Party manifestos, opposition and media as determinants of the cabinet agenda

Cabinets are the engine of policy change in parliamentary systems. Yet we still know little about how cabinets micro-manage the content of their multifaceted agenda during their term in office. Drawing on the party and agenda-setting literature, this article addresses this gap by focusing on three main determinants of cabinet priorities: issue priorities in the electoral platforms of majority and opposition parties, and new and unforeseen problems as conveyed by the media. Our analysis reveals that: 1) as expected by the party agenda hypothesis, majority platforms have a stronger impact on the cabinet agenda than those of opposition parties, but this effect decreases as the legislative term progresses; 2) cabinet agendas do take into consideration opposition electoral priorities but only when the latter are expressed by mainstream competitors or when the media focus on them; 3) an externally-imposed adjustment programme can also create conditions for strengthening the congruence between electoral and cabinet agendas. This article furthers the understanding of the mechanisms used by cabinets for their regular agenda-setting through an analysis of the policy content of the Council of Ministers' press releases in Portugal from 1995 until 2015.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Is ‘Old Southern Europe’ still eurosceptic? Determinants of mass attitudes before, during and after the eurozone crisis

One of the consequences of the eurozone crisis in the countries of ‘Old Southern Europe’ is the shift from pro-European to eurosceptic attitudes. Our overarching goal is to assess whether these critical stances towards the EU are more conjunctural or long-lasting. We further aim to analyse the determinants of euroscepticism at the micro-level before, during and after the emergence of the eurozone crisis. Our analysis reveals that euroscepticism is of a more conjunctural nature in Spain and Portugal, yet more structural in Italy and Greece. Moreover, our findings show that cultural and political/institutional approaches, but also political/ideological ones, better explain South European euroscepticism before, during and after the crisis when compared to utilitarian/economic approaches.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Losers of globalization, losers in representation? The impact of education on unequal policy representation in Europe

The article focuses on the impact of education on policy representation. It examines degrees of congruence between political elites and citizens on policy preferences across different policy issues, trying to discern whether there is a representation gap between the so-called “winners” and “losers” of globalization in Europe as captured via the proxy measure of educational attainment. Additionally, we examine whether this representation gap, as well as overall levels of congruence, are affected by contextual factors related to the economy and the ideological orientation of governments. Using data from the 2014 European Election Studies and the 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey, our findings largely confirm the existence of a representation gap along educational lines. Contextual factors related to the economy present weak or no direct and moderating effects whereas ideologically left-leaning governments accentuate, for the most part, the representation gap between individuals of low and high educational attainment.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Economic viability of tambaqui production in the municipality of Ariquemes-RO.

The rise increase in family income and the conditions conducive to aquaculture activity have allowed Brazil to increase fish production in recent years. As a result, tambaqui (Colossoma macropomum) farming has become an interesting alternative because it is adaptable to different production systems and widely accepted by consumers. Ariquemes, in the State of Rondônia stands out because it presents adequate logistic and edaphoclimatic conditions for the production of this species. The objective of this paper is to analyze the economic viability of tambaqui farming in excavated nursery in the municipality of Ariquemes ? RO. Revenues and expenses were financially analyzed in a 420-day production cycle, using values of 2015 as a reference. Fish farming was sufficient to pay Total Operational Cost. The Net Margin was R$0.44 kg-1 of fish. However, Total Revenue was insufficient to cover the Total Cost, generating negative Net Income of R$ 839.57. Labor hiring and feed purchase were the items that impacted the most and accounted for 16.1% and 73.7% of the Operational Cost, respectively. It has been found that tambaqui farming in an excavated nursery has not shown to be promising and economically viable and tends to become economically unsustainable in the long term

Transversal competencies for employability: From higher education to the labour market

Aligning learning goals with the needs of the labour market is a difficult task for universities, especially in the present day. Although organisations seek professionals with flexible and varied skills, universities often underestimate the importance of cross-curricular skills. Thus, this article aims to identify the perception of recent graduates as to the importance of the transversal skills that they acquired and developed at university and the ways in which they are now applied in the work environment. In this exploratory study, we sent a questionnaire to recent graduates that allowed us to analyse the development and applicability of these competencies in organisations. The results are further discussed within the broader framework of how universities adapt to the strong socio-economic challenges that characterise current times and the integration of recent graduates into the labour market.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Os caminhos do anjo das trevas: reflexões sobre poesia moderna no ensaio Contre l’obscurité, de Marcel Proust.

