Scoping river basin management issues with participatory modelling: The Baixo Guadiana experience

This paper details the design and implementation of a participatory modelling process in the Baixo Guadiana River Basin, in Portugal. A group of stakeholders was involved in a causal mapping exercise that lead to the development of a shared view of the problems, pressures and impacts characterizing the river basin. A simulation model was also developed to support experimentation with alternative management scenarios for the area. The paper looks critically at the evaluation of the participatory modelling outcomes, both at the individual and group levels, discussing the role of this approach in supporting the scoping stages of river basin planning and management processes. On the downside, the unstable group composition seems to have hindered the chances of producing a higher impact in the functioning of the group, and subsequently the capacity to sustain the level of collaboration required to achieve the strategic river basin objectives established during the participatory modelling process. The paper discusses the issue of group stability as well as some options to overcome the limitations of unstable participant groups. The strengths of participatory modelling, as underlined by the Baixo Guadiana experience, include the flexibility to adapt the method to different contexts and participatory designs and the capacity to structure the active involvement of stakeholders, providing an open and shared language for collaborative policy design, fostering learning and knowledge integration.     

Euro money market spreads during the 2007–? financial crisis

In the paper we investigate the empirical features of euro area money market turbulence during the recent financial crisis. By means of a novel Fractionally Integrated Heteroskedastic Factor Vector Autoregressive model, we find evidence of a deterministic level factor in the EURIBOR-OIS (OIS) spreads term structure, associated with the two waves of stress in the interbank market, following the BNP Paribas (9 August 2007) and Lehman Brothers (16 September 2008) “shocks”, and two additional factors, of the long memory type, bearing the interpretation of curvature and slope factors, respectively. The unfolding of the crisis yields a significant increase in their persistence and volatility. We also find evidence of a declining trend in the level and volatility of OIS spreads since December 2008, associated with ECB liquidity policies.     

A study on the attributes involved in the hedonic pricing of Brazilian clothing

The objective of this study is to identify the weighted importance of intrinsic and extrinsic attributes. Intrinsic attributes are defined as the specific features of products. Extrinsic attributes refer to other characteristics that are also important for price composition, such as brand, store layout and services, and purchasing experiences. In a survey with 1,923 collected responses, it was possible to identify and quantify intrinsic and extrinsic influencing factors beyond price strategy in the Brazilian fashion market for blue jeans. The statistical analysis was based on the hedonic price method. The idea of expressing the price based on a series of intrinsic and extrinsic variables avoids the problem of using the regression technique. In this research, multiple linear regression and quantile regression were applied. The results show that extrinsic attributes have greater influence than intrinsic features on explaining the final market prices using log-linear and quantile regression statistical methods.     

INDIVIDUAL DETERMINANTS OF SELF‐EMPLOYMENT ENTRY: WHAT DO WE REALLY KNOW?

The analysis of the decision to enter into self‐employment is a hot topic in the economic literature. Among the elements that most directly influence this decision, individual factors are central. This study produces a comprehensive survey of the impact of these factors, covering both the theoretical arguments and the main conclusions emerging from the empirical studies. We analyze 12 critical determinant factors of the entry into self‐employment grouped into seven categories: (1) basic individual characteristics (gender, age, marital status, and children); (2) family background (parents and spouse); (3) personality characteristics; (4) human capital (education and experience); (5) health condition; (6) nationality and ethnicity; and (7) access to financial resources. While for some of the factors solid conclusions can be found, for others additional research is still needed in order to shed further light on their influence.     

Gender differences in occupational mobility – evidence from Portugal

In this paper we evaluate if gender influences the pattern of upward and downward occupational mobility. With data for Portugal in the period 1998–2009, we find that women have a lower probability of upward mobility and a higher probability of downward mobility. The results also reveal the importance of some other determinant factors, especially education and initial occupation. Additionally, considering an analysis in which we group occupations into four ranked categories (low, medium-low, medium-high, and high level occupations), we confirm that the determinants of occupational mobility depend on the ranking of the initial occupation. This analysis allows us to conclude that the unfavorable pattern of occupational mobility in the case of women is due, essentially, to the disadvantage they have at the bottom of the distribution. On the contrary, in the top occupations, the results suggest the existence of equality between genders.     

Measuring Local Government Transparency

Despite the importance of government transparency to promote accountability and prevent maladministration, empirical research has failed to produce proper tools to assess and compare government transparency practices. Most contributions to the topic do not address it from a stakeholder’s perspective, particularly in selecting the indicators to include in transparency indexes. This paper contributes to the debate by developing a municipal transparency index based on information available on local government official websites. The methodological approach borrows insights from the decision analysis literature to structure the index through a participatory process. An application to the Portuguese local government setting is briefly discussed.     

An empirical analysis of constitutional review voting in the polish constitutional tribunal, 2003–2014

Different theories have been developed, mainly in the context of the United States, to explain judicial decision-making. In this respect, there is an important ongoing debate over whether judges are guided by the law or by personal ideology. The analysis of the decision-making in the Polish Constitutional Tribunal seems to support the existence of some party alignment. It is to say that judicial behavior is influenced by the ideology, either because judges’ preferences coincide with the interests of a specific party or because the judges are incentivized to show their loyalty to a party. Party alignment exists but subject to institutional influences. These results are in line with previous findings for other constitutional courts in Europe.     

Industry-specific determinants of vertical intra-industry trade: the case of EU new member states’ agri-food sector

The determinants of intra-industry agri-food trade are analysed to only a limited extent in the literature. This article investigates the industry-specific determinants of vertical intra-industry agri-food trade between new member states of the EU and the other EU countries for the period 1999–2010 by applying a dynamic panel data model. Results suggest that IIT is mainly low vertical in nature, suggesting regional export of low-quality products to EU markets. Results also show that vertical product differentiation and FDI are positively related to VIIT, suggesting that quality growth and investments foster vertical intra-industry trade. As to productivity and factor endowments a negative relationship with VIIT was found, implying the labour abundant and similar nature of NMS agricultural sectors.     

Drivers of exceptional job creation – a dynamic probit approach using portuguese firm-level data

Portuguese Economic Journal - It is a well-established fact that a small number of firms, known as Gazelles, drive a disproportionately large amount of net job creation. This fact has attracted...     

Determinants of the income velocity of money in Portugal: 1891–1998

This paper performs a long-run time series analysis of the behaviour of the income velocity of money in Portugal between 1891 and 1998 by assessing the importance of both macroeconomic and institutional factors and looking for particularities in the Portuguese case. We estimate two cointegration vectors for the income velocity of money, macroeconomic variables and institutional variables. It is apparent that one of these vectors reflects the relationship between income velocity and macroeconomic variables, while the other reflects the relationship between income velocity and institutional variables. Moreover, a regression analysis reveals that the usual U-shaped pattern is displayed with a relatively late inflection point located around 1970, which is consistent with the Spanish case. It is further noted that this is a feature of countries with a late economic and institutional development process.