Sources of gains from international portfolio diversification.

This paper looks at the determinants of country and industry specific factors in international portfolio returns using a sample of thirty-six countries and thirty-nine industries over the last three decades. Country factors have remained relatively stable over the sample period, while industry factors have significantly increased during the last decade. The importance of industry and country factors is correlated with measures of economic and financial international integration and development. Country factors are smaller for countries integrated in world financial markets and have declined as the degree of financial integration and the number of countries pursuing financial liberalizations has increased. Higher international financial integration within an industry increases the importance of industry factors in explaining returns. Economic integration of production also helps in explaining returns. Countries with a more specialized production activity have higher country factors.International diversification; Country/Industry effects; Financial integration;

Counseling Brazilian Farmers on Their Management Activities

The study identified some reasons that explain the limited use of scientific management tools by Brazilian farmers. A matrix of management activities was built to classify these reasons. Primary data used in the study were collected during two phases. During the first, 8 focus group manned by cash crop farmers, beef cattle farmers, and extension agents and counselors, were used to produce qualitative information. During the second phase, quantitative informations were collected via a survey with 494individual questionnaires applied to the same public covered by phase one. For the statistical tests performed 95% of significance was required. Some conclusions of the study are: (1) farmers differ significantly from extension agents or counselors on farm management subjects; (2) farmers do not alter their strategic production plans in response to price changes or other signals perceived as short or mid term movements due to costs of changes in their production processes; (3) in organizing their human resources structure farms tend to concentrate into their hands amounts of responsibilities larger than they can handle; (4) in organizing their financial flows there is a large gap between the desired level of details and their abilities to collect the data; and (5) the major difficulties faced in the function of controlling are linked with problems of collecting data. This is due to low levels of formal education that characterize the farm-hired labor.Brazilian farm management, counseling farmers, matrix of management activities., Farm Management, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

International tax planning considerations for South African emigrants

The purpose of this paper is to outline the international income tax implications facing a South African emigrant. The discussion that follows is based on an individual or family emigrating from South Africa to Australia. The reason why I have chosen Australia is because I have a detailed knowledge of the domestic tax laws in Australia. The thought process that I have followed applies equally to most other western countries. The reason for this is because Australia's income tax system is based on residence principles which are similar to most other western countries. On the other hand, South Africa's tax laws are based primarily on source principles, a feature which is applicable mainly to tax havens (but for the high rate in South Africa). I will commence firstly by giving a brief overview of the income tax system in Australia. I will then proceed to discuss the income tax consequences of a flow of dividends and interest out of South Africa, and into Australia. I will then attempt to raise alternative structures which will provide a more effective after-tax return to the individual or family who settles in Australia

RISK PREMIUM: INSIGHTS OVER THE THRESHOLD

The aim of this paper is twofold: First to test the adequacy of Pareto distributions to describe the tail of financial returns in emerging and developed markets, and second to study the possible correlation between stock market indices observed returns and return’s extreme distributional characteristics measured by Value at Risk and Expected Shortfall. We test the empirical model using daily data from 41 countries, in the period from 1995 to 2005. The findings support the adequacy of Pareto distributions and the use of a log linear regression estimation of their parameters, as an alternative for the usually employed Hill’s estimator. We also report a significant relationship between extreme distributional characteristics and observed returns, especially for developed countries.

Risk premium: insights over the threshold

The aim of this paper is twofold: First to test the adequacy of Pareto distributions to describe the tail of financial returns in emerging and developed markets, and second to study the possible correlation between stock market indices observed returns and return's extreme distributional characteristics measured by Value at Risk and Expected Shortfall. We test the empirical model using daily data from 41 countries, in the period from 1995 to 2005. The findings support the adequacy of Pareto distributions and the use of a log linear regression estimation of their parameters, as an alternative for the usually employed Hill's estimator. We also report a significant relationship between extreme distributional characteristics and observed returns, especially for developed countries

Epilepsia do lobo temporal: mecanismos e perspectivas

The article presents a brief review of the historical findings, epidemiological, and therapeutic treatment for epilepsy, with a focus on temporal lobe epilepsy. Presents data from proteomic studies in epileptic brain tissue and highlights the importance of the application of this method in the search for new therapeutic targets for temporal lobe epilepsy.O artigo apresenta uma breve revisão sobre os achados históricos, epidemiológicos, tratamento e perspectivas terapêuticas para as epilepsias, com enfoque na epilepsia do lobo temporal. Apresenta dados obtidos com estudos de proteômica empregando tecido epiléptico e destaca a importância da aplicação desse método na busca de novos alvos terapêuticos.Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP) Departamento de Neurologia e NeurocirurgiaComissão de Neurobiologia Liga Internacional de EpilepsiaUNIFESP, Depto. de Neurologia e NeurocirurgiaSciEL

Under the veil of citations

Academics are often ranked on citation counts’, which is considered an adequate proxy for author's quality and reputation. This paper seeks to find what is behind a cited academic / a cited article. We constructed a rich dataset from Portuguese affiliated economists and use zero inflated negative binomial model. This procedure is appropriate for count outcomes, correcting for overdispersion and excess zeros. We also use a fixed effect poisson model to accomodate authors' unobserved heterogeneity. We analyze results in detail comparing with existing literature and making some theoretical considerations around

A software environment to integrate urban traffic simulation tasks

This paper deseribes the CA TIA software environment, whieh is oriented to tool integration. The main funetionality provided by CA TIA is the ability to support the traffie engineer throughout several phases and tools that are demanded to analyze urban traffie systerns. An open architecture eombined with an objeet-oriented data model of the applieation domain provides for advantageous features when eompared to elassieal tools and engineering environment for CATE (Computer Aided Traffie Engineering). The modeling, implementation and obtained results are deseribed, emphasizing the arehiteeture of the inter-tool eommunieation faeilities