Analysis of Domestic Factors Affecting Outward Foreign Direct Investment in Brazil

Developing markets have increasingly gained prominence in the world economy, but the domestic factors behind this success are not well established. This uncertainty may interfere with multinational expansion plans. In this article, we examine several macroeconomic and institutional factors affecting Brazilian outward foreign direct investment in 17 destination countries. We applied a pooled ordinary least squares regression over the 2001–2014 period. The findings suggest that macroeconomic factors are still statistically significant to explain investment abroad, but several institutional factors such as corruption have emerged, having a negative effect and political violence having a positive effect on Brazilian outward foreign direct investment.     

Brand Management as an Internationalization Strategy for SME: A Multiple Case Study

ABSTRACT

This research examines the role of branding in the Portuguese SME internationalization process and how the internationalization and brand strategies are articulated in the search for a better business performance within a competitive framework and increasing competitiveness environment. The article aims specifically at: (a) the strategy of creation and brand management; (b) the relevance given to the brand; (c) the importance of brand creation and management in the internationalization strategy. We chose a qualitative methodology, based on four cases studies. Our results suggest that branding strategies of SME cannot be compared with the strategies of multinationals. Budgetary constraints and human resources lead companies to invest in low-cost strategies. The importance of the brand lies in the distinction that allows competition with similar products within the sectors. Management of the brand does not come up as an essential strategy for the internationalization of a Portuguese SME.     

What makes a motorsports event enjoyable? The case of Macau Grand Prix

This article aims to identify the key product attributes that make a motorsport event enjoyable. Using data collected in the 2010 Macau Grand Prix, a factor analysis was conducted on 15 variables that spectators were asked of their level of agreement to how these elements constitute an enjoyable event. The analysis returned four major variables of a product that spectators believe will make an enjoyable motorsport event, specifically, event amenities, event aesthetics, event ambience, and event tickets. This study contributes to the understanding of event product attributes.     

High-speed rail transport valuation and conjecture shocks

In this paper, we derive the optimal investment policy in a high-speed rail transport (HSR) project. We assume that the source of uncertainty comes from the annual demand, and that it follows a geometric Brownian motion with jumps of random magnitude, occurring in random times, according to a Poisson process. We assess the impact of these shocks on the demand threshold, along with the investment opportunity value and option to differ. We consider several distributions for these jumps, and we compare with the no-jumps case. Numerical results are presented, showing the importance of assumptions about the underlying stochastic process.     

Some results on relocation policies

In this paper, we derive general results concerning optimal relocation policy under some assumptions. We consider a firm that is located in a specific location, producing at a certain level of efficiency. With time, the firm can decide to change its location to a new and more efficient site, paying relocation costs. Moreover, we assume that these new sites become available according to a Poisson process, and that the levels of efficiency improvement inherent to each one of these sites are random variables. With this framework, we characterise certain parameters of the optimal relocation policy. In particular, we characterise the expected relocation time and we prove that it depends on the distribution of the level of efficiency improvement only through an expected value. Therefore, the optimal policy shows a kind of robustness in terms of the stochastic assumptions of the problem, which has a major impact in the application of relocation policies. In addition, we also characterise the optimal relocation time. Impacts on the final results driven by the characteristics of the firm's original location site, the market environment and the way in which risk is modelled are studied numerically. The overall results are in line with economic intuition.     

The contributions of technical and allocative efficiency to the economic performance of European railways

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the relative contributions of allocative and technical efficiency to the productivity performance of European railways over the period 1972 to 1999. A stochastic frontier approach is used to analyse the cost structure of the railway industry. We estimate a translog cost system in which allocative inefficiency is modelled through an exact relationship between the cost share equations and the cost function. To allow the estimation of such a model using the sample theory approach we assume that the share equation residuals represent deviations from first-order conditions and, therefore, that they represent exclusively allocative inefficiencies. The use of this simplifying assumption renders our analysis computationally tractable, but it could be inconsistent with the economic theory of duality and for that reason caution is required in interpretation of results. Acknowledging this caveat, we find that European railways have experienced significant cost increases due to inefficient behaviour, with a mean value of around 15%. In contrast to previous studies, however, our estimates indicate a larger role for allocative inefficiency, which accounts for around of a half of the total increase in cost inefficiency.

Productivity Analysis of UK Auditing Firms

This study analyses the productivity change in the United Kingdom (UK) of auditing firms over the period 2005–2012, using a Malmquist index with a technological bias. Productivity is the rate at which goods or services are produced relative to the input. A common measure of productivity is the ratio of output per unit of labour used in the production. Productivity change is the change in the total output relative to the change in the total input and it is composed of technical efficiency change (managerial practices and scale effects) and technological change (innovation and investment in new technologies). Until 2005, the auditing profession in the UK employed a regime of self‐regulation; after a brief hiatus, the country adopted the new European Statutory Audit Directive in April 2008, changing the regulatory framework. This study analyses the productivity change among UK auditing companies both before and after the regulation change. Our results indicate that the productivity change among UK auditing companies is mixed and not dictated by regulation. Furthermore, the traditional growth accounting method, which assumes Hicks‐neutral technological change, is not appropriate for an analysis of the productivity change in auditing firms.     

The Tragic Consumer: A Nietzschean Reading of Irremediably Unsatisfactory Consumption

This essay criticizes the romantic ethic of consumption (Campbell, 1987) from the tragic perspective (Nietzsche, 2006). By tragic, we refer to the constant tension between Apollo and Dionysius (Nietzsche, 2006, p. 47). It is suggested that the romantic ethic of consumption, which orders our existence, is associated with Apollonian ideals, thus, creating a protective and individuating illusion against the chaotic, the amorphous, and the contradictory—characteristics associated with the Dionysian. What has been considered as the romantic-Apollonian ethic of consumption promises to satiate our desires (Campbell, 2006), even though this is not possible since incompleteness is inherent to the individual (Freud, 1996, 1997). This ethic may prove frustrating for some consumers since the satiation of wills has a transient effect and the individual therefore remains in a state of desire. In cases like these, an alternative to the romantic meaning would be the adoption of a tragic conception of consumption, a conception consubstantiated in the knowledge of its uselessness as a strategy to recover a lost completeness. Thus, this article describes the figure of the tragic consumer, the one who knows the chaotic side of the act of consuming, but who reaffirms his or her will, either consuming—since he perceives that there is no escape from the logic imposed by consumption—or by choosing to abandon specific categories of goods that do not respond to the reiteration of his will. As a practical instance for the development of this critique, we have reflected on the phenomenon of category abandonment (Suarez & Chauvel, 2012).     

Exploring clinical metrics to assess the health impact of traffic injuries

In order to allow a deep knowledge of the nonfatal injuries, recently the European Commission adopted the maximum abbreviated injury scale classification which is based on medical diagnosis. This classification will open the door to a new source of information based on international hospital data such as diagnosis-related group and international classification of diseases. In this study, we seek to explore these clinical metrics, which are used to describe the diagnosis and the medical treatment, and to infer consequences of crashes mainly through the costs and severity. Therefore, statistical analyses were applied using generalized linear models selected depending on the type of response variable, i.e. discrete or continuous. Relationships between these metrics were identified revealing for instance that head is the region of the body associated with high severity as well as to higher health care costs. Additionally, a discussion is presented regarding study results and future developments of clinical metrics are pointed out.     

Economies of scale and density in urban rail transport: effects on productivity

This paper examines economies of scale and density in urban rail transport. It isolates the effects of constant and non-constant returns on output and productivity growth using data relating to 17 rail systems in cities around the world. Estimates reveal constant returns to scale but increasing returns to density. The productivity model shows that total factor productivity change has been of great importance in differentiating the output performance of urban rail systems. Our analysis of average labour productivity confirms the importance of shifts to other factors of production and technological change in explaining changing levels of output per worker.