Does the location of manufacturing determine service sectors’ location choices? Evidence from Portugal

Considering the case of Portugal over the period 1995-2000, this paper analyses whether the location of market services is explained by the geographical proximity of the industrial sectors that use these services as intermediate inputs. A rather detailed level of regional disaggregation is used, namely the county level (275 counties). This influence is confirmed by the results of some location indices and by the regressions made for each sector. An alternative spatial unit is also used, consisting of the county itself combined with those with which it shares boundaries, showing the relevance of the level of regional disaggregation for the results obtained

Determinant factors of FDI spillovers - What do we really know?

The evaluation of aggregate FDI spillovers to domestic firms has yielded mixed results. However, analysis has recently taken a step forward with the evaluation of the factors determining the existence, dimension, and sign of FDI spillovers. We survey the arguments that support these factors and the empirical evidence already produced. FDI spillovers depend on many factors, frequently with an undetermined effect. The absorptive capacities of domestic firms and regions are preconditions for incorporating the benefits of these FDI externalities. Regarding the remaining factors, the results show contrary effects or, in some cases, are still insufficient to draw reliable conclusions.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Determinant factors of structural similarity at the regional level: evidence from Portugal

There is scant evidence on the determinant factors of structural similarity between geographical spaces; moreover, it has been produced considering only the national level. The present study provides evidence on this topic at the regional level, based on the analysis of 275 Portuguese counties. The results obtained confirm the importance of several explanatory factors, suggesting that the structural similarity between Portuguese counties increases with geographical proximity, the existence of a shared boundary, the similarity of factor endowments in terms of physical and human capital and the similarity in terms of economic centrality and market dimension. Key words: productive structure, Portugal, structural similarity, factor endowments, economic geograph

Trade performance of the less developed African countries

Adopting a long term perspective, covering four decades, we evaluate the trade performance of a vast group of less developed African countries (LDAC). Besides some general trade indicators, we apply a constant market share analysis in order to decompose export performance (measured through the market share growth rate) into several components with specific economic interpretation. Our main conclusions are: (i) the sectoral specialization structure of LDAC exports has remained heavy in commodities but the composition of the basket of goods exported has changed considerably with a very strong concentration in crude oil (mainly in the last two decades), (ii) the geographical structure of exports has also changed, with an important increase of the relative importance of China and USA, (iii) LDAC not only show a negative competitiveness effect, but are also penalized by their sectoral and geographical specialization, and (iv) the most favorable evolution is observed in the most recent sub-period (2000-2007), but it is insufficient to reverse the negative trend of the previous decades.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Variational approach for walking solitons in birefringent fibres

We use the variational method to obtain approximate analytical expressions for the stationary pulselike solutions in birefringent fibers when differences in both phase velocities and group velocities between the two components and rapidly oscillating terms are taken into account. After checking the validity of the approximation we study how the soliton pulse shape depends on its velocity and nonlinear propagation constant. By numerically solving the propagation equation we have found that most of these stationary solutions are stable.Comment: LaTeX2e, uses graphicx package, 23 pages with 8 figure

Rogue wave spectra of the Sasa–Satsuma equation

We analyze the rogue wave spectra of the Sasa–Satsuma equation and their appearance in the spectra of chaotic wave fields produced through modulation instability. Chaotic wave fields occasionally produce high peaks that result in a wide triangular spectrum, which could be used for rogue wave detection.The authors acknowledge the support from the Volkswagen Stiftung. N. D. and N. A. acknowledge the support of the Australian Research Council (Discovery Project DP140100265). N. A. is a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Award (Germany). The work of JMSC is supported by the MINECO under contracts FIS2009- 09895 and TEC2012-37958-C02-02, and by C.A.M. under contract S2013/MIT-2790

