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This study investigates the impact of an exogenous and unexpected shock (COVID-19) on the wine tourism business from the winery’s perspective. A sample of 146 Portuguese wineries was surveyed. The econometric results show that the share of wine tourism sales, the amount of dependence on exports and the assertiveness of brand recognition have a structural effect on direct-to-consumer tasting room wine sales, even when the winery’s business is disrupted by a shock that degrades the dynamics and flows of international trade. The research establishes a starting point that allows to understand the implications of an exogenous shock on the structure of the winery’s business, calling for further research on the firm’s economic performance as well as on the consumer’s behaviour in a post-pandemic context.

This study explored the view that distributors have towards the most valued wine attributes by consumers in the US market, applying the discrete choice experiments technique. Furthermore, to explore the extent to which the distributors’ perspective may reflect consumers’ preferences, the results are analyzed considering previous evidence with consumers in the same market. The results from a scaled multinomial logit, mixed logit and generalized logit models reveal similarities with consumer studies’ findings, especially for the influence of medals/awards, the origin of the wine, grape variety, and price, and it also identifies possible trends in the market. This evidence suggests that data collected using the knowledge and experience of wine distributors generates valuable information through a smaller sample at a lower cost than through applying consumer surveys, which is relevant in large markets with a higher number of consumers.

The computation of productive efficiency provides key insights for firm managers and policymakers towards improvements in the competitiveness of businesses and industries, namely those that observe firm heterogeneity and high competition, as is the case of wine. Benefiting from Portuguese wineries panel data, this research measures firms’ productive efficiency, decomposing it into transient and persistent. Results allow us to conclude that wineries can boost overall performance through better input management and long-term policies, such as improvements in market regulation and public firm support.

This article presents an international comparison of the main determinants of wine prices in specialist online wine shops. Hedonic price functions were estimated for 9624 wines spread among four datasets from France, Italy, Germany and Australia. To explain price variation data was collected on wine classification, closure type, wine origin, medals or awards, vintage, alcohol content, color, and grape variety. Results from quantile regression models show that the wine vintage is a common price driver in all markets and quantiles. A quite similar effect was found for alcohol content. In terms of color, the implicit prices for red and white wines are also structurally different between countries, particularly in origin, blend, closure, awards and age. Thus, the markets should be assumed as heterogeneous, and the extrapolation of the results from one market to another may lead to erroneous management decisions.

Saltmarsh plants have several defense mechanisms against threatening abiotic conditions, such as salinity, inundation, or exposure to intense radiation, less is known regarding response to insect pests attack. Salicornia europaea L. plant stands are produced as cash crops in Portuguese coastal areas. In 2017, these crops suffered significant attacks from a gall midge fly (Baldratia salicorniae Kieffer), reducing its economic value. To understand how this attack influenced S. europaea chemical composition, infested and non-infested branches were collected, and their extracts were analysed by GS-MS and UHPLC-MS. Results revealed that different degrees of infestations displayed different chemical composition. Several compounds were for the first time identified in S. europaea, such as, arachidic acid, alpha-tocopherol, henicos-1-ene, and squalene. Most evident results were the reduced amount of alkanes in the infested conditions, which seems to be a direct consequence of insect infestation. Several compounds identified in the infested branches are known to have negative effects on insect larvae by reducing larval growth (linoleic acid) or increasing insect mortality (oleic acid). Halophyte plants production is increasing and it is accompanied by the urge to develop early control strategies against