Systemic Cooperative Actions among Competitors: the Case of a Furniture Cluster in Brazil

The purpose of this article is to describe cooperation practices observed in competitors companies in a furniture cluster in Brazil. The literature refers to it as coopetition. The research method was the multiple case study. The main research technique was the semi-structured interviews with practitioners of the cluster. The study created a theoretical framework for cooperative practices in industrial clusters formed by four types of practices: logistics, marketing and sales, formation of the workforce, and innovation and technology. The study investigates these four types of cooperation in five large companies that compete in the same market, the anchor companies of the cluster. The only entirely complied type of collaboration is the formation of the workforce of the cluster. In the other practices, cooperation involving competitors is lower than reported in the literature. The main reason for this low cooperation is excessive rivalry and mutual distrust in the cluster, and competition by differentiation, which partially prevent the gain of scale provided by cooperative actions.     

Coordination in a skeptical two-group population

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination - This paper explores a situation in which a population split into two groups attempts to achieve the socially efficient outcome of a coordination...     

Policies to increase business tourism income: A dynamic panel data model

This article aims to identify the determinants that influence business tourism income and that may be controlled by economic agents and policy makers of destination countries. For the development of the empirical study, a dynamic panel model by the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) was estimated using the Gretl 2016a software, and a sample of 122 countries for the period 2002–2013 (12 years) was used. The study reveals that, for the development of policies to stimulate the growth in the short and long-term of business tourism income, countries should develop measures that encourage capital investment in tourism and foreign direct investment.     

Country-by-Country Reporting: A Step Towards Unitary Taxation?

Intereconomics - Multinational companies are now obliged to deliver an annual report to the tax authorities with information disaggregated by country (country-by-country reporting) in order to show...     

Producing Localized Commodity Frontiers at the End of Cheap Nature: An Analysis of Eco‐scalar Carbon Fixes and their Consequences

There is no single ‘great’ commodity frontier whose exploitation under current socio‐technical conditions could fuel capital accumulation at the global scale. According to Jason Moore, this represents the ‘end of Cheap Nature’ and signals a terminal crisis for capitalism as we know it. In this article we complicate this assertion by showing how, in the context of global environmental governance frameworks of carbon control, a diverse range of actors situated at multiple scales are intensifying the use of cities and their hinterlands for the production/transgression of localized commodity frontiers. We draw on scholarship on uneven geographical development, state‐led restructuring and eco‐scalar fixes to present two case studies from different segments of the carbon cycle in the global South. The first case demonstrates how the introduction of waste‐to‐energy technology in Delhi facilitated the generation of ‘carbon credits’ while waste matter itself became a commodity. The second discusses attempts by the Brazilian state of Amazonas (Amazônia) aspiring to shift from rainforest exploitation to financialized conservation supported by the ‘green global city’ functions of metropolitan Manaus. These cases demonstrate that although the global carbon‐control regime may enable accumulation, implementation remains speculative, and localized commodity frontiers provoke social resistances that jeopardize their durability.     

Estimating the direct impact of bank liquidity shocks on the real economy: Evidence from letter‐of‐credit import transactions in Colombia

This study identifies and provides an estimate of the impact of bank liquidity shocks on real economic activity by exploring letter‐of‐credit import transactions in Colombia during the 2008 to 2009 global financial crisis. The detailed dataset on letter‐of‐credit transactions allows for exploiting within‐importer–exporter variation across issuing banks. The study finds substantial effects of bank liquidity shocks on letter‐of‐credit import transactions: banks that were more vulnerable to adverse liquidity shocks—proxied by the ex ante reliance on wholesale funding or borrowings from foreign banks—reduced letter‐of‐credit issuances more in both intensive and extensive margins. The study also confirms that it had real effects: importer–exporter pairs that relied more on letter‐of‐credit transactions experienced a greater reduction in their total imports in response to adverse bank liquidity shocks.     

Administración del riesgo crediticio al menudeo en México: una mejora econométrica en la selección de variables y cambios en sus características

The early prediction of bad debtors in revolving loans in Mexico is a relevant current issue. The proposed econometric model of behavioral scoring considers the changes in the characteristics of consolidated clients and produces better results than those obtained with methodology used by the CNBV on provisions. The obtained results show the possibility of replacing the current model, minimizing the expected loss and increasing the ROA of Mexican financial institutions in 2.20% complying the methodology and statistical testing criteria according to the Unique Banking Dispositions and the guidelines of Basel II on credit risk.     

Editors’ note

Portuguese Economic Journal -     

Production Technology Estimates and Balanced Growth

Capital‐labour substitution and total factor productivity (TFP) estimates are essential features of many economic models. Such models typically embody a balanced growth path. This often leads researchers to estimate models imposing stringent prior choices on technical change. We demonstrate that estimation of the substitution elasticity and TFP growth can be substantially biased if technical progress is thereby mis‐specified. We obtain analytical and simulation results in the context of a model consistent with balanced and near‐balanced growth (i.e. departures from balanced growth but broadly stable factor shares). Given this evidence, a constant elasticity of substitution production function system is then estimated for the US economy. Results show that the estimated substitution elasticity tends to be significantly lower using a factor‐augmenting specification (well below one). We are also able to reject conventional neutrality forms in favour of general factor augmentation with a non‐negligible capital‐augmenting component. Our work thus provides insights into production and supply‐side estimation in balanced‐growth frameworks.