Product Attribute Saliency and Region of Origin: Some Empirical Evidence from Portugal

This paper empirically investigates the extent to which consumer preferences may act as promoters of regional products. Three products are studied in terms of the importance consumers attach to various product attributes with particular emphasis on region of origin information. The estimation of a hedonic price function, which relates the price of Portuguese regional products to its various attributes, provided empirical support to the hypothesis that region of origin matters to consumers. The study shows that wine, olive oil and cheese from some regions of origin have a significant impact on price. Particularly, some regions of origin are expected to have price premiums, while others are expected to have discounts.regional products, hedonic approach, wine, olive oil, cheese, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, C21, D83, Q18,

Foreign firms in Portuguese manufacturing and retail sectors: a similar or different location

Foreign Directo Investment (FDI) is increasingly important in the portuguese economy since it integration in the European Union (1986), although from 1997 onwards it has considerably decreased. In 1995 and 1996, the share of the FDI in the GDP reached it peak obtaining a value of 4,29 and 4,34 respectively. The manufacturing and retailing sectors represent a good part of the total FDI. In this paper we investigate the industrial and retail services location factors. Two surveys have been carried out allowing for the identification of the most preferable factors by the foreign investors. In the manufacturing sector the selection of Portugal to invest depended upon the labour costs and the importance of domestic market. In the retailing sector the government regulations, market size, cultural and geographic proximity to the host country are the most relevent factors.

O ensino introdutório da economia: algumas reflexões a partir de uma vivencia pessoal

O que ensinar no âmbito de disciplinas introdutórias de economia subsiste como tema de debate. Mais polémica que a questão do que ensinar será, porventura, como ensinar. A verdade e que a eficácia da transmissão de conhecimento e grandemente devedora da capacidade de comunicacão do docente e da adequacão dos instrumentos de apoio pedagógico de que se socorre. Estas diversas problemáticas são tratadas, de forma indiciária, na comunicacão que se segue, tomando como elemento organizador a vivência e a reflexão do autor. O tom é deliberadamente informal e provocatório, por forma a suscitar a discussão

Economia Portuguesa : construir o futuro a partir das lições do passado e dos recursos do(s) território(s)

Numa pesquisa bibliográfica que encetei em data já remota (segunda metade dos anos 80 do século XX), deparei-me com as “teses” de F. Braudel e de C. Courlet e P. Judet, entre outros, sobre a história da industrialização da Europa durante os séculos XVIII e XIX. Da reavaliação desse período da história desse Continente feita pelos ditos autores resultava a rejeição das ideias de ruptura, linearidade e determinismo desses processos. Informado por tais leituras, parti para o estudo da evolução económica e social do Minho e de Portugal. Esse percurso metodológico era peça central da reafirmação da perspectiva que mantinha de que as políticas carecem de ser adaptadas às circunstâncias da história, da economia e da cultura das sociedades concretas.COMPETEQRENUE-Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento RegionalFundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Ser economista hoje, em Portugal: o que mudou com a implementação da Declaração de Bolonha

Se é sabido que a Economia, como ciência, se preocupa com a realização de escolhas de utilização de recursos escassos no quadro da satisfação de necessidades individuais ou sociais, afigura-se bem mais problemático dizer o que é ser economista hoje, em Portugal. A dificuldade que se anota levou-me, não há muito tempo, a exprimir embaraço quando essa questão me foi colocada, à semelhança de outros conhecidos colegas de “profissão”. Embora talvez não devesse ser assim, a dificuldade da questão alargou-se nos últimos tempos, não apenas em razão da complexificação das economias mas, igualmente, da transformação porque passam os curricula do ensino superior. É que, embora uma melhor adequação das formações oferecidas às necessidades das empresas e da sociedade fosse o grande argumento invocado pelo decisor político para precipitar a mudança, o acolhimento das “novas” formações pelo mercado de trabalho ficou fora da equação. É destes problemas difíceis e deste paradoxo que esta comunicação fala

Consumer perception of Portuguese quality wine and the region-of-origin effect

Region’s specificities such as history, geography and culture can be mobilised to qualify regions` products and confer a competitive advantage to certain products with origin in that region. The returns of a region’s resources depend upon the ability of local firms to appropriate the rents earned and whether consumers value the characteristics of the region that are associated with the product, being disposed to pay a price premium. In a previous research, using a hedonic price function, which related the price of Portuguese regional wines to its various attributes, we found empirical support to the idea that region of origin matters to consumers, that is, the study showed that some regions of origin had a significant impact on products price. The approach taken was a supply side one, which means we collected prices from different Portuguese retail chains. In this empirical research, we intend to test the same issue questioning directly a certain kind of consumers: those who buy wine to sell it in their small retail shops, restaurants and bars (cafés). Besides the regional designation of origin, other product attributes to be tested are colour, age and special attributes, which all have shown positive effects on price in the previous research

Grapevine bunch weight estimation using image-based features: comparing the predictive performance of number of visible berries and bunch area

Recent advances in machine vision technologies have provided a multitude of automatic tools for recognition and quantitative estimation of grapevine bunch features in 2D images. However, converting them into bunch weight (BuW) is still a big challenge. This paper aims to compare the explanatory power of the number of visible berries (#vBe) and the bunch area (BuA) in 2D images, in order to predict BuW. A set of 300 bunches from four grapevine cultivars were picked at harvest and imaged using a digital RGB camera. Then each bunch was manually assessed for several morphological attributes and, from each image, the #vBe was visually assessed while BuA was segmented using manual labelling combined with an image processing software. Single and multiple regression analysis between BuW and the image-based variables were performed and the obtained regression models were subsequently validated with two independent datasets. The high goodness of fit obtained for all the linear regression models indicates that either one of the imagebased variables can be used as an accurate proxy of actual bunch weight and that a general model is also suitable. The comparison of the explanatory power of the two image-based attributes for predicting bunch weight showed that the models based on the predictor #vBe had a slightly lower coefficient of determination (R2) than the models based on BuA. The combination of the two image-based explanatory variables in a multiple regression model produced predictor models with similar or noticeably higher R2 than those obtained for single-predictor models. However, adding a second variable produced a higher and more generalised gain in accuracy for the simple regression models based on the predictor #vBe than for the models based on BuA. Our results recommend the use of the models based on the two image-based variables, as they were generally more accurate and robust than the single variable models. When the gains in accuracy produced by adding a second image-based feature are small, the option of using only a single predictor can be chosen; in such a case, our results indicate that BuA would be a more accurate and less cultivardependent option than the #vBeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Retail macro-location factors: empirical evidence from the portuguese shopping centres

Shopping centres appeared in Portugal in the beginning of the 1970’s and have expanded their presence from the eighties onwards. However, few efforts have been made to identify the macro level factors that influenced the location of Portuguese shopping centres. This study attempts to fill this gap by focusing on the region-specific endowments that motivate promoters of shopping centres to invest in a particular location. Using OLS Regression, we tested five hypotheses as pointed out by the theory, namely the population (measured by the population/area), the economy (measured by the purchasing power index), the competition (measured by the number of retailers per head), the accessibility to the shopping centre (measured by the difference between the maximum and minimum altitude) and costs (measured by the average time distance). The results support all our hypotheses, except accessibility. The population hypothesis (H1) was supported, promoters tended to invest in regions where population density is higher. The economy hypothesis was supported (H2), promoters tended to invest in high income regions. The competition hypothesis was supported (H3), promoters tended to choose regions where there is a lack of retailers per head. Finally, the cost hypothesis was also supported (H5), promoters tended to choose regions where they perceived low levels of cost. We found no support for the accessibility measure (H4), although the variable was correctly signed