The influence of remuneration on the behavior of hospital employees in Brazil

The study aimed to analyze the employee's perception of the remuneration systems in two major hospitals in Brazil, one managed by the government and the other by private investors. The sample considered 109 respondents, out of which 54 were from the private hospital and 55 from the public hospital. After data collection on the sample population, perception of remuneration was associated with occupation, gender, age and experience, as suggested by the Upper Echelons Theory. The results show that remuneration is viewed as an instrument of control and behavior or a learning-inducing mechanism; however, the perceptions of employees working in the health area and administrative area were different. These findings show that the influence of fixed pay is different not only for the employees of both areas, but also in relation to the public and private hospital management. It was found that gender is not a determinant factor of behavior and that there were no differences between younger and older employees as well as between more experienced and less experienced employees with respect to the effect of remuneration on behavior. There were no differences in relation to the type of hospital either. In general, the results emphasize the importance of remuneration as an instrument of control and management, either in the context of public or private organizations.     

Pigou,Del Vecchio,and Sraffa: the 1955 International “Antonio Feltrinelli” Prize for the Economic and Social Sciences

In 1955, the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei awarded the inaugural International “Feltrinelli” Prize for the Economic and Social Sciences to Arthur Cecil Pigou. This paper considers Gustavo Del Vecchio's active role on the selection committee in recommending Pigou for the Feltrinelli Prize and the related correspondence between Pigou, Piero Sraffa, and Del Vecchio. One of the most significant discovery reported in this paper is Sraffa's contention, expressed in an unpublished letter to Del Vecchio, that Pigou had “never been honoured in proportion to his merits.”     

The Ethical Mutual Fund Performance Debate: New Evidence from Canada

Although the academic interest in ethical mutual fund performance has developed steadily, the evidence to date is mainly sample-specific. To tackle this critique, new research should extend to unexplored countries. Using this as a motivation, we examine the performance and risk sensitivities of Canadian ethical mutual funds vis-à-vis their conventional peers. In order to overcome the methodological deficiencies most prior papers suffered from, we use performance measurement approaches in the spirit of Carhart (1997, Journal of Finance 52(1): 57–82) and Ferson and Schadt (1996, Journal of Finance 51(2): 425–461). In doing so, we investigate the aggregated performance and investment style of ethical and conventional mutual funds and allow for time variation in the funds’ systematic risk. Our␣Canadian evidence supports the conjecture that any␣performance differential between ethical mutual funds and their conventional peers is statistically insignificant.      

Perennial grain crops in the West Soudanian Savanna of Mali: perspectives from agroecology and gendered spaces

Perennial grain crops may play an important role in environmentally sound and socially just food systems for Africa. We study the future possibility of integrating perennial grains into Malian farming systems from the perspective of agroecology, and more specifically using a gendered space approach. We interviewed 72 farmers across the sorghum-growing region of Mali. We found that perennial grains offer a vision for transforming human relations with nature that mirrors the resource sharing of customary land tenure, including patterns of extensive and intensive land use in time and space. Women interviewees identified a broad set of potential advantages and challenges to perennial grain production. Advantages include reduced labour, saving seed, and improving food security. Women farmers were concerned about livestock, water access, and resource limitations. We argue that perennial grains may increase access to land and natural resources for women farmers. Perennial grains may improve soil quality, reduce labour early in the rainy season, and provision more resources from fallow lands. Pastoralists stand to benefit from improved pastures in the dry season. We conclude that investments are needed to develop viable crop types in consideration of the complexity of West African farming systems and the local needs of women farmers and pastoralists.     

The luck of being of the right gender and color: a detailed discussion about the wage gaps in the Brazilian manufacturing industry

Quality & Quantity - This work analyzed the wage discrimination in the Brazilian manufacturing industry. By recurring to the most updated database, several gaps were analyzed between white and...     

Financial repression and economic development: towards a post-Keynesian alternative ∗

The Shaw–McKinnon framework, the foundation of mainstream thinking on the role of financial markets and institutions in economic development and the basis for policy-making in many LDCs for the last 18 years, is shown to be flawed when viewed in a post-Keynesian perspective. Three interrelated aspects of post-Keynesian theory are used to challenge the financial liberalization models and to posit an alternative post-Keynesian perspective on the role of financial institutions and markets in economic development. These aspects are: (1) the finance-investment-saving-funding circuit; (2) the financial fragility hypothesis; and (3) the evolution of institutions and conventions in an uncertain world.     

在以维修管理为中心的业务持续发展中一个创新全面的策略性方法

指出以维修管理为中心的业务持续性发展的良好前景,描绘系统的功能与人文科学之间的相似性,而人文科学与医学又是非常接近的,医学已经被定义为“人类的维护者”,因此维修被看成为“系统医学”。在传统的基础上,以医学做比喻提出了一个全面的、经过整合的维修管理系统模型。     

The macroeconomic implications of wage indexation in a two-sector open economy

Zusammenfassung Die makro?konomischen Implikationen der Lohnindexierung in einer offenen Volkswirtschaft mit zwei Sektoren. - Abweichend von der Literatur werden in diesem Aufsatz die kurzfristigen Implikationen einer Lohnindexierung im Rahmen einer offenen Volkswirtschaft untersucht, die zweierlei Güter produziert und verbraucht: einerseits international nicht gehandelte Güter, die nur im Inland produziert und konsumiert werden, und andererseits international gehandelte Güter, die auch im Ausland verkauft und konsumiert werden k?nnen. Die Hauptergebnisse der Arbeit zeigen, da? dann, wenn die Volkswirtschaft nur nominalen St?rungen (aus dem Inland oder dem Ausland) ausgesetzt ist, eine in bezug auf die Preise volle Lohnindexierung die Schwankungen der realen Produktion im allgemeinen nicht neutralisiert. Au?erdem wird gezeigt, wie bei voller Lohnindexierung monet?re Schocks sowie Angebots- und Nachfrageschocks die Handelsbilanz beeinflussen. Weiterhin wird zu verstehen gegeben, da? der optimale Grad der Lohnindexierung im Hinblick auf monet?re St?rungen die volle Indexierung ist, im Hinblick auf St?rungen des realen Angebots dagegen die partielle Indexierung. Anders als im Schrifttum behauptet, ist eine unvollst?ndige Indexierung optimal, wenn es sich um Schocks bei der Nachfrage nach nicht handelbaren Gütern, beim ausl?ndischen Zinssatz und bei den ausl?ndischen Preisen handelbarer Güter handelt.

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Résumé Implications macro-économiques de l’indexation des salaires dans une économie ouverte à deux secteurs. - En contraste avec la littérature cet article examine les implications à court terme de l’indexation des salaires en cadre d’une économie ouverte dans laquelle l’économie locale produit et consomme deux biens: des biens non-commercés qui ne sont produits et consommés que localement et des biens commercés qui peuvent être achetés et consommés à l’étranger. Les résultats principaux de cet article sont que l’indexation totale des salaires aux prix ne neutralise pas en général les fluctuations de la production réelle si l’économie n’est soumise qu’aux perturbances nominales, soit locales ou extérieures. Il est aussi trouvé que - au cas d’une indexation totale des salaires - des chocs monétaires ne changent pas le solde de la balance de compte courant, que des chocs à la demande des deux biens aggravent la détérioration de cette balance, que des chocs positifs au taux d’intérêt étranger accentuent l’amélioration de cette balance et que des chocs à l’offre des deux biens ont des effets ambigus sur le solde de cette balance. De plus, il est suggéré que le degré optimum de l’indexation des salaires est complet vis-à-vis des perturbances monétaires et partiel vis-à-vis des chocs réels d’offre. Mais en contraste avec la littérature, le degré optimum de l’indexation des salaires est incomplet vis-à-vis des chocs à la demande des biens non-commercés, des chocs au taux d’intérêt étranger et des chocs au prix étranger des biens commerces.

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Resumen Implicaciones macroeconómicas de la indización de salarios en una economía abierta con dos sectores. - A diferencia de la literatura existente, en este trabajo se examinan las implicaciones de corto plazo de la indización de salarios en una economía abierta, la cual produce y consume dos tipos de bienes: bienes no comerciables, que son producidos y consumidos sólo en el país, y bienes comerciables, que pueden ser producidos y consumidos tanto en el país como en el exterior. Los resultados más importantes indican que si la economía está sometida sólo a perturbaciones nominales, de origen nacional o extranjero, la indización completa del salario con respecta al nivel de precios generalmente no neutraliza a las fluctuaciones de la producción real. También, en caso de una indización completa del salario con respecta al nivel de precios, shocks monetarios no influyen en la magnitud del saldo de la balanza comercial mientras que shocks de demanda para ambos bienes agudizan el deterioro de la balanza comercial, shocks positivos de la tasa de interés en el exterior acentúan el mejoramiento de la balanza comercial y shocks de oferta para los dos bienes muestran efectos ambiguos sobre el saldo de la balanza comercial. Además, se sugiere que el grado óptimo de indización de salarios protege completamente contra perturbaciones monetarias, mas sólo parcialmente contra shocks reales de oferta. Contrastando con la literatura existente, el grado óptimo de indización del salario no protege completamente contra shocks de demanda para bienes no comerciables, shocks de la tasa de interés en el exterior y shocks del precio internacional de bienes comerciables.

     

Dorfman on economic interpretation of optimal control theory: An extension

In the context of a more general model of capital accumulation involving time lags in the response of the state variable (the rate of change of the capital stock) to changes in the values of the decision variables, we establish the main propositions of Optimal Control Theory by means of economic analysis.

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Riassunto Robert Dorfman [3] ha mostrato come ricavare le principali proposizioni della teoria del Controllo Ottimale attraverso l'analisi economica. Il modello d'accumulazione del capitale che lui ha formulato assume che il tasso di cambiamento dello stock di capitale risponderà instantaneamente sia ai valori delle variabili di controllo sia ai valori della variabile di stato.Noi ci proponiamo, qui di estendere il modello formulato da Dorfman con l'inclusione dilags temporali nella risposta dello tasso di cambiamento delle variabili di controllo. Stabiliamo anche quello che abbiamo denominato «the Extended Maximum Principle» usando sostanzialmente le idee di base della teoria del capitale. Infine noi mostriamo che le condizioni necessarie per l'esistenza di una soluzione ottima del nostro problema coincidono con quelle ricavate dall'analisi economica.

     

The influence of culture and transparency on global research and development intensity: An overview across Europe

Culture and transparency can be described as a set of beliefs, norms, and actions, which drive the human action into innovativeness. Over the centuries, those pillars have driven individuals, groups, organizations, and nations, into the most complex networking schemes. It seems now unquestionable that those beliefs and policies, affect both private and public organizations, driving them across innovation wages in a more incremental or radical way. The dependent variable in this research (R&D) embodies the disbursements in research and development, carried out by business enterprise and public sector, and by education institutions. Thus, this research aims to mainly explore the effect of culture and transparency, as drivers of business attractiveness, on global R&D intensity. Using information from 31 European countries over the period 2010–2014, total R&D expenditures were regressed against several variables such as the Hofstede's cultural dimensions, the public sector transparency index, and other aggregated variables. Most of the theoretical assumptions are now supported by our empirical outcomes. Culture and transparency can act as attractiveness drivers, for business sector organizations and for other private and public institutions, toward the implementation of knowledge transformation mechanisms and intellectual capital achievements.