoting exports. National governments may wish to help domestic firms to expand market shares in profitable areas and might do this through either one of these two tools. Their effects on equilibrium values are analyzed and compared. It is shown that while the two examined trade policies give rise to the same highest welfare, they could produce some significant differences according to circumstances. If the exchange rate is sufficiently high and the level of the nominal wage sufficiently low, the marginal effect of the subsidy will be higher. But if unions are strong (and demand a high nominal wage) and the exchange rate is sufficiently low, the governments could also consider a depreciation as an alternative policy to export subsidies.Export susidies, Exchange rate depreciation, International trade, Bertrand competition

Prerequisites for reconsidering the importance of human capital in management

We live in truly paradoxical times, where the present has increasingly fewer and weaker connections to the past, but is more and more determined by the future. Maybe the paradox is just apparent because, contrary to traditional beliefs, time does not in fact move from the past to the present and further into the future; on the contrary, the future first becomes present and then disappears into the past. Post-modern organizations will have to develop a strong potential to change, the adaptability to environment fluctuations being the main competitiveness factor. These organizations will be built around specific problems, very complex to solve. Solving these problems will only be possible with teams made of very well trained members, with various skills. The management of these organizations will no longer have the mission to supervise and direct, but to stimulate and perfect cooperation and communication within organizations. The content of planning of human capital, under complexity and turbulence conditions in the environment of organizations, will no longer accept solutions based on linear extrapolation of previous tendencies. An efficient planning will not be possible to make based on a set of isolated guidelines, but will request multireferential patterns, capable of interrelating very different dimensions of the organizational reality – economic, technologic, social-politic, environmental and, last but not least, cultural.adaptability, instrumental-rationality, proliferating diversity, flexibility.

Evolution of Profit Persistence in the US: Evidence from four 20-years periods

The present study analyzes and compares profit persistence in four different samples of US companies during the periods 1950-72, 1960-80, 1970-90 and 1980-99. While most of the previous studies perform profit persistence analysis on survivors only, the present setup allows for companies to enter and exit the analyzed sample, thus giving a more comprehensive depiction of the US economy during this half of the century. The results point towards an increase of competition after the opening of the US economy to international competition in the 60-80´s, nevertheless the speed seems to have decreased in the most recent period. Key determinants of profit persistence seem to be firm´s size, industry- and firm growth, and firm growth, and in the most recent period industry concentration, market share, and the company´s merger activity.

Mobile learning scenarios in language teaching: perceptions of vocational and professional education students

Mobile devices play a significant role in society, in general, and a very limited one at the different levels of education. Smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices allows learning to occur anywhere, (and at) anytime. These powerful technological devices can enhance the teaching and learning processes by helping to promote collaborative and individual learning and broadening the boundaries of the classroom to different contexts of learning. Many students have mobile devices and their applications can provide access to learning outside the classroom, for greater flexibility and more dynamic learning. In this sense, the articulation of technological and methodological efforts allowed us to create learning scenarios supported by the devices that students take to the classroom (BYOD), and use them to motivate and involve students in meaningful learning. These devices offer the advantage of integrating various technologies in the curricular contents, such as in foreign and mother language courses, representing a set of possibilities of ubiquity that can have great impact on the learning process. Thus, we developed strategies with vocational and educational students’ methodologies, such as augmented reality, project-based learning, game-based learning, collaborative learning and gamification. In this text, we present the results of two mobile learning studies in teaching French as a foreign language (to 18-23 year-old-students) and Portuguese language, as a mother tongue (to 15-19 year-old-students), in vocational education, implemented as a mediation tool in education to promote the construction of learning and development of significant skills of collaborative work. From the data collection, through a questionnaire, with open and closed questions, we highlight the favorable perception of the students to the integration of mobile devices in learning, and the recognition of the benefits of the teaching strategies used throughout the year, in the increase of curricular learning.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio