Portugal e a Globalização: um Destino Histórico?

O fenómeno da globalização económica e financeira iniciou-se no século XV com a era dos descobrimentos portugueses, que conduziram à afirmação progressiva da hegemonia da Europa Ocidental e Atlântica, em geral, e de Portugal, em particular, sobre o resto do mundo neste período. Desde então, verifica-se uma integração nas dinâmicas de mundialização económica de praticamente todas as zonas do globo, com os seus recursos materiais e humanos, na generalização e intensificação a todos os níveis das trocas de mercadorias e dos movimentos de capitais e no incremento das inovações tecnológicas e institucionais.3 Para Portugal, o mérito de ser a primeira “nação globalizadora" derivou de um conjunto de inovações geo-económicas e geo-políticas criadas pela liderança portuguesa da altura. É de salientar o papel que as políticas activas de promoção da inovação tecnológica tiveram neste processo de afirmação de hegemonia, designadamente ao nível das técnicas de navegação. A criação de um sistema global de frotas, bases, alianças e rotas de comércio; a organização de um projecto colectivo de 'descobertas', e, acima de tudo, a implantação de uma instituição de liderança global permitiu aos portugueses serem os primeiros a olhar "para fora", para o mundo, em geometria variável, tirando dessa situação um enorme proveito económico.

The Credibility of Cabo Verde’s Currency Peg

This paper studies the credibility of the currency peg of Cape Verde (CV) by assessing the impact of economic fundamentals, our explanatory variables, on the stochastic properties of Exchange Market Pressure (EMP), the dependent variable, using EGARCH-M models. Our EMP descriptive analysis finds a substantial reduction in the number of crisis episodes and of (unconditional) volatility after the peg’s adoption. Moreover, our estimation results suggest that mean EMP is driven by fundamentals and that conditional variability is more sensitive to negative shocks. We also find evidence that the expected return from holding CV’s assets is lower under the currency peg for the same increase in monthly volatility. The reason is that the return’s composition is “more virtuous”, as it results from the strengthening of CV’s foreign reserve position and is not due to either a larger risk premium or favourable exchange rate movements. We take this to be a sign of the credibility of the peg, which apparently reflects the intertemporal credibility of CV’s economic policy and so has successfully withstood international markets’ scrutiny.

Intergenerationality in a Digital World: Proposals of Activities:Bilingual (EN and PT)

A educação para os media tem ganho um grande fôlego nos últimos anos, porém ainda precisa de passos de gigante, muito em especial ao nível da forma como é tratada e enraizada junto dos cidadãos. Este e-book surge com essa preocupação. As fichas de atividades tão diversificadas, todas elas com uma componente digital, embora não esquecendo em alguns casos a ligação a outros dispositivos não digitais e formas de estar na vida no dia a dia. Estas 20 propostas do e-book Intergeracionalidade e o mundo digital: Propostas de atividades/Intergenerationality in a Digital World: Proposals of activities tentam dar forma a uma necessidade que encontramos de fazer com que as pessoas, além das crianças e dos jovens em espaço escolar e no contexto mais formal, questionem, pensem e ajam sobre as interpelações do mundo mediático e da informação.Media Education has gained momentum in recent years, but this area still needs to be improved, especially in terms of how it is perceived and implemented among citizens. This e-book is the result of this concern. The activities are diverse and include a digital component, without forgetting the connection to other non-digital devices in daily life. These 20 proposals of the e-book Intergeracionalidade e o mundo digital: Propostas de atividades/Intergenerationality in a Digital World: Proposals of activities intend to respond to the need that people, besides children in education, question, think and act on the interpellations of a mediatised world full of information available.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Constructing Institutional Measures: Indicators of Political and Property Rights in Mozambique, 1900-2005

In this paper we focus on the role of political and economic institutions in Mozambique’s development. We produce a set of institutional indicators for Mozambique for the period 1900 through to 2005. The first index tracks political freedoms and is unique in its duration and complexity. The second index is a measure of property rights for Mozambique and such a measure has not existed previously and certainly not for this length of time. The construction of these indices is a painstaking process through historical records but it provides us with a richness of institutional data previously not available. The new institutional indices will allow us to explore the role of the institutional environment in determining economic growth and development in Mozambique over time.Political Rights, Property Rights, Insitutional Indicators, Mozambique

Institutional drivers, historical determinism, and economic development in Mozambique

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the evolution of political and economic institutions, their persistence and interdependence and their effects on economic progress in Mozambique. Design/methodology/approach Using a unique data set, which has developed detailed long-run indices of institutional change in Mozambique from 1900 onwards, the research utilizes time-series econometrics to estimate cointegration relations and Vector Autoregressive and Vector Error Correction models, and also Granger causality, correlation and residual analysis when interpreting the estimation results. Findings It shows support for path dependence in political and economic institutions as well as the critical juncture theory and modernization hypothesis, and for webs of association between these institutions and economic development. It provides evidence of an equilibrium-dependent process, where history does matter (as do early conditions), and whose impact may differ depending on the nature of institutional arrangements. Various institutions created during colonial times have a bearing on the present state of institutions in Mozambique, as reflected in important continuities regarding the forms of political economy, among others. Originality/value The work contributes to existing research not only through the employment of a new set of institutional measures, which allows for a particularly long time-series investigation in a developing country setting, but also through its contribution to studies on modernization and critical junctures but in a longitudinal manner which allows for the exploration of complex dynamics embedded within a country’s particular political economy. The implications are far-reaching and carry importance beyond the academy given the pressure on policymakers to get things right because of the persistence of institutions and their consequences and the associated path dependency

Exchange market pressure and the credibility of Macau's currency Board

In this study, we assess the credibility of the currency board arrangement (CBA) of the Macau Special Administrative Region by studying the relationship between exchange market pressure (EMP) and the anchors of a rule-based CBA, namely, interest rate arbitrage, exchange rate arbitrage and economic discipline. A pure CBA signals its credibility by allowing the first two anchors to function automatically and by pursuing sound fiscal policies. The analysis’ results suggest that Macau’s CBA has been characterised by a state of low volatility since late 1992, with the brief exception of the East Asian financial crisis period. The paper’s main finding is that fiscal fundamentals seem to have a more pronounced role in reducing EMP’s variability during periods of low volatility whilst interest rate arbitrage is more important in periods of high volatility. We conclude that Macau’s CBA is credible at present as reflected in the low frequency of observed EMP, in the narrowing of Macau’s interest rate differential vis-à-vis U.S. interest rates and in Macau’s substantial fiscal reserves.

Exchange Market Pressure in African Lusophone Countries

This paper explores the credibility of exchange rate arrangements for the five African Portuguese-speaking (PALOP) countries. Our working hypothesis is that credibility necessarily implies low mean exchange market pressure (EMP), low EMP conditional volatility and low-severity EMP crises. In addition, economic fundamentals must account for EMP dynamics. We also seek evidence of a risk-return relationship for mean EMP and of “bad news” (negative shocks) having a greater impact on EMP volatility than “good news” (positive shocks). Using our econometric models, we are able to rank PALOP countries’ conditional volatility in ordinal terms. Our main conclusion is that countries with currency pegs, such as Guinea-Bissau (GB) and Cape Verde (CV), clearly have lower volatility when compared to those with managed floats and are therefore more credible. Moreover, EMP crises episodes under pegs are much less severe. We find that economic fundamentals correctly account for mean EMP in all countries and that the risk-return relationship is much more favourable for investors under currency pegs, as the increase in volatility is lower for the same rate of return. The exception to this finding is Mozambique (MOZ), which apparently has a risk-return profile akin to that enjoyed by countries with pegs. A plausible reason is that MOZ has the only managed float in our sample implementing monetary and exchange rate policy within the confines of an IMF framework, which establishes floors for international reserves and ceilings for the central bank’s net domestic assets. This intuition needs to be tested, however. EMP conditional volatility is generally driven by changes in domestic credit (lowers it) and foreign reserve changes (raises it). The first effect is more pronounced under currency pegs, but also under MOZ’s managed float. “Bad news” increases volatility more that “good news” only in the case of CV’s currency peg, which we take to be another sign of its credibility. A few striking cross-country comparisons also emerge in our analysis. Among countries with managed floats, we find that Angola (ANG) has the most severe EMP crises whilst MOZ has the least severe. São Tomé & Princípe (STP), meanwhile, lies between these two extremes but its EMP crises behaviour is clearly much closer to that of MOZ. STP’s credibility may also be improving since its volatility has declined as of 2002 and its level is now much closer to that of MOZ, whose managed float has lowest volatility of such arrangements.

Media Education Competitions: An Efficient Strategy for Digital Literacies?

In this paper we present results from research in Portugal about competitions in schools that involve digital education (2010-2015). The aim of this study is to discuss its effectiveness as a strategy for developing Media Education. The 16 activities we have collected are mostly targeted at the school population and show an emphasis on media production, a dimension that is often not considered part of formal learning, which is more focused on reading than on writing. The results lead us to raise questions about the importance of non-formal education. Interestingly, most of these initiatives have been designed to take place in the school context and are, in various ways, supported by the Ministry of Education, a situation which blurs the boundaries between formal and non-formal learning. The analysis of the data leads us to this specific recommendation: these initiatives should be formally evaluated in order to understand their real impact on the acquisition of news media education skills.ESF -European Science Foundation(SFRH/BPD/92204/2013)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Central bank intervenyion under target zones: the portuguese escudo in the ERM

For Portugal, the transition to the Euro began in September 1989 and featured three successive institutional arrangements related to the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European Monetary System: shadowing it, belonging to it with 6% and then with 15% fluctuation bands. Using daily data, we study how the degree of mean reversion of the exchange rate and central bank intervention reflect the change in economic regime towards stability and convertibility. Our Markov regime-switching framework with an EGARCH specification allows for deviations from central party and intervention to affect the mean, the conditional variance and the state transition probabilities in the different policy regimes. Mean reversion is significant even when volatility is high in ERM-6, unlike central bank intervention, which almost disappears in ERM_15. Intervention affects the mean and the variance of the exchange rate when volatility is low, and the variance in ERM-S, even when volatility is high.Central bank intervention, target zones, exchange rate mechanism, regime-switching

Nosocomial Bloodstream Infections in Brazilian Pediatric Patients: Microbiology, Epidemiology, and Clinical Features

Background: Nosocomial bloodstream infections (nBSIs) are an important cause of morbidity and mortality and are the most frequent type of nosocomial infection in pediatric patients.Methods: We identified the predominant pathogens and antimicrobial susceptibilities of nosocomial bloodstream isolates in pediatric patients (<= 16 years of age) in the Brazilian Prospective Surveillance for nBSIs at 16 hospitals from 12 June 2007 to 31 March 2010 (Br SCOPE project).Results: in our study a total of 2,563 cases of nBSI were reported by hospitals participating in the Br SCOPE project. Among these, 342 clinically significant episodes of BSI were identified in pediatric patients (<= 16 years of age). Ninety-six percent of BSIs were monomicrobial. Gram-negative organisms caused 49.0% of these BSIs, Gram-positive organisms caused 42.6%, and fungi caused 8.4%. the most common pathogens were Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) (21.3%), Klebsiella spp. (15.7%), Staphylococcus aureus (10.6%), and Acinetobacter spp. (9.2%). the crude mortality was 21.6% (74 of 342). Forty-five percent of nBSIs occurred in a pediatric or neonatal intensive-care unit (ICU). the most frequent underlying conditions were malignancy, in 95 patients (27.8%). Among the potential factors predisposing patients to BSI, central venous catheters were the most frequent (66.4%). Methicillin resistance was detected in 37 S. aureus isolates (27.1%). of the Klebsiella spp. isolates, 43.2% were resistant to ceftriaxone. of the Acinetobacter spp. and Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates, 42.9% and 21.4%, respectively, were resistant to imipenem.Conclusions: in our multicenter study, we found a high mortality and a large proportion of gram-negative bacilli with elevated levels of resistance in pediatric patients.Pfizer, Inc.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Inst Oncol Pediat IOP GRAAC, São Paulo, BrazilHosp Israelita Albert Einstein, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo UNIFESP, São Paulo, BrazilHosp 9 Julho, São Paulo, BrazilSanta Casa Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre, RS, BrazilHosp Conceicao, Porto Alegre, RS, BrazilHosp Base, Brasilia, DF, BrazilHosp Walter Cantidio, Fortaleza, Ceara, BrazilHosp Diadema, São Paulo, BrazilHosp Espanhol, Salvador, BA, BrazilHosp Coracao, Natal, RN, BrazilHosp UNIMED, Natal, RN, BrazilHosp Clin Goiania, Goiania, Go, BrazilHosp Rim & Hipertensao, São Paulo, BrazilUniv Fed Triangulo Mineiro, Uberaba, MG, BrazilVirginia Commonwealth Univ, Richmond, VA USAUniversidade Federal de São Paulo UNIFESP, São Paulo, BrazilFAPESP: 2006/57700-0Web of Scienc