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This essay studies the cultural consequences that the spread of paper money had in late nineteenth-century Brazil. First, I examine how these tensions are called into question through the analysis of a political scandal that took place in Rio de Janeiro, in 1900, concerning a two thousand reales banknote. Second, I offer a close reading of Machado de Assis' "Anedota pecuniária", a short-story included in Histórias sem data (1884). My goal is to interrogate the relation between paper money and the economy of credit work, and the narrative devices of literary fiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to analyze the association of environmental regulation with the adoption of both proactive and reactive eco-innovation strategies in the Brazilian pulp, paper, and paper product industry. Methodology was based on a quantitative approach, using a cross-sectional survey by means of a self-administered online questionnaire answered by 117 sector companies of all sizes and Brazilian regions. Data analysis consisted of inferential statistics with logistic regression analysis. The main results show that the organizations participating in this study consider environmental regulation as conducive of proactive, more than reactive, eco-innovation strategies, as opposed to previous literature. This result fits into the evolutionary perspective, which postulates that companies see environmental regulation as less a cost and more an opportunity, directing them to improve productivity and competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The recent expansion of tree plantations is the most important agrarian change in many parts of Brazil. This article uses the results of extensive field research to analyse the different ways paper and pulp companies assure their land base for eucalyptus plantations. The mechanisms of land access have changed little over the decades, amounting to a process of primitive accumulation which seems to be controlled by the ways the pulp industry influences land markets and prices, the strength of any resistance, and particularly the government support enjoyed by industry. Many paper and steel companies, either directly or indirectly, are increasingly relying on eucalyptus plantations, with negative impacts in many places. The expansion of tree monocultures with rural exclusion is characteristic of the wider phenomenon of land grab which is driven by the dominating financial logic of current capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Minerals Technologies Inc is expanding its satellite precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) plant at a paper mill owned by Suzano Papel é Celulose SA in Suzano, Brazil. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Capital accumulation is the first and foremost important factor to induce economic growth and development in a country. Yet, not every country in the world is bestowed with abundant capital. Thus, in this instance foreign direct investment (FDI) emerges as a good option to supply the necessary amount of capital to countries which are deprived of the necessary capital stock. Moreover, FDI, besides being a catalyst of economic development, is a significant means of transferring technology, knowledge, managerial know-how and constitutes new potentials to create employment opportunities, increase the production volume and enhance the foreign trade balance. Furthermore, the impact of FDI inflow on the economic growth is researched in this paper for Brazil by means of utilizing various econometric methods for the period of 1970–2017. According to the results of this study there is no positive causality between economic growth and FDI inflow in the short-run. Yet, there is a positive and significant causality between FDI inflow and economic growth in the long-run as well as this stems from the fact that investments lead to positive results gradually in the long-term which also means that investments shall be converted into production as much as possible. Moreover, the novelty of this paper is that it is one of the most up-to-date studies to research FDI – economic growth correlation on Brazil in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the consequences of the hugely successful expansion of South-South Cooperation since the new millennium. For all the achievements, variations and change over the 1950s-late 1990s, 'SSC 1.0' was characterised by relative neglect within the 'international' development community, and by many orthodox and critical scholars. In the chronological schema of the paper, 'SSC 2.0' refers to the period of remarkable expansion from the early 2000s to the present. The emergence of 'SSC 3.0', I suggest, is currently revealed by a discernible set of shifts driven in large part by the expansionary successes of SSC 2.0, as well as other turns in the global political economy. Three contemporary trends are identified: cooperation narratives that are increasingly 'muscular', nationalistic and pragmatic; difficulties sustaining claims to 'non-interference' in partner countries; and the further erosion of ideational and operational distinctiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper was to analyze the relationships between the portfolio turnover and performance of equity investment funds in Brazil. There are few published studies on the subject, but the previously identified Brazilian studies that have examined making changes to portfolios have been limited to very restricted data samples and have only worked with an ordinary least squares (OLS) model without taking into account the indications of international studies and economic theory itself of the possible endogeneity of turnover, which would make OLS estimation inadequate. The expressive growth of the fund industry in the Brazilian market shows the relevance of the object of research. Two portfolio turnover metrics were analyzed: one based on changes in the monetary values of the assets and another based on changing the weights of the assets in the portfolio. The estimations were performed for fixed effects panel data and then for a two-stage least squares model, using instrumental variables. The funds that make up the sample are those classified as “free shares” in the period from January of 2012 to January of 2018. The results showed that there is a positive relationship between the portfolio turnover and performance of the equity investment funds, showing that managers have been able to take advantage of moments of mispricing in the market and that they carry out more trades in search of higher returns. This research extends the results in the literature as it shows that there is a positive relationship between the turnover and performance of equity investment funds that is independent of the way turnover or performance are measured, which has shown inconclusive results in previous studies. Furthermore, it presents evidence for a more representative and current sample in an emerging market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the agrarian policies of the governments of Presidents Lula (2003-2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016) in the light of the contradiction between the historical support for land reform and agrarian social movements by the Workers' Party (PT) on the one hand, and the PT's more recent electoral and political alliances with agribusiness on the other. After more than a decade of progressive administrations, key government programmes have only accounted for marginal gains and in some cases setbacks, symbolized by the failure to expand the expropriation of new land and settle landless families on an adequate scale. The collapse of those alliances and 2016's impeachment process of President Rousseff marks the end of that cycle, highlighting strategic and policy failures. The paper examines government actions, the historical causes and roots of land conflicts, and struggles for land and territory, as well as the difficulties of mobilization. The paper focuses upon political disputes, particularly new processes of criminalization, economic disputes, surrounding the role of agribusiness, and the challenges related to struggles for land and territorial rights in a situation ruled by a progressive party and governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the dissemination of German economist Adolph Wagner's ideas in Brazil. It shows that his monetary thinking, inspired by Thomas Tooke and the Banking School, as well as his ideas on public finance, particularly the law of increasing state spending, were assimilated by two Brazilian economic thinkers: Rui Barbosa and Vieira Souto. The way these policymakers incorporated Wagner's ideas into their texts and the arguments with which they chose to engage show the kind of economic discourse they were shaping in Brazil. This analysis reveals the different functions that the original ideas could perform in another national context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary health care has been recognized as a critical strategy for improving population health in developing countries. This paper investigates the effect of primary care physicians on the infant mortality rate in Brazil using a dynamic panel data approach. This method accounts for the endogeneity problem and the persistence of infant mortality over time. The empirical analysis uses an eight-year panel of municipalities between 2005 and 2012. The results indicate that primary care physician supply contributed to the decline of infant mortality in Brazil. An increase of one primary care physician per 10,000 population was associated with 7.08 fewer infant deaths per 10,000 live births. This suggests that, in addition to other determinants, primary care physicians can play an important role in accounting for the reduction of infant mortality rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research focuses on a mining frontier in the municipality of Canaã dos Carajás, located in the Brazilian Eastern Amazon. The method involved a combination of secondary data with field research. The latter is based on in-person interviews with a sample of 253 households. The paper analyzes the municipality and its inhabitant's socioeconomic situation and captures the views of residents about life in the town. The results showed that mining played an important role in increase of Canaã's income and exports, despite the late 2000s economic crises. Consequently, many socioeconomic indicators improved in Canaã. However, inequality increase and employment fall associated with S11D operation pose challenges to the municipality—currently and possibly in the future. Canaã expects high amounts of royalties of iron ore exploitation. These royalties can help the municipality's economy if the planning and political-institutional contexts are adequate. Field work dataset showed that Canaã's population is essentially migrant who arrived after 2004 seeking work and income opportunities, as an effect of mining growth. Nevertheless, people became more skeptical as a consequence of S11D operation and jobs loss, many businesses closure and drastic reduction of movement in the city. The results show the challenge to convert the increasing income from different stages of mining activity into permanently better and broader public services. This result is especially important in the studied case of a recent town located in the southeast Amazonia, whose dynamics are strongly linked to mining economics, and faces effects of changes in stages of large-scale mining projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synthetic natural gas (SNG) derived from biomass gasification is a potential transport fuel and natural gas substitute. Using the Netherlands as a case study, this paper evaluates the most economic and environmentally optimal supply chain for the production of biomass based SNG (so‐called bio‐SNG) for different biomass production regions and location of final conversion facilities, with final delivery of compressed natural gas at refueling stations servicing the transport sector. At a scale of 100 MWth, in, delivered bioSNG costs range from 18.6 to 25.9$/GJdelivered CNG while energy efficiency ranges from 46.8–61.9%. If production capacities are scaled up to 1000 MWth, in, SNG costs decrease by about 30% to 12.6–17.4$ GJdelivered CNG−1. BioSNG production in Ukraine and transportation of the gas by pipeline to the Netherlands results in the lowest delivered cost in all cases and the highest energy efficiency pathway (61.9%). This is mainly due to low pipeline transport costs and energy losses compared to long‐distance Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) transport. However, synthetic natural gas production from torrefied pellets (TOPs) results in the lowest GHG emissions (17 kg CO2e GJCNG−1) while the Ukraine routes results in 25 kg CO2e GJCNG−1. Production costs at 100 MWth are higher than the current natural gas price range, but lower than the oil prices and biodiesel prices. BioSNG costs could converge with natural gas market prices in the coming decades, estimated to be 18.2$ GJ−1. At 1000 MWth, bioSNG becomes competitive with natural gas (especially if attractive CO2 prices are considered) and very competitive with oil and biodiesel. It is clear that scaling of SNG production to the GWth scale is key to cost reduction and could result in competitive SNG costs. For regions like Brazil, it is more cost‐effective to densify biomass into pellets or TOPS and undertake final conversion near the import harbor. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to analyze the possible consequences of the establishment of the Bank of the BRICS - created at the Fifth Summit of the BRICS, realized in South Africa, 2013, and materialized at the Sixth Summit, in Brazil, 2014, in which the bank received the name of New Development Bank. Specifically, the paper examines whether the creation of the Bank shall, on the one hand, increase the global power and influence of the group and, on the other hand, mitigate the problems arising from the asymmetries in the international monetary and financial system, mainly represented by currency hierarchy. Partly the article is based on the economics of John Maynard Keynes, chiefly in his discussion about the importance of money in the economic system, and partly on the Post Keynesian theory, when it is addressing the asymmetries in the international monetary and financial system. Worth noticing that the Bank of the BRICS was created recently so that its working is not plenty yet. Hence, this article has a speculative character, but contributive to wonder about the Bank's possibilities and the outcomes of its existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last years, the new science of cities has been established as a fertile quantitative approach to systematically understand the urban phenomena. One of its main pillars is the proposition that urban systems display universal scaling behavior regarding socioeconomic, infrastructural and individual basic services variables. This paper discusses the extension of the universality proposition by testing it against a broad range of urban metrics in a developing country urban system. We present an exploration of the scaling exponents for over 60 variables for the Brazilian urban system. Estimating those exponents is challenging from the technical point of view because the Brazilian municipalities’ definition follows local political criteria and does not regard characteristics of the landscape, density, and basic utilities. As Brazilian municipalities can deviate significantly from urban settlements, urban-like municipalities were selected based on a systematic density cut-off procedure and the scaling exponents were estimated for this new subset of municipalities. To validate our findings we compared the results for overlaying variables with other studies based on alternative methods. It was found that the analyzed socioeconomic variables follow a superlinear scaling relationship with the population size, and most of the infrastructure and individual basic services variables follow expected sublinear and linear scaling, respectively. However, some infrastructural and individual basic services variables deviated from their expected regimes, challenging the universality hypothesis of urban scaling. We propose that these deviations are a product of top-down decisions/policies. Our analysis spreads over a time-range of 10 years, what is not enough to draw conclusive observations, nevertheless we found hints that the scaling exponent of these variables are evolving towards the expected scaling regime, indicating that the deviations might be temporally constrained and that the urban systems might eventually reach the expected scaling regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the construction of the silver economy (or the longevity economy) strategy in Brazil and its contribution to the economic development. The first and second parts of the paper summarize the international debate on the concept, mainly in the countries of the European Union. The third part approaches the focus on the ageing population in Brazil, still dominated by a pessimistic view. In the next section of the paper, the action opportunities for the longevity saving strategy in Brazil are exposed with summaries of some key sectors, according to the international literature on the silver economy. The income of the older people and the purchasing power of families with older adults are analysed in the following sections. In the conclusion, some recommended actions for building the silver economy strategy in Brazil is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research on the association between religion and health often neglects to provide an explicit theoretical mechanism of influence between faith and well-being. This research posits that dissociative behaviors, such as glossolalia, may provide a biological pathway that influences both physiological and psychological health. This paper argues that religious dissociation acts as a moderator between economic stressors and psychobiological appraisal. Brazil, with its economic inequality and preponderance of religious dissociative rituals, provides an ideal context to examine religious dissociation as a moderator of stress. Utilizing data from a cross section of Brazilian faiths, this paper examines: (1) Whether individuals with low socioeconomic status preferentially participate and experience religious dissociative states and (2) whether dissociative states are correlated with greater psychological appraisal of status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diversity is a very complex and controversial issue. It embraces the so-called "minorities", not in numerical terms but in terms of power. The groups that compose the minorities are the black, the disabled, women and the indigenous, among others. Although there are advances in this discussion, including in the legislation field, there are still gaps when it comes to employment for these minorities. For this paper, we chose, among the minorities, people with disabilities (PWDs), because according to the International Labor Organization (2010), they represent 10% of the world's population, among which approximately 72% are at the working age. The objective of this paper was to understand the identity dynamics of PWDs inserted in work organizations, located in Brazil and in the United States. To this end, we elaborated a theoretical framework mainly based on the identity from a sociological approach by Dubar (2005). We opted for an exploratory and qualitative research, based on an interpretive approach. The techniques of data collection used were semi-structured interviews and documentary research. Interviews were conducted with twelve PWDs in Brazil and eight in the United States, men and women. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed through content analysis. In both countries the jobs of the interviewed PWDs appeared as an important tool to give meaning to their lives. Moreover, one of the main obstacles faced by the interviewed PWD with regard to employment was the disability itself. Thus, it was possible to notice a conflict between who they are and whom they think they should be in order to work. It was observed that the individual's identity is a result of the movements of construction and reconstruction of his or her (many) identities and that one cannot identify oneself only with one's eyes; instead, they need to see through someone else's eyes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article intends to contribute to the line of studies that critically addresses diversity management, bringing the Brazilian experience into the discussion. It aims to demonstrate how large Brazilian companies and transnational corporations operating in the country have been recycling the idea of race in order to cope with the greatest politicisation of debates on the racial issue within the Brazilian public sphere since the late twentieth century. This phenomenon is related to changes in the political actions of the black movement in Brazil, which since the same period has been absorbing the new socio-political agenda existing within the global network of anti-racism advocacy. This is an agenda in which two purposes have a central importance: the battle against racial inequality and the demand for affirmative action policies. The data presented in this paper are part of broader research in which, by means of the biographical method and the ethnographic fieldwork, the social trajectories and career paths of two generations of Brazilian black executives were analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the increasing relative importance of the cultural sector in the Brazilian economy. Specifically, we look at the integration of the cultural sector production structure into Brazil's production structure. We contribute to the literature by making a systematic evaluation of the production integration of the cultural sector into the Brazilian production structure. To do so, we disaggregate the cultural economic sectors using Brazilian inputoutput tables for 2005 and 2009. Using both tables, we calculate different measures of linkages and use the Structural Decomposition Analysis (SDA). Our results show transition in relative importance from manufacturing to services for the cultural sectors and that investments in cultural activities can produce positive results for the Brazilian economy in terms of income and employment effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the changing strategies of developmental states using Brazil's oil-based industrial policy as a case study. We analyse the relationship between the state, Petrobras and industrial elites in the context of Brazil's renewed emphasis on sector-specific industrial development strategy. Taking stock and re-examining the developmental state model, we suggest that developmental states are inherently political, particularly their bureaucracy and state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and that money politics is intricately woven into state-guided high growth regimes. Given the difficulty of privatisation as a solution to SOE (mis)governance, the challenge for Brazil is to mediate extreme political interventions that have eroded Petrobras' autonomy in the past and to sustain institutional capacity to direct rents towards investment and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The technology of photovoltaic power generation has been increasingly regarded in many countries as an alternative to reduce the environmental impacts associated with climate changes and dependence on fossil fuels. Countries such as Germany and other European countries have been developed specific regulatory mechanisms to encourage its use either by government programs or by financial and/or tax incentives. In Brazil, despite the large existing solar potential, the encouragement to technology is still incipient. This paper aims to demonstrate the key aspects of the evolution of regulatory incentives to use photovoltaic solar energy in Brazil and present the technologies and characteristics of photovoltaic power generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the dynamic of innovation in services for consumers at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP). For this purpose, a framework composed of innovation dimensions, capabilities and infrastructure was developed. To assess the framework behavior in the business practice, a case study was carried out in a retail firm operating in Brazil's Northeast region whose target consumers are at the BoP. The results showed adherence of the proposed framework to the dynamics of innovation conducted by the studied firm. Considering the theoreticalacademic perspective, the framework helps explain the interaction between dimensions, capabilities, and elements of the market infrastructure. As for its practical relevance, it explains how service innovations occur and how to adapt them to the BoP market. In addition, as the structure of the proposed framework includes both external and internal elements, innovation is then considered from different perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Despite the lack of evidence supporting its practice, antipsychotic polypharmacy (APP), is widely used1,2,3,. To change the outcomes that are directly related to doctors' decisions, it is important to understand the decision-making process and the factors which affect it. Behavioral Economics is a field that blends social psychology and economics, and it seeks to understand how biases affecting the human decision-making process. Strategies based on Behavioral Economics principles have been successful in addressing many issues in healthcare. This paper describes a quality improvement project designed with the aim of reducing APP prescribing behavior in a large psychiatric hospital in Brazil. Aims Objectives Theory or Methods: Nineteen units participated in this case study. The intervention targeted all prescribers and it involved the use of norms and peer comparison, behavioral economics principles which indicate that individuals are more likely to adjust their behavior if they perform below the average performance of their peers. After baseline, where the APP prescribing rate for the whole hospital and for each unit in particular were assessed, a weekly email was sent to each prescriber with information about the hospital-wide APP prescribing rate, feedback related to the APP prescribing rates in their units, and how they compared to other units. Highlights or Results or Key Findings: The intervention was successful in reducing hospital-wide APP prescribing rate. After the second e-mail, we observed a steep drop in the APP prescribing rate, and the rate never returned to preintervention levels. The weekly emails with feedback and peer comparisons yielded an average statistically significant difference of about 8.02% (t(10) = 4.7491, p < 0.008) over a brief 11-week period. This study demonstrated that e-mails designed according to a Behavioral Economics strategy can affect prescribing behavior. Conclusions: Information about the lack of evidence for the use of antipsychotic combinations, about the rates in other parts of the world, and information about the rates in hospitals with a similar population within their own state was enough to yield statistically significant results.. Implications for applicability/transferability sustainability and limitations: Future quality improvement projects targeting prescribing behavior should consider a combined use of guidelines and training with norms and peer comparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper reviews the current socio-cultural and political state of cycling in Brazil and the policies and activities over recent years that have aimed to reverse its marginalisation. In particular it focuses on the city of Pelotas in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul and the significant societal and material transformations that are causing conflict and dissonance in relation to the future role of cycling on city streets. Using a combination of empirical evidence from existing literature; a focus group with members of the cycling stakeholder forum; interviews with planning officials whilst observing cycle infrastructure; interviews with participants whilst taking part in a ‘protest’ bicycle ride (bicicletada); and on street intercept interviews with cycle commuters, this paper highlights the tensions, conflicts, aspirations and imaginaries of a city grappling with significant growth and urban transformation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Selection of value chain strategies by development practitioners and value chain participants themselves has been restricted to preset types of upgrading. This paper argues for an extension of the range of strategy solutions to value chains. An empirical application identifies successful strategies for honey value chains in Brazil for 2015–2020. Strategy and performance indicators were selected using the value chain Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) framework. Experts’ opinion was elicited in a Delphi for business scenarios, and adaptive conjoint analysis was used to identify strategies for increasing production growth and local value-added. This study identifies important strategies beyond upgrading typologies, and finds that important strategies differ by performance goal and scenario. The value chain SCP allows searching for promising strategies towards performance–the “better deal”–in an integrated way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamics of innovation in complex systems industries is becoming an independent research stream. Apart from conventional uncertainties related to commerce and technology, complex-system industries must cope with systemic uncertainty. This paper's objective is to analyze evolving technological paths from one product generation to the next through two case studies in the Brazilian aerospace industry, considering systems integration as an empirical instantiation of dynamic capabilities. A proposed "coupled processes" model intertwines two organizational processes regarded as two levels of dynamic capabilities: new product and technological developments. The model addresses the role of emergent properties in shaping a firm's technological base. Moreover, it uses a technology readiness level to unveil systems integration business tricks and as a decision-making yardstick. The "coupled processes" model is revealed as a set of dynamic capabilities presenting ambidexterity in complex systems industries, a finding that may be relevant for newly industrialized economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically investigates the lack of meaningful policy change towards agrofuels (or biofuels) in the wake of the food vs. fuel and environmental sustainability debates of 2007-2008. The paper sketches the political economy of agrofuels in Brazil, the EU and the United States before analyzing the effects of the food vs. fuel crisis on European agrofuels governance formation from a neo-Gramscian perspective. It is illustrated that, before the food vs. fuel crisis provided critics with a global audience, agrofuels programs had been entrenched in agricultural policies by highly organized, well-funded capital interests. By offering a domestic, rural, agricultural alternative to fossil fuels, agrofuel proponents offered to make a business opportunity out of the fundamental problems of currently hegemonic, mobility, production and consumption systems. It was only with dramatic rise in food commodity prices over the course of 2007 and 2008 and subsequent space it discursively afforded a counter-hegemonic movement, that a truly global critical discussion of agrofuels came to fruition. The author concludes that, despite rhetorical discursive shifts in understandings of the social and ecological sustainability of agrofuels, agrofuel production continues to be supported today as before because the agrofuels project was and remains a predominantly economically motivated endeavor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a critical look at how energy security-, food and agriculture-, and climate change-oriented international organizations frame biomass energy production in developing countries, in particular, ethanol production in Brazil. Using the world-economy system as a theoretical lens, the paper raises a concern as to whether the way these global institutions frame bioenergy's role in developing regions manifests energy and ecological inequalities between the core and the periphery, as well as creates internal contradictions that perpetuate unequal exchange embedded in the system. Simultaneously, these organizations frame Brazil as a semi-peripheral state that, while successful in finding a niche concurring with the core's demand for cheap energy and cost-effective decarbonization strategies, is not necessarily a suitable role model for the periphery's socio–economic development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The franchising system generates about forty-six billion reais a year in the Brazilian economy by way of 1,197 franchising networks that licnse 65,500 units, generating almost 600,000 direct jobs. In the USA that number is higher still, with around 760,000 units that generate 1.53 trillion dollars a year in the economy. The objective of this paper is to develop an unpublished goal-analysis on franchising involving 61 Brazilian and international scientific papers published from 1998 to 2007 and published by Anpad and in related periodical in Proquest (Qualis A, B or C). Saint approached the following questions: how scientific research into franchises has developed; in which academic vehicles are they linked; the main themes that are dealt with; which institutions these authors are connected with; the participation of states and countries; the predominance of certain authors; the research methods used and the economic segments of application. The results show that Brazilian works are concentrated in Enanpad; the predominance of works on Entrepreneurship and Strategy, internationally, with focus in economic theories; most of the authors are connected to institutions in the south and south-east of Brazil and the USA; a strong predominance of the surveys and the application of the research in several sections of the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The entrepreneurship of small business has been almost unanimously viewed as beneficial for the social and economic life in different countries and regions. This paper aims to answer the following research question: in Brazil, do varying rates of entrepreneurship across regions affect economic performance? The paper investigates the effects of entrepreneurial activity on economic growth and unemployment rate in 853 municipalities in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Entrepreneurship rate of a municipality is the proportion of self-employment in the work force. Its impact on the growth of GDP and unemployment is analyzed by the methodology of multiple regression models. The empirical results reveal a robust association between entrepreneurship and unemployment: the higher the entrepreneurial activity of the municipality, the lowest the unemployment rate. But the influence of entrepreneurship on the local economic growth is also negative: where there was more entrepreneurial activity in 2000, GDP growth was smaller the following three years. The interpretation of these results leads us to the discussion of entrepreneurship by necessity that characterizes major part of the entrepreneurial activity in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adventure of the critic. The aim of this paper is to reply the critical observations made by Fernandes, Rego and Gala in this number of Revista de Economia Política about a paper of mine, also published in this same journal in January 2006, which deals with the relationship between Economics and Rethoric and its unfolding in Brazil. Answering these critical observations I have tried to show that: a) it is not easy, as they do, to associate Habermas's project to the defense of the approach of Rethoric in Economics; Habermas himself has a lot of objections to the association of his project with Rorty's pragmatism which seems to be the strongest McCloskey's influence; b) it is not true that my considerations have a kind of epistemological immunity and that they are not liable to contestations; if it seems so it is because the nature of the materialistic approach itself. At the end I observe that my carpers didn't reply my observations about the unfolding of the rethorical project in Brazil and that this is, at some measure, surprising, because they are central personages in it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important goal of regional development in the Brazilian Amazon was to enhance social welfare and alleviate dire poverty in other parts of the country by providing land to the poor. Nevertheless, both poverty and landlessness have persisted despite development policies that distributed billions of dollars on highway construction, loans, and outright subsidies. Inequitable land distribution has been held as a prime factor in land conflict across the country. Although episodes of conflict over land are common in Brazilian history, this paper focuses on agrarian issues that arose with the opening of the Amazon frontier in the 1970s. The paper presents a political economy approach that considers the role of hierarchical forces interacting across spatial scales, in creating conditions ripe for land conflict at the local level. The premise is that the Brazilian government, intending to bring about economic and social development, promoted contradictory strategies creating land scarcity. These strategies led to expansion of large ranching operations, creation of conservation units, and demarcation of indigenous reserves, which constrained the pool of land available for small farmer settlement. Empirical analysis employing regression and spatial statistics is used to test the proposed model, advancing previous efforts by applying spatial regression, incorporating improved indicators of conflict and explanatory variables generated by a Geographic Information System (GIS). The findings provide support for some elements of the argument, demonstrating statistically significant relationships between land conflict and land concentration, cattle ranching, and road construction. Finally, a case study analysis of a county in the heart of the land conflict zone is provided, illustrating the interaction of scalar forces, and the articulation of land conflict at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper forecasts the supply curve of non-conventional renewable technologies such as wind and solar generating stations in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico using technological and economic parameters. It also estimates the additional investment costs in solar and wind generation for reaching the renewable energy target in each of these countries. To assess the power supply profile from 1 axis tracking PV and horizontal axis wind turbine (three blade) stations, two different scenarios are developed for 2014 and 2025. Scenario 1 estimates the PV and wind annual electricity yield by using polycrystalline silicon (cSi poly) as semiconductor material for PV cells and a Vestas 90–3.0 MW turbine for the wind for 2014. Scenario 2 assumes a more efficient technology, such as CPV. In fact, the model employs 45% efficiency triple junction cells using ∼3500 m2 for each 1 MW installed capacity in 2025. Moreover, this scenario also assumes a more powerful type of turbine, i.e. Vestas 112–3.075 MW. The biggest potential for wind power is found to be in Argentina, followed by Brazil, Mexico and Chile. In addition, a 550 MW installed capacity CPV power station, using triple junction cells could generate up to 4 TWh in Chile in 2025. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper estimates the fiscal cost of an increase in the Brazilian policy interest rate - the SELIC - by considering not only the direct effect on the yield of public bonds that are indexed to the SELIC, but also indirect effects on: (i) the yield of public bonds that are indexed to the exchange rate and inflation, and (ii) the stock of public net debt through adjustments in the value of international reserves measured in domestic currency. Projections are based on the estimation of the relationship between interest rates, exchange rates and inflation by means of a vector auto-regression. We conclude that the inclusion of such indirect effects has an ambiguous effect on the response of the implicit interest rate on public net debt to shocks in the SELIC, when adjustments in the value of international reserves are not considered. However, the inclusion of the latter amplifies the fiscal cost of a more restrictive monetary policy. These results call for a better coordination between monetary, fiscal and exchange rate policies in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits and rebuts the mainstream view that Brazil and Argentina were led to form the Southern Common Market to end more than a century of rivalry and competition. We find the elements characterizing an interstate rivalry diminishing in the nineteenth century through the promotion of peaceful settlements and strategic alliances while those that could prompt security concerns disappeared years before the Southern Common Market was formed. Except for diplomatic disputes over the distribution of shared water resources, a disagreement settled in 1979, the decades preceding the Treaty of Asuncion were typified by security alliances, co-operation on economic complementarity and the promotion of bilateral institutions. We find little evidence for the implied security motivations being proposed in the literature. Rather, the establishment of the Southern Common Market was driven primarily by Argentina's and Brazil's desire to improve economic performance and advance political leverage through the promotion of a common stance in global affairs. This view challenges a common component in integration theory that, as applied to the European Union and elsewhere, asserts the privileged role of security concerns as prime driver for integration. This matters because there is a misapprehension that affects both the theory about integration as well as the formulation of policy prescriptions for South America. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this paper was research how each kind of tournament affects the revenues generation in football clubs. We have analysed the sports performance of 28 Brazilian football clubs during five seasons (2010-14). We have studied the five most important tournaments there: Brazilian League, Brazilian Cup, State Championships, Libertadores Cup and South American Cup. We have carried out a linear regression in a panel data with football clubs fixed effects. The lagged variables of each tournament were employed to examine if the previous sports performance could improve the next revenues. The model explains 65.1% of the total revenues. In addition, the lagged performance in a League and the current performance in a Cup and Libertadores were the tournaments that statistically affect the revenues generation. We conclude that the importance and the competitive format have different impacts in the revenues generation on Brazilian football clubs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The legislation for the protection and conservation of caves is recent in Brazil. In 2008, the Decree 6.640 was enacted and in 2009, the Normative Instruction N° 2 by the Brazilian Environment Ministry (MMA, Portuguese acronyms) was published. Mining operations cause a significant impact on the caves when they are present in or next to the mineral body. The impacts include the suppression of cavities and impacts on physical and bio-speleological stability of the caves. On the other hand, the actual legislation causes a significant impact on the mineable reserves when cavities are present. This article aims to assess the impact of the natural cavities on the feasibility of a mining project, based on the federal legislation, as well as to propose alternatives to combine mining activity with cave protection. For this research, three scenarios of open pit for a hypothetical ore body were considered for the assessments. This paper presents the results achieved for the three and comments on the necessity of researches to conciliate the conservation of the natural underground cavities with the mining activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes whether the higher the company's financial leverage, the higher the salaries demanded by staff for the embedded financial distress risk. By applying Berk, Stanton and Zechner's (2010) model, we use a 2SLS for a sample of 250 non-financial companies listed on BOVESPA from 2007 to 2009. Indeed, we find that for each additional 1% of financial leverage, the staff remunerations increase by 0.26%, controlling for Chief Executive Officer (CEO) profile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature on Corporate Social Responsibility points out some long-term benefits. However, the literature doesn't say much on its potential short-term benefits, such as how socially responsible firms react in a Financial-Economic Crisis, a well-known short-term phenomenon. This paper aims to analyze the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility and firms' financial performance under a crisis scenario. Using a difference-in-difference regression model with panel data and companies listed on the Brazilian stock exchange (ISE-BOVESPA) as a proxy for Brazilian firms that implement Corporate Social Responsibility, we find that during the 2008 crisis, socially responsible firms didn't have significant differences in financial performance compared to non-ISE firms. Such results are not aligned with theories that argue in favor of Corporate Social Responsibility in order to boost financial performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article moves beyond international management (IM) and international business (IB) literatures and the corresponding neoliberal western order through a trans/interdisciplinary approach that rescues the international management-governance nexus. Drawing upon the basic tenets of pluriversaltransmodernity and the recognition of the geopolitical dimension that has been marginalized by IB/IM the analysis of post-1990 process of (re)construction of a Luso-Brazilian or Brasilo-Portuguese order that challenges the hegemony of the neoliberal order is undertaken through the recognition of the international relations (IR) literature and the de-subalternization of local knowledges in GI/NI informed by the concept of economic diplomacy. This paper shows how and why business and government organizations mobilize and constitute the governance-management nexus to (re)build a Luso-Brazilian order and help overcome historical restrictions imposed by eurocentrism. In the end the article stands for the liberation of IB/IM as a way to build a new order in management towards a world in which many worlds and knowledges could coexist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, found in human microbiota, in certain circumstances may cause simple through serious infections, and is counted as the most virulent in its genus. Its enormous capacity of adaptation and resistance to majority of antimicrobials, place it among the most important group in nosocomial infections. The quantity of nosocomial infections is increasing every day, generating a treatment cost three times bigger than in patients without infection and is defined by Healthy Ministry as infections acquired after patient admission in the hospital and that manifest during internment or after discharge from hospital, when could be related to internment or nosocomial procedures. This paper is a bibliographic revision of last five years, based on main electronic libraries and databases of the world, about Staphylococcus aureus, with the purpose of update healthy professionals and identify the importance of its methicillin-resistant form in nosocomial infections. Human and financial costs and prevention steps against this agent were also approached, objectifying put in relief the necessity of developing of new antibiotics and investment in new researches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1980s and 1990s, while the Brazilian economy performed poorly compared to previous decades, the state of Santa Catarina grew above the national average. In the 2000s, with the change of direction of the federal government's economic policy, the country resumed its growth and income distribution, but Santa Catarina economy grew below the national average. Based on the resumption of the growth rate of the Brazilian economy in the early 2000s and the loss of the growth rate of the Santa Catarina's economy in the same period, current research is analyzes which factors contributed to this result. The objective of current paper is to study the performance of the Santa Catarina's economy during the last decade by analyzing the behavior of industrial production, exports, employment and credit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protestantism has expanded rapidly in Brazil in recent decades. The question we tackle in this paper is whether Protestantism has had a positive influence on male earnings in this setting, either through its influence on health and productivity, by way of social networks or employer favor and reduced discrimination, or through other mechanisms. We tackle the problem of the selectivity of religious conversion and affiliation using microdata from the Brazilian censuses of 1970, 1980, 1991, and 2000, and analyzing the association between Protestantism and earnings at the group rather than the individual level. Our results show a strong association between the proportion of Protestants in a region, and the earnings of men in one educational group: those with less than five years of education. Upon introducing race into our models, we found that the association between religion and the earnings of less educated men is concentrated in regions in which there is a substantial non-white population. The relationships we have uncovered contribute to the literature on racial inequality and discrimination in Brazil, which to date has given little space to the role of religion in moderating the pernicious effect of race on economic outcomes in Brazil. The substantial association we found between religion and earnings contrasts with much of the research that has been carried out on the influence of religion on earnings in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper intends to analyze the production of housing by Minha Casa Minha Vida Program (MCMV) in the Metropolitan Region of Santos (RMBS). In this sense we develop the discussion of the quality of urban integration of these production considering the metropolitan setting of this region and the existing housing demands, illuminating conflicts and contradictions related to the logic of housing production imposed by this program, which tends to drive the emergence of new inequalities in the peripheries and expand the sprawl. In general, the inclusion of the production of MCMV in the metropolitan area in RMBS reaffirms the spatial configuration of socio-territorial segregation, excluding the poorest of the central areas, with the production of the units subject to economic of projects than logic of housing demand and urban dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]