Extreme soliton pulsations in dissipative systems

8 págs.; 18 figs.; PACS number(s): 42.65.Sf, 42.60.Mi, 42.65.Tg© 2015 American Physical Society. We have found a strongly pulsating regime of dissipative solitons in the laser model described by the complex cubic-quintic Ginzburg-Landau equation. The pulse energy within each period of pulsations may change more than two orders of magnitude. The soliton spectra in this regime also experience large variations. Period doubling phenomena and chaotic behaviors are observed in the boundaries of existence of these pulsating solutions.The authors acknowledge the support of the Australian Research Council (Grants No. DE130101432, No. DP140100265, and No. DP150102057). The work of J.M.S.-C. was supported by MINECO under Contract No. TEC2012-37958-C02-02, and by Comunidad Autonoma de Madrid under Contract No. S2013/MIT-2790. J.M.S.-C. and N.A. acknowledge the support of the Volkswagen Foundation.Peer Reviewe

Exchange rate forecasting and the performance of currency portfolios

We examine the potential gains of using exchange rate forecast models and forecast combination methods in the management of currency portfolios for three exchange rates: the euro versus the US dollar, the British pound, and the Japanese yen. We use a battery of econometric specifications to evaluate whether optimal currency portfolios implied by trading strategies based on exchange rate forecasts outperform single currencies and the equally weighted portfolio. We assess the differences in profitability of optimal currency portfolios for different types of investor preferences, two trading strategies, mean squared error-based composite forecasts, and different forecast horizons. Our results indicate that there are clear benefits of integrating exchange rate forecasts from state-of-the-art econometric models in currency portfolios. These benefits vary across investor preferences and prediction horizons but are rather similar across trading strategies

30 anos de investigação sobre externalidades do IDE para as empresas nacionais – que conclusões?

Durante as últimas três décadas, surgiu uma vasta literatura sobre a existência potencial de externalidades do IDE para as empresas nacionais, traduzidas em ganhos de produtividade. Esta ocorrência relaciona-se com o fato de as empresas multinacionais possuírem ativos intangíveis que podem ser transmitidos às empresas nacionais. A análise empírica não dá, contudo, indicações claras sobre o fenômeno. Nesta análise, abordamos o mais vasto conjunto de estudos sobre este tema até hoje reunido, levando em consideração a ocorrência de externalidades intra e inter-setoriais. Destacamos a diversidade de canais e respectivos efeitos através dos quais as externalidades para as empresas nacionais se podem materializar. Delineamos ainda rumos para um melhor esclarecimento dos fatores condicionantes da ocorrência do fenômeno, considerando que diversos estudos empíricos têm mostrado que este existirá, provavelmente, apenas para um subgrupo de empresas nacionais e/ou quando estiverem reunidas determinadas condições

A mid-IR survey of the L 1641-N region with ISOCAM

We present an analysis of the L 1641 outflow region using broad-band and narrow-band imaging data at mid-infrared wavelengths from ISOCAM. We detect a total of 34 sources in the $7.65^{\prime}$ x $8.40^{\prime}$ region covered by the broad-band filters. Four of these sources have no reported detection in previous studies of the region. We find that the source previously identified as the near-IR counter-part to the IRAS detected point-source (IRAS 05338-0624) is not the brightest source in the wavelength region of the IRAS 12 \micron\ filter. We find instead that a nearby object (within the beam of IRAS and not detected at near-IR wavelengths) outshines all others sources in the area by a factor of $\sim$2. We submit that this source is likely to be the IRAS detected point source. A comparison of the near-IR (J-H vs H-K) and mid-IR (J-K vs [6.7 um]-[14 um]) color-color plots shows only four sources with excess emission at near-IR wavelengths, but atleast 85% of all sources show excess emission at mid-IR wavelengths. The CVF spectra suggest a range of evolutionary status in the program stars ranging from embedded YSOs to the young disks. When combined with optical and near-IR age estimates, these results show active current star-formation in the region that has been on-going for at least 2 Myr.Comment: Submitted to ApJ. Abstracted edited for arXiv submission Replaced by version accepted by Ap