Minimum Income in Portugal: Changing the Rules in Times of Crisis

The aim of this paper is to estimate the impact on the distribution of household income and poverty of the 2010 reform of the law that establish the non-contributory social benefits entitlement conditions in Portugal, with particular incidence in the Social Integration Income (RSI). Carried out in a period of serious deepening economic and social crisis, the changes in the resources condition appear fundamentally as a way of limiting and reducing the resources earmarked for social policies usage, precisely at the time when increased social insecurity should lead to a significant increase in the importance of such social policies. Using micro-data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), we simulate the impact of the reform and estimate its effects on the income distribution and on different dimensions of monetary poverty. The change in the size of government expenditure required to finance these programs will also be estimated.Social Policy, Income Distribution, Inequality, Poverty Alleviation, Portugal

Run-up, toeholds, and agency effects in mergers and acquisitions: evidence from an emerging market

This paper analyses some particular characteristics of merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions in an emerging market (Portugal) using a sample of 52 M&A targets between 1989 and 2001. Our evidence shows that the run-up effect in the Portuguese market is of a significantly larger magnitude (as a proportion of total abnormal returns for targets) than the one shown in studies for well developed capital markets (UK and US). In fact, the cumulative run-up target stock price abnormal increase in this emerging market is on average 13% in the 40 days before the M&A announcement, which corresponds to almost sixty percent of the entire cumulative abnormal return of 23% enjoyed by target shareholders around the announcement date (-40,+40). The presence of acquirers’ toeholds in targets is positively related to the relative magnitude of such run-up effect, while hostility and the presence of large shareholders in the target have a negative impact. Evidence is also presented that abnormal returns for both bidders and targets are substantially lower in bearish markets as compared to bullish markets, with acquirers experiencing sizeable negative abnormal returns in bear markets but significantly positive ones in bull periods. Overall, our results caution for the existence of particularities of M&A transactions in emerging markets in comparison to well developed markets, and point to a number of research directions that are relevant both to emerging and developed markets.mergers and acquisitions, run-up, agency theory, emerging markets

Portuguese banks in the euro area market for daily funds

In this paper, we use the Furfine (1999) statistical procedure to identify money market operations from Payments Systems data. Given the availability of an alternative data set, recording money market operations we could confirm the accuracy of the method. We examine evidence on integration of the money market in the euro area. We ask: “how do Portuguese banks participate in the market for daily funds?” and look for a possible hierarchical structure in the market. We find strong evidence of integration and mixed evidence on hierarchical structure. JEL Classification: E52, E58financial integration, Furfine procedure, hierarchical structure, money market, Portuguese banks