Project Manager Profile Characterization in the Construction Sector in Bogotá, Colombia

This study aims to describe and evaluate the characteristics (educational background, training, skills, and experience) that make up the project manager profile in the construction sector in Bogotá, Colombia. This study is based on a project management literature review, expert interviews and surveys with a group of project managers in the construction sector, and comparisons between them. This evaluation aims to contribute to the development of a clearer de?nition of the project manager profile in the Colombian context. The identified project manager profile satisfies the essential desired characteristics with some particular weaknesses related to education and training in project management.     

Not In My Back Yard

How can governments solve the problem of ‘Not In My Back Yard’ in finding dumps for nuclear waste? Richard Stroup (left) and Donald R Leal, of the Political Economy Research Center in Montana, claim that there are market solutions which have worked in the United States.     

Minsky’s financial fragility: an empirical analysis of electricity distribution firms in Brazil (2007–2015)

This article applies Hyman P. Minsky’s insights on financial fragility to analyze the behavior of electricity distribution firms in Brazil from 2007 to 2015. More specifically, it builds an analytical framework to classify these firms into Minskyan risk categories and assess how financial fragility evolved over time, in each firm and in the sector as a whole. This work adapts Minsky’s financial fragility indicators and taxonomy to the conditions of the electricity distribution sector and applies them to regulatory accounting data for more than 60 firms. This empirical application of Minsky’s theory for analyzing firms engaged in the provision of public goods and services is a novelty. The results show an increase in the financial fragility of those firms as well as of the sector throughout the period, especially between 2008 and 2013.     

Toward the crisis: a Kaleckian-Keynesian interpretation of the instability of growth and capital accumulation in Brazil

This article examines theoretically and empirically the instability of Brazilian investment and growth for the past couple of decades, highlighting the evolution that led to the current crisis. A theoretical discussion highlights the importance of Kaleckian and Keynesian approaches in understanding the semi-stagnation of the Brazilian economy since the 1990s. Empirical evidence shows that investment has increased until 2013, but not to the point of getting the economy back on the track of high growth rates and higher investment-GDP ratios. The econometric findings are compatible with the theoretical underpinnings of investment activity based on Keynes and Kalecki and suggest the existence of room for activist policies in Brazil in order to stimulate economic activity.     

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.     

The current account and precautionary savings for exporters of exhaustible resources

Exporters of exhaustible resources have historically exhibited higher income volatility than other economies, suggesting a heightened role for precautionary savings. This paper uses a parameterized small open-economy model to quantify the role of precautionary savings for exporters of exhaustible resources, when the only source of uncertainty is the price of the exhaustible resource. The parameterized model fares moderately well at capturing current account balances in both cross-section and time-series data. The results show that the precautionary motive can generate sizable external sector savings, the more so the greater the weight of exhaustible resource revenues in future income.