Fear of China: Is there a future for manufacturing in Latin America?

China’s emergence has raised pointed questions about the future of manufacturing in Latin America. Once saw as its economic future, the viability of this activity in the region has long been challenged by traditional trade theory and, in practical terms, by at least three generations of Asian Tigers. China and its “unlimited supply of labor”, rapid productivity growth, scale, and extremely interventionist state has brought the practical challenge to unprecedented levels. This paper, using mainly descriptive production and trade statistics, looks at the nature of this challenge and its implications. It begins by dealing with a central issue: Does manufacturing still matter for Latin America’s development? It argues that even though there are other options that should be exploited, the region cannot afford to completely turn its back to a well-proven road to development. It then moves on to examine the scope and nature of the Chinese challenge. It shows that endowments, productivity, scale and the government role, all work together to make China a formidable competitor. The importance of this challenge is confirmed by an analysis of the trade data, which suggests a small impact so far, but a trend that should make Latin American policy makers uncomfortable in their seats. The paper concludes by discussing, in general terms, the (difficult) policy options available.Latin America, China, Manufacturing

Brazil’s Trade Liberalization and Growth: Has it Failed?

Unfulfilled expectations about economic growth in Brazil has led many observers to question the ability of the new, open trade regime to put the economy back on an path of sustainable growth. Whereas the country’s growth record has been really poor, the evidence suggests that the underlying causes had nothing to do with trade. Quite the contrary. This paper shows that trade liberalization has given an important contribution to two of the main drivers of growth: productivity and investment in physical capital. It argues that these gains were not turned into growth due to an unfavorable macro and institutional environment. It also claims that Brazil could have enjoyed more gains from trade, had it pursued a more aggressive trade policy at home and abroad. The paper concludes by outlining the main issues of a pro- growth, trade policy agenda for the country.Brazil, Trade, Growth

An analytical model for the assessment of airline expansion strategies

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to develop an analytical model to assess airline expansion strategies by combining generic business strategy models with airline business models. Design/methodology: A number of airline business models are examined, as are Porter’s (1983) industry five forces that drive competition, complemented by Nalebuff and Brandenburger’s (1996) sixth force, and the basic elements of the general environment in which the expansion process takes place. A system of points and weights is developed to create a score among the 904,736 possible combinations considered. The model’s outputs are generic expansion strategies with quantitative assessments for each specific combination of elements inputted. Originality/value: The analytical model developed is original because it combines for the first time and explicitly elements of the general environment, industry environment, airline business models and the generic expansion strategy types. Besides it creates a system of scores that may be used to drive the decision process toward the choice of a specific strategic expansion path. Research implications: The analytical model may be adapted to other industries apart from the airline industry by substituting the element “airline business model” by other industries corresponding elements related to the different specific business models.Peer Reviewe

An Assessment of the Expansion Strategy followed by Avianca Airlines: Period 2008-2012

Purpose: This article aims to apply to the case of Avianca Airlines the Analytical Model for the Assessment of Airline Expansion Strategies developed by Moreira (2014) in order to explain the rationale of the expansion strategy followed by this airline and indicate other possible expansion strategies. Design/methodology/approach: This article is a case study in the sense that it aims to arrive to broad generalizations based on the collected evidences, focusing on one of the most traditional airlines in the world. This article is a positivist case study, based in the positivist understanding; because it is supported by objective facts of the situation which are informed by the researcher’s interpretive understanding according to it is recommended for this type of study. Findings: The application of the Analytical Model for the Assessment of Airline Expansion Strategies above referred was successful, considering that the model was able to explain a wide range of complex aspects of the Avianca’s development. Thus, being one of the oldest airlines in continued operation in the world, the expansion process of this airline is connected to many political, sociological and economic facets - ie., its general environment - of its mother country, Colombia. The analytical model offered the opportunity to explore these issues in a detailed manner, adding a broader comprehension of this airline that goes beyond its operating and economic analysis.Originality/value: They reside on the fact that this is the first time that this analytical model is applied to study extensively an actual situation. Besides, airlines in Latin America have not been widely covered by the academia and this is an opportunity to begin to fill this gap. Furthermore, the referred analytical model is applicable to organizations or firms that operate in other industries if the proper adjustments are made. Implications: The implications for the academic research are to understand that the reasons for the success or failure of an airline in an expansion process may be explained by the suitability between the expansion strategy followed by this airline, its business model, its operating environment and its general environment. Moreover, this article demonstrates that the analysis of the suitability of the expansion strategy followed by a specific airline may be made in the light of a solidly founded analytical framework.Peer Reviewe

Integration, resource reallocation and productivity: the cases of Brazil and Chile

Most microeconometric studies available for LAC have focused on measuring the direct impact of trade on plant productivity leaving aside other effects that arise through the market selection process. Additionally, most studies have focused on tariff barriers as the only obstacle to international trade and integration. In this paper we use data from Brazil and Chile to analyze how trade affects aggregate productivity through the process of resource reallocation and to explore not only the role of tariffs but also the role of transport costs. We find that trade costs affect the reallocative process by protecting inefficient producers, lowering their likelihood to exit, and also by limiting the expansion of efficient plants, lowering their likelihood to export. We also find that the reallocative impacts of trade come not only from tariff barriers but also from transport costs.Tariff barriers, transport costs, productivity, resource reallocation

Enabling Massive Deep Neural Networks with the GraphBLAS

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have emerged as a core tool for machine learning. The computations performed during DNN training and inference are dominated by operations on the weight matrices describing the DNN. As DNNs incorporate more stages and more nodes per stage, these weight matrices may be required to be sparse because of memory limitations. The GraphBLAS.org math library standard was developed to provide high performance manipulation of sparse weight matrices and input/output vectors. For sufficiently sparse matrices, a sparse matrix library requires significantly less memory than the corresponding dense matrix implementation. This paper provides a brief description of the mathematics underlying the GraphBLAS. In addition, the equations of a typical DNN are rewritten in a form designed to use the GraphBLAS. An implementation of the DNN is given using a preliminary GraphBLAS C library. The performance of the GraphBLAS implementation is measured relative to a standard dense linear algebra library implementation. For various sizes of DNN weight matrices, it is shown that the GraphBLAS sparse implementation outperforms a BLAS dense implementation as the weight matrix becomes sparser.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, to appear in the 2017 IEEE High Performance Extreme Computing (HPEC) conferenc

Experiments for analysis of video transmission via ATM

A large quantity of data of different types and priorities pass through on high-speed networks. A relevant part of these data, like continuous media (audio, video, and so), need a control of its Quality of Service (QoS). This paper describes experiments on the characteristics of the ATM network technology that provide support to quality video streaming transmission. The experiments were realized considering QoS, connection admission control, network congestion, transmission priorities and bandwidth demand associated to applications and network configuration. Three basic kinds of videos were analyzed-movies (smooth movies), sports (action movies) and talking head movies. Data about video transmission were collected from an ATM switch, showing results that can be used in the future on ATM channel mapping to multimedia data distribution (in applications like Interactive TV and Video-on-Demand, for example).Facultad de Informátic

Economia brasileira pós-estabilização macroeconômica

TCC (graduação) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Centro Sócio-Econômico. Economia.Nos últimos trinta anos a economia brasileira foi fortemente influenciada pelo processo inflacionário. As medidas de política econômica adotadas não conseguiram controlar esse processo inflacionário até a adoção do Plano Real em 1994. Entre 1980 e 1984 predominou no Brasil uma recessão econômica de natureza distinta: uma externa, marcada pela crise da dívida; e outra interna, marcada pelo descontrole da inflação. Já entre 1985 e 1993 surgiram as estratégias para se superar a crise através da implementação de planos de estabilização. Esse período foi marcado pela estagnação da economia na medida em que a inflação apresentava níveis cada vez mais elevados. Neste cenário de escalada inflacionária e de instabilidade econômica foi concebido o Plano Real. O impacto imediato do Plano Real foi a rápida queda da taxa de inflação, apesar de sofrer fortes alterações na taxa de câmbio e elevação da taxa de juros. Este trabalho analisa os instrumentos monetários e fiscais utilizados para controlar o nível de inflação, bem como o desempenho da economia brasileira no período pós-estabilização macroeconômica entre 1994 e 2014. Os resultados obtidos demonstram os efeitos de um conjunto de políticas que foram adotadas, as quais impactaram sobre o comportamento de indicadores econômicos nos últimos vinte anos. Mesmo que o processo inflacionário brasileiro tenha sido controlado, ainda persistem diversos problemas estruturais não solucionados, especialmente a dependência externa