ECONOMICAL VERSUS POLITICAL CYCLES IN AN IBERIAN MANUFACTURING SECTOR

The paper discusses several questions related to the economic cycles, from the scientific methodological approach to isolate the economic cycles, to an empirical application using data of the Portuguese industrial sector, passing by the identification of the real economic cycles that modulated the productive activity during almost the last 5 decades of the 20th century, and by its rationality. It ends trying to identify the explicative factors of the different phases of expansion, alert, depression, recession and recovering of the estimated economic cycles and puts them side-by-side with the political cycles dictated by the democratic elections.economic cycles, political cycles, manufactories industry, Portuguese economy, explicative cycle factors, industrial economics

INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGICAL EVOLUTION IN A WESTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRY – THE CASE OF PORTUGAL

The paper speaks of the technological evolution using a translog cost function for a western European country – Portugal. It begins by presenting the methodological framework, the estimation process based on the iterative Zellner method to estimate systems of seemingly unrelated regression equations (SURE), the empirical application to Portugal, and the interpretation of the results, namely in terms of the technological evolution.Technological evolution, Energy Economics, Translog Cost Function, SURE System.

Impact of blue economy sectors using causality, correlation and panel data models

IntroductionBlue economics research is a research field that is achieving more and more interest among international scientists. This study adds more knowledge as it aims to investigate the causal relationships between blue economic factors – living and non-living resources, ocean energy, port activities, shipbuilding and repair, maritime transport, coastal tourism, human development indicator, per capita income, fish capture, internal renewable water resources per capita, marine protected areas, greenhouse gas emissions and population density, all factors related to maritime activities – and the blue economy (BE) itself.MethodsIn order to reach these objectives, some special analytical and econometric methods are used. Among them the multivariate Granger causality theory, the correlation analysis and panel data techniques are employed. This set of methods helps us to study the complex set of relationships among the various factors related to the BE and their influence on per capita income (PCI) and economic growth. The data used to conduct this research were collected from the Eurostat, the E.U. statistical database. Several European countries and the span period 2010-2018 are used too.ResultsThe analysis showed evidence that per capita income is associated to other factors of the blue economy, that PCI (Granger) causes coastal tourism and population density, and that there are five other factors that positively influence PCI growth, namely, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), maritime transport, nonliving resources and ports’ activities. This paper adds some new understandings to theory and calls the attention to society, in general, and the blue economics, in particular. For instance, if policymakers want to increase income per capita of these regions, they should take action on some variables such as human development indicator (HDI), greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, living resources, maritime transport and ocean energy. The results reveal that blue economy is a good alternative to promote both economic growth and PCI.DiscussionThe concerns that make up the blue economy, such as ocean energy, port activities, ship building and repair, maritime transport, coastal tourism, HDI, maritime fish capture, marine protected areas, and GHG reductionare good factors to stimulate economic growth. Among these, the most influencing are maritime transport, living resources and the production of ocean energy. This study adds knowledge to theory, innovates in the methods and techniques used, in the results discovered, in its discussion, and in the mixture of blue economic factors, too. As far as we know, it is one of the first papers that fills this gap in the literature regarding the more and more important blue economy

LUSO-SPANISH-FRANCO-ENGLISH RELATIONS VIEWED FROM THE ENTRANCE OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT FUNDS

The main objective of the present paper is to study the relationships and the interrelationships among the financial flows (as Foreign Direct Investment – FDI) that entered the Portuguese, Spanish, French and English economies from 1970 till 2001. With this objective in mind this paper or communication begins by describing the methodology used, an econometric one, methodology that begins by the utilisation of various tests to appreciate the quality of the data series, namely their stationarity, integration and cointegration, that continues by the appreciation of the multilateral and bilateral causality among the four referred economies and ends with the Auto-Regressive Vector (VAR) modelling. After this it presents the data bank and the origins of the different Foreign Direct Investment series (the FDI entrances). The presentation of an empirical work applied to the four western European economies referred earlier and the interpretation of the results are the last parts of the paper.integration, cointegration, VAR modelling, causality, foreign direct investment, territorial dynamics, new regional techniques

FINANCIAL CRISIS AND STOCK MARKET LINKAGES

This paper investigates interdependencies and linkages between international stock markets in the short-run. Thus, twelve European and non-European markets were selected, and the period from 4. October 1999 to 30 June 2011 was chosen, which includes the Dot-Com crisis and the recent Global Financial Crisis. To investigate interdependence and dynamic linkages between stock markets, a vector autoregressive model, the concept of Granger causality and impulse-response functions were considered. We concluded that the global financial crisis contributes to the intensification of the interdependence between stock markets.

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved