Segmenting and Profiling the Portuguese Festival-Goers Through the Most Ancient Form of Music Retailing: The Music Festivals

This article intends to segment and profile the festival-goers in Portugal, and through a mixed mode survey of 657 Portuguese citizens using latent segments models, a three-segment solution was achieved: music lovers, 53%; networkers, 33%; and tourists, 14%. The majority of the festival-goers, the music lovers, consider Optimus Alive the most memorable festival because of the music and these results should be conveniently used for music retailing purposes. The model identified the demographic factors that contributed the most to the solution, and according to each segment, several recommendations to festivals organizations are presented.     

Factors Influencing Social Responsibility Disclosure by Portuguese Companies

This study compares the Internet (corporate web pages) and annual reports as media of social responsibility disclosure (SRD) and analyses what influences disclosure. It examines SRD on the Internet by Portuguese listed companies in 2004 and compares the Internet and 2003 annual reports as disclosure media. The results are interpreted through the lens of a multi-theoretical framework. According to the framework adopted, companies disclose social responsibility information to present a socially responsible image so that they can legitimise their behaviours to their stakeholder groups and influence the external perception of reputation. Results suggest that a theoretical framework combining legitimacy theory and a resource-based perspective provides an explanatory basis for SRD by Portuguese listed companies.     

Gender and Age Differences in Socio‐economic Inequalities in Total and Avoidable Mortality in Portugal: A Trend Analysis*

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how socio‐economic inequalities in mortality (total and avoidable) evolved in Portugal from the 1990s onwards by looking at differences by gender, age group, poverty and cause of death. Results show that mortality in younger age groups is decreasing faster in the most deprived municipalities. Yet, avoidable deaths do not follow this pattern, particularly with respect to treatable mortality amenable to the health care services. Although total and avoidable mortality are decreasing across all age groups and both genders, decreases in treatable deaths during and after the 2011–14 economic crisis slowed down among the young, with a sharpening of socio‐economic inequalities in avoidable mortality among adults and the elderly. This provides evidence that, in some respects, focusing programmes on those living in poor circumstances has been successful over time. However, the impact of the Great Recession on health care services might have contributed to a significant increase in some treatable causes of death associated with these services.     

Securitization and financial solvency: empirical evidence from Portugal

This paper analyses the effect of securitization issues on the solvency of Portuguese financial institutions. For this purpose, we use an unbalanced panel model estimated using GMM methods and find that securitization has a slightly positive impact on the soundness of the issuing entity. We study 35 financial entities and 60 traditional securitizations issued by 9 originators between 2001 and 2013. The analysis reveals that the financial entities’ soundness improved slightly, showing that securitization enhanced the quality of the originators’ portfolios and increased the regulatory capital requirements. We also found that efficiency and profitability improve the risk-adjusted ROAA and that efficiency increases regulatory capital requirements. The robustness analysis confirms the positive effect of securitization on solvency, where both credit quality and liquidity are shown to be significant variables.     

The Role and Current Status of IFRS in the Completion of National Accounting Rules – Evidence from Portugal

Abstract

We explain the process and documents that internalise the European Union (EU) Directive No. 2013/34 in Portugal. The Portuguese accounting standard setting body, the Comissão de Normalização Contabilística (CNC), is the entity in charge of the preparation and implementation of accounting standards. As such, CNC was responsible for the implementation of the EU Directive in Portugal. The Directive was approved by Decree-Law No. 98/2015 of 2 June 2015, but many important aspects of the Directive had already been adopted in Portugal when a new accounting system, designated Sistema de Normalização Contabilística (SNC), was introduced in 2009. Decree-Law No. 98/2015 of 2 June 2015 amends the SNC system to incorporate news aspects of the 2013 EU Directive. The current accounting rules in Portugal are strongly aligned with IFRS but some differences exist.     

Economic analysis of paliperidone long-acting injectable for chronic schizophrenia in Portugal

Objective: Patients with chronic schizophrenia suffer a huge burden, as do their families/caregivers. Treating schizophrenia is costly for health systems. The European Medicines Agency has approved paliperidone palmitate (PP-LAI; Xeplion), an atypical antipsychotic depot; however, its pharmacoeconomic profile in Portugal is unknown. A cost-effectiveness analysis was conducted from the viewpoint of the Portuguese National Health Service.

Methods: PP-LAI was compared with long acting injectables risperidone (RIS-LAI) and haloperidol (HAL-LAI) and oral drugs (olanzapine; oral-OLZ) adapting a 1-year decision tree to Portugal, guided by local experts. Clinical information and costs were obtained from literature sources and published lists. Outcomes included relapses (both requiring and not requiring hospitalization) and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). Costs were expressed in 2014 euros. Economic outcomes were incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs); including cost-utility (outcome?=?QALYs) and cost-effectiveness analyses (outcomes?=?relapse/hospitalization/emergency room (ER) visit avoided).

Results: The base-case cost of oral-OLZ was 4447€ (20% drugs/20% medical/60% hospital); HAL-LAI cost 4474€ (13% drugs/13% medical/74% hospital); PP-LAI cost 5326€ (49% drugs/12% medical/39% hospital); RIS-LAI cost 6223€ (44% drugs/12% medical/44% hospital). Respective QALYs/hospitalizations/ER visits were oral-OLZ: 0.761/0.615/0.242; HAL-LAI: 0.758/0.623/0.250; PP-LAI: 0.823/0.288/0.122; RIS-LAI: 0.799/0.394/0.168. HAL-LAI was dominated by oral-OLZ and RIS-LAI by PP-LAI for all outcomes. The ICER of PP-LAI over oral-OLZ was 14,247€/QALY, well below NICE/Portuguese thresholds (≈24,800€/30,000€/QALY). ICERs were 1973€/relapse avoided and 2697€/hospitalization avoided. Analyses were robust against most variations in input values, as PP-LAI was cost-effective over oral-OLZ in >99% of 10,000 simulations.

Conclusion: In Portugal, PP-LAI dominated HAL-LAI and RIS-LAI and was cost-effective over oral-OLZ with respect to QALYs gained, relapses avoided, and hospitalizations avoided.     

On the impact of a tax shock in Portugal

In 1999, Cavaco Silva, the Portuguese Prime Minister from 1985 to 1995, proposed a comprehensive tax reform package, which is to this day the basic reference in the tax policy debate in Portugal. A tax shock would consist of 4pp cuts in the corporate income tax and in the firms social security contribution rates, and a 5pp reduction in the highest personal income tax rate. These cuts would be financed by combating tax evasion, curbing wasteful public expenditure and, if necessary, by increasing the VAT rate by up to 2pp. Using a dynamic general equilibrium model to evaluate the effects of this tax shock, we find that the long-term GDP gains would be between 0.72% and 2.91% while the effects on lifetime private welfare would range between -0.99% and 0.9%. The efficiency of this tax reform package depends critically on the way the tax cuts are financed to ensure deficit neutrality. Because investment is subject to adjustment costs, to alleviate the long-run trade-off between GDP and welfare, tax policy changes must induce a significant increase in net labor income.Received: July 2001, Accepted: March 2002, JEL Classification: C68, D58, E62, H21, H30Correspondence to: Alfredo M. PereiraA previous version of this paper was presented at the Society of Computational Economics and SPiE conferences. Thanks are due to Fernando Chau, Emanuel Santos, and two anonymous referees for very insightful comments and suggestions. The views in this article are of the authors alone and do not reflect the position of the Portuguese Ministry of Finance.     

Semi-peripheral Financialisation and Social Reproduction: The Case of Portugal

Portugal, a semi-peripheral country within the world economy, has followed financialisation processes similar to and distinct from those of core countries. This article reflects on the factors that have shaped social reproduction in Portugal by examining the differentiated ways through which finance has interacted with the provision of housing, pensions and water and their variegated impacts. Based on these three case studies, the article discusses the constraints on, and pressures for, continued expansion of finance in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis. It underlines the subordinated and uneven nature of Portuguese semi-peripheral financialisation, the role of European integration in its unfolding, and concludes that the promotion of the interests of finance located in major advanced capitalist countries, and of the national and international institutions under their influence, has resulted in growing social and spatial inequalities.     

Disentangling political and institutional determinants of budget forecast errors: A comparative approach

This paper provides a unique comparison between French and Portuguese local governments with respect to the nature and determinants of budget forecast errors. It starts by documenting and comparing their statistical properties. The results point at biased and inefficient budget forecasts, which seem to have been more cautious in French departments than in Portuguese municipalities. Second, we examine the political, institutional and economic determinants of forecast biases. Overall, we find that they are essentially driven by electoral motivations and by institutional differences across the two countries. In particular, opportunistic forecasting is more prevalent where governments enjoy greater margin of maneuver, and there is evidence of conservatism in French departments where fiscal autonomy is greater.     

2010年葡萄牙发展清洁能源的成就

2010年,葡萄牙科技发展的亮点是葡萄牙在清洁能源应用上的进展。据报道,葡萄牙2010年上网的电流中,大约有45％的电流来自可再生能源。葡萄牙数年前就研究开发智能电网带来的结果,为进一步开发应用清洁能源,葡萄牙于2010年3月推出新能源计划（ENE2020）。其中,发展电动交通是其重点规划之一。葡萄牙发展电动交通的一个创新设想是利用电动车辆作为能源调节器。在其它科技发展领域,葡萄牙坚持科教兴国的理念,一如既往地实施吸引科技人才、打造国家重点实验室、加强和发达国家科技合作的既定方针,希望通过科技进步改变葡萄牙目前的处境。