Social Capital and the Terms of Trade for Farmland

Social capital is a person or group's sympathy for or sense of obligation to another person or group. This article introduces social capital into a neoclassical model of farmland exchange and shows how relationships alter the terms of trade. Empirical evidence from a survey of farmers shows that the type of relationship farmland sellers have with farmland buyers has a statistically significant and economically important effect on the minimum-sell price for farmland. Compared to the minimum-sell price when selling to a total stranger in an arm's-length transaction, farmland sellers discount prices to friendly neighbors and relatives and require a premium from unfriendly neighbors and influential people in the community.     

The service sector of Cuba: An analysis and critique

The Cuban economy has experienced a significant increase in foreign direct investment over the past decade due to the end of the Soviet Union and the establishment of more liberal trade policies. Although the U.S. embargo of trade with Cuba still exists, there has been movement lately that suggests the end of the four‐decades‐old policy. The purpose of this article is to analyze the current Cuban business environment and to identify potential entrepreneurial opportunities in the service sector. Major trade partners are also reviewed and managerial implications discussed. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Investigating the solvency of brazilian credit unions using a proportional hazard model

Abstract ** : Due to high interest rates and bank spreads, the number of credit unions in Brazil has increased over recent years. As financial institutions, these cooperatives need tools to signal impending financial problems. This paper focuses on one tool that can be used to evaluate credit union solvency: the Cox Proportional Hazards Model. A sample of 80 credit unions from the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais was selected to supply data. The analysis period is between December 2001 and June 2003. The results indicate that the relevant indicators for insolvency prediction are, in descending order of predictive ability, General Liquidity, Salary and Benefit Expenses, and the Loan/Equity Ratio. In general, results produced using the delineated theoretical model were in consonance with international literature .     

Non-monetary sales promotion effects on credit cards

This study fills an important gap in the literature by exploring the effects of the attractiveness of a non-monetary promotion with premiums on credit card purchase intention and brand selection. Two experimental studies involving 386 undergraduates were done. Non-monetary sales promotions with attractive premiums have a positive influence on the credit card purchase intention, compared to non-monetary sales promotions with unattractive premiums. On brand choice, non-monetary sales promotions with attractive premiums increase the likelihood of brand choice promoted. Premiums attractiveness is an important variable in the evaluation of a promotional offer that aims to increase the intention purchase and motivate the selection of brand. This study helps managers in choosing the types of premiums that are valued by consumers in a promotion. Most of the studies explore monetary promotions, while this study contributes to literature by exploring the gap about the effects of non-monetary sales promotions on purchase intention and brand selection, especially in the bank services environment.     

Environmental Analysis of Packaging for Soft Drinks Using the Life Cycle Assessment Methodology

The knowledge of a product＇s life cycle is the first step on the search of sustainable development. The life cycle assessment （LCA） is an important method because it allows an environment accounting, where the extraction of natural resources and energy of the nature are considered and the ＂returns＂ to the same one and allows in evaluating relative potential the environment impacts generated. The present work had as objective to make an analysis of material and energy flows of the life cycle of three types of packaging for soft drinks： glass bottles of 390 mL, aluminum cans of 350 mL, and bottles of PET of 2,000 mL. The study considered processes since the extraction of raw materials for production of the packaging until the stages of recycling, after the consumption of the soft drink. For the research, an inventory analysis followed the LCA methodology. The main critical points of generation of negative environmental impact during the life cycle of each packaging had been the identified and quantified data in this study. The consumption of natural resources like water and other raw materials and energy, the generation of atmospheric emissions, solid wastes and wastewaters had been the analyzed categories. The results showed that, in accordance with the scenes and defined variables, the most important conclusion was that the bottle of glass presented a less favorable scene to the environment in comparison with other packaging.     

Intertemporal Budget Policies and Macroeconomic Adjustment in Indebted Open Economies

This paper analyzes the role of government intertemporal budget policies in a growing open economy including nominal assets in the presence of an upward sloping supply of debt. This introduces transitional dynamics that influence the effects of government policy instruments on economic growth and the long term fiscal liability. It is shown that capital income taxes or a combination of tax‐cum‐expenditure or government expenditure alone can balance the long term intertemporal government budget constraint. However, those results are shown to depend critically upon the extent of distortion in capital flows brought about the upward sloping supply of debt.     

Fixed-term employment contracts in an equilibrium search model

We develop a theoretical model of firm dynamics and unemployment and characterize equilibria with tenure dependent separation taxes. The model is a version of the Lucas and Prescott island model with undirected search. Two equivalent decentralizations are considered: one with spot labor markets and one with long-term employment relations. We model “temporary contracts” as the special case of a separation tax that only applies to workers with tenure higher than J. While in principle these contracts require a J-dimensional state space, equilibrium allocations solve a simple dynamic programming problem characterized by two-dimensional inaction set(s).     

Firm Market Performance and Volatility in a National Real Estate Sector

We present empirical evidence using daily data for stock prices for 17 real estate companies traded in the Sao Paulo, Brazil stock exchange, from August 26, 2006 to March 31, 2010. We use the U.S. house price bubble, financial crisis and risk measures to instrument for momentums and reversals in the domestic real estate sector. We find evidence of conditional premium persistence and conditional volatility persistence in the market. We find that the conditional risk-return relationship in the sector is consistent with the prospect theory of risk attitudes in this period. Certain companies seem to be operating on a perceived potential industry return above the target, while most others are below the target, and the whole sector is below target on average.     

伊利诺伊大学香槟分校商学院选聘董事的政治视角

无论是政党领导还是普通市民，拉丁美洲的左翼人士通常认为外国投资者和右翼政客是一伙的。这就为欲进入拉美市场的外国公司带来了麻烦，因为左翼政府不信任这些公司，并会严格限制这些公司的活动。请关注西班牙的跨国公司近年来在智利市场所取得的成功，他们知道怎样把左翼政治家的情绪转化为自己的优势。