Neste artigo, estudaremos o ensaio intitulado Contre l’obscurité, publicado na Revue Blanch em 1896, por Marcel Proust. Nele o escritor francês critica o Simbolismo, uma tendência literária de sua época. Segundo Proust, a obscuridade empreendida pelos jovens poetas simbolistas seria uma perspectiva muito objetiva da poesia, como se a sua espinha dorsal se nutrisse por enigmas linguísticos, portanto, sistemática e fechada. Assim, ele defende outro tipo de obscuridade, no sentido de uma poesia sentimental, possível através da união entre linguagem e pensamento, arte e memória. Para analisar os postulados proustianos, em particular a ideia de tipos diferentes de obscuridade, nós optamos por um diálogo com importantes críticos que se empenharam em compreender a poesia moderna, como Hugo Friedrich, Estrutura da Lírica Moderna, e Alfonso Berardinelli, em Da Poesia à Prosa

Credibilidade e crises cambiais : uma aplicação do modelo de Velasco

Este artigo analisa as crises cambiais dos principais países da América do Sul, no período de 1992 a 1998, com base no modelo de Velasco (1996). Este é um modelo que sintetiza dois enfoques: ataques especulativos resultantes de desequilíbrios nos fundamentos macroeconômicos e resultantes de profecias auto-realizáveis, mesmo quando as economias apresentam bons fundamentos. Nove países latino-americanos são classificados por meio da construção de um índice derivado de uma função perda. Desse modo é possível agrupar os países pelo grau de vulnerabilidade às crises, estabelecendo-se zonas de credibilidade. Os resultados indicam que a economia brasileira, por apresentar problemas nos fundamentos macroeconômicos, foi classificada em uma zona de credibilidade nula. A Argentina moveu-se de uma zona de alta credibilidade para uma faixa intermediária. Isto indica que a Argentina tornou-se suscetível às crises autorealizáveis. As demais economias situaram-se numa região de alta credibilidade.This paper analyzes the currency crises of the South American countries during the period from 1992 to 1998, based on the Velasco (1996) model. This is a model that synthesizes two approaches: speculative attacks resulting from unbalanced macroeconomics fundamentals and resulting from self-fulfilling prophecies, even when the economies show good fundamentals. Nine Latin American countries are classified by means of a loss function index. Thus, it is possible to classify the countries by the degree of vulnerability to the crises, establishing zones of credibility. The results indicate that the Brazilian economy, since it shows problems in its macroeconomic fundamentals, was classified in the zone of null credibility. Argentina moves from a zone of high credibility to an intermediate or partial zone. This is an indication that Argentina became susceptible to self-fulfilling crises. All other countries were classified in the zone of high credibility

Potential improvement of agricultural output for major producers based on dea efficiency measurements

In this article we perform production efficiency analysis for the 40 countries with largest value added by agricultural sector in 2005. Under the assumption of a nonparametric frontier and production observations satisfying a statistical model including both random and inefficiency errors, we estimate an agricultural production function using DEA measures of efficiency with output orientation and variable returns to scale. We found evidence that the set of countries investigated could increase their total value added by agricultural sector for at least 53.9% without increasing input usage with the prevailing technology. This result has a direct impact on issues related to the recent food crisis

Intertemporal solvency and public debt : evidence from Brazil -1995-2004

This article investigates the long-run solvency of the Brazilian public debt and the short run dynamics of government revenues and expenditures for monthly data from Jan/1995 to July/2004. Seignorage is not considered as a source of revenue. The conclusion is that the public debt is not solvent. Revenues are strongly exogenous for expenditures and the short run dynamics indicates that for each additional Real collected, the Brazilian government spends R$1,31 (±0.20 )

Technical efficiency of brazilian exporters of animal protein

This article uses censored and truncated statistical models to assess technical effects potentially affecting the production frontier of Embrapa’s (Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária) research centers. Specifically the article assesses the significance of the factors level of research funds generated externally to the National Treasury, actions of partnership, technical quality of research projects, client satisfaction, change in administration, type and size on the measurement of technical efficiency of the research centers. Efficiency measures are computed both using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Stochastic Frontier methods. It is concluded that the DEA efficiency measurements provide more information regarding the assessment of technical effects and that revenue generation, actions of partnership, technical quality of projects, and size are significant factors. The statistical analysis leading to these results fits a Tobit model, defined by a distribution in the gamma family, to DEA technical efficiency measurements. This analysis is consistent with the fit of a truncated normal distribution to residuals obtained from the fit of a DEA production function