Identification of the Portuguese industrial districts

Some authors have tried to define a methodology of identification of the local production systems, namely in terms of the operationalization of the notion of industrial district. For the Portuguese case, there is no previous work, using of a systematic methodology of the identification, on the identification of the industrial districts, in spite of the existence of some case studies.In this paper we propose an algorithm of classification, based on the cluster analysis, and we try to find clusters of homogeneous geographical units, in order to identify the ones that we might classify as industrial districts. Our results point that almost one third of the Portuguese employment in manufacturing and 13% of all employment, is located in industrial districts. A detailed analysis of other variables, shows that the Portuguese industrial districts’ characteristics are very close to the ones found in other contexts.

Uncertain delivery in markets for lemons

The notion of uncertain delivery is extended to study exchange economies in which agents have different abilities to distinguish between goods (for example a car in good condition versus a car in bad condition). In this setting, it is useful to distinguish goods not only by their physical characteristics,but also by the agent that is bringing them to the market. Equilibrium is shown to exist, and characterized by the fact that agents always receive the cheapest bundle among those that they cannot distinguish from truthful delivery. Several examples are presented as an illustration.General equilibrium, Asymmetric information, Adverse selection, Uncertain delivery, Pool, Delivery rates

PRHOLO: 360º Interactive Public Relations

In the globalized world, possessing good products may not be enough to reach potential clients unless creative marketing strategies are well delineated. In this context, public relations are also important when it comes to capture the client’s attention, making the first contact between the clients and the company’s products, while being persuasive enough to make them confident that the company has the right products to fit their needs. Three virtual public relations installations were purposed in this chapter, combining technology with a human like public relations ability, capable of interacting with potential clients located in front of the installation, at angles of up to 57º (degrees), 180º and 360º, respectively. From one to several Microsoft Kinects were used to develop the three interaction models, which allows tracking and recognition of users’ gestures and positions (heat map), sound sources, voice commands and face and body extraction of the user interacting with the installation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Subjective Expectations Equilibrium in Economies with Uncertain Delivery

In economies with uncertain delivery, agents trade their endowments for lists instead of bundles. A list specifies a set of bundles such that the agent has the right to receive one of them. In this paper, with continuity conditions on private beliefs about the bundle that will be delivered, we establish existence of a subjective expectations equilibrium.Private information, Uncertain delivery, Subjective expectations equilibrium, General equilibrium, Incomplete information, Real options.

Prudent Expectations Equilibrium in Economies with Uncertain Delivery

In an economy with private information, we introduce the notion of objects of choice as lists of bundles out of which the market selects one for delivery. This leads to an extension of the model of Arrow-Debreu that is used to study ex-ante trade with private state verification. The model does not require agents to have complete information about the space of states, being suited to a context of Knightian uncertainty. Under the assumption that agents are prudent, equilibrium is characterized by the fact that agents consume bundles with the same utility in states that they do not distinguish.General equilibrium, Private information, Incomplete information, Knightian uncertainty, Ambiguity, Uncertain delivery, Lists of bundles.

The canonical econophysics approach to the flash crash of May 6, 2010

We carry out a statistical physics analysis of the flash crash of May 6, 2010 using data from the Dow Jones Industrial Average index sampled at a one-minute frequency from September 1, 2009 to May 31, 2010. We evaluate the hypothesis of a non-Gaussian Levy-stable distribution to model the data and pay particular attention to the distribution-tail behavior. We conclude that there is non-Gaussian scaling and thus that the flash crash cannot be considered an anomaly. From the study of tails, we find that the flash crash followed a power-law pattern outside the Levy regime, which was not the inverse cubic law. Finally, we show that the time-dependent variance of the DJIA-index returns, not tracked by the Levy, can be modeled in a straightforward manner by a GARCH (1, 1) process.flash crash; econophysics; stable distribution; extreme events

Two-period economies with private state verification

Private state verification is introduced in a two-period economy with spot markets in both periods and complete futures markets for contingent delivery in the second period. Existence of equilibrium is established, under standard assumptions. An example is presented in which a complete set of contingent markets allows agents to arrive at the optimal allocation of risk-bearing, while securities are not sufficient.General equilibrium, Asymmetric information, Private state verification, Two-period economies

Evaluating Brazilian mutual funds with stochastic frontiers

We evaluate the performance of 307 Brazilian stock mutual funds employing stochastic frontiers. We list the top ten actively managed funds and the bottom ten for the period April 2001-July 2003, and show that a fund's efficiency increases with management skill to beat the market. We also find that portfolios with low volatility tend to be more efficient. Yet we find no relationship between fund size and performance, though this might be blurred by a survivorship bias.