The evolving role of large and medium farms on Brazilian agriculture

We use Brazilian agricultural censuses data since 1970 to describe land structure evolution in Brazil, focusing on the most important agricultural commodities and livestock products across regions. The analysis reveals a remarkable stability in the number of farms in the period, as well as in the structure of land distribution across farm sizes, with a persistence of a dual agricultural structure. Land distribution, as measured by the GINI index, has changed very little and is still very high. The number of large farms is increasing significantly in time, while the number of farms with area below 500 ha changed little in the 1970–2006 period. Medium‐sized and large farms, although heavily outweighed in numbers, account for the highest share of annual crop production currently, and their share in crop (annual plus permanent) production value increased between 1980 and 2006, while the same share decreased for smaller farms. We conclude that the observed stability will probably reduce in the future, as economic forces will likely change the balance in favor of an increase in the number of large farms. This is an issue of obvious political importance, especially considering the importance of the smaller farms for employment in agriculture.     

Taking Godley's Ratios Seriously

This article derives the three ratios employed by Wynne Godley to argue that they can express a full stock‐flow consistent model. The strategy adopted here intends to explain the theoretical consequences of including the stock of wealth in a basic Keynesian scheme. It is demonstrated that the same steady‐state level of income emerges whether we treat private investment as an exogenous variable or we treat it as totally endogenous. It is also demonstrated that stability conditions and the possible patterns of a path approaching this steady‐state level can be examined before simulations.     

Focus on practice service process innovation in the Brazilian electric energy sector

Service outsourcing has become widespread in the electric energy sector in Brazil. In this article, we present a case study of an innovative model for outsourcing management designed by a large electric energy distribution organization in Brazil, which outsources core and support business processes. This article reports how this company faced the challenges imposed after suffering serious operational problems with outsourcing companies and the innovative approach that was taken in order to improve performance and reduce safety risks. Post-implementation results corroborate the positive financial and operational consequences of the innovative model.     

Inflation targeting credibility and reputation: The consequences for the interest rate

The measurement of credibility and reputation is fundamental for the analysis of countries which adopted inflation targeting. Under this perspective, the objective of this article is to illustrate which measures of credibility and reputation are most useful in predicting variations of interest rates. Given a specific inflation target, this relationship is valuable for central bankers as well as for private agents trying to predict the central bank's policies. Due to the fact that Brazil represents a potential laboratory experiment in which the effects of an adoption of inflation targeting after more than a half decade can be observed, an analysis through several indices and its relation with the basic interest rate is made. The findings denote that the credibility indices based on reputation represent an alternative in the cases where the series of inflation expectation are not available. Furthermore, the empirical evidence confirms the hypothesis that higher credibility implies lower variations in the interest rate for controlling inflation.     

ICT introduction in the city councils. A regional analysis

The peculiarities and heterogeneity of city councils hinder the homogenous implementation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in all Spanish regions. This study investigates some city council websites and its aim is to enhance the degree of ICT integration, relating it to municipality size. The websites of six Spanish regions have been analyzed and aspects such as accessibility, e-participation, transparency, website design, and use of channels as well as the usefulness to the user have been investigated. In certain aspects, some regional differences and deficiencies have been observed, particularly in small municipalities. Other issues such as participation or use of languages besides the official ones do not seem to be related to size.     

Small and medium size firm’s marketing competitive advantage and environmental initiatives in the Middle East

The paper explores Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) in Saudi Arabia within the context of environmental sustainability. The objective of the study is to examine whether SME’s sustainable marketing competitive advantage through environmental initiatives can positively associate to a firm’s environmental (green) best practices and stakeholder influences; similarly, it also identifies if best practices mediate environmental costs and competitive advantage. A sample of 181 responses are obtained and are analysed using factor analysis, multiple regression and their interaction effects. The findings show that the association between firms that have competitive advantage due to environmental initiatives were found to be significant for best practices and indirect stakeholder influences. Furthermore, the results identified that by using environmental best practices, SMEs can lower their environmental costs to gain marketing competitive advantage. These findings highlight the function of environmentalism and how it can influence practitioners.     

Organizational culture and post-acquisition changes in management control systems: An analysis of a successful Brazilian case

This paper analyzes the effect of organizational culture on the post-acquisition management control system (MCS) of the Brazilian company Extrativa Metalquímica Inc. after its acquisition by the FASA Participações Group. The results herein reported add to discussions of the subject and contribute to reducing the research gap in this area in Brazil. The analysis supports two major conclusions: (1) changes in the acquired company's MCS were derived from the new financial results-oriented culture introduced by the acquirer; and (2) the implementation of this culture implied modifications in production, financial and quality controls.     

Mixed Equilibrium,Collaborative Dominance and Burning Money: An Experimental Study

We experimentally study three aspects of $2\times 2$ one-shot games with collaboratively dominant strategies: if subjects play according to the mixed Nash equilibrium; if the collaborative equilibrium has a focal point property; and if the burning money mechanism stimulates a collaborative behavior. First, our results show that players do not seem to play according to the mixed Nash equilibrium and that the collaborative equilibrium does not seem to have focal point properties. In fact, the subjects seem to prefer less risky strategies when compared to efficient ones. Our results also show that a burning money mechanism only helps players to collaborate when it transforms a collaborative profile of strategies into a collaborative equilibrium. This fact is justified because other burning money mechanisms will only help collaboration if the subjects were playing according to de mixed Nash equilibrium. Furthermore, even when burning money mechanisms improved the collaboration rate, such rate’s increase was smaller than the expected by the mixed Nash equilibrium.     

Anti-money laundering and financial fraud detection: A systematic literature review

Money laundering has affected the global economy for many years, and there are several methods of solving it presented in the literature. However, when tackling money laundering and financial fraud together there are few methods for solving them. Thus, this study aims to identify methods for anti-money laundering (AML) and financial fraud detection (FFD). A systematic literature review was performed for analysis and research of the methods used, utilizing the SCOPUS and Web of Science databases. Of the 48 articles that aligned with the research theme, 20 used quantitative methods for AML and FFD solution, 13 were literature reviews, 7 used qualitative methods, and 8 used mixed methods. This study contributes by presenting a systematic literature review that fills two research gaps: lack of studies on AML and FFD, and the methods used to solve them. This will assist researchers in identifying gaps and related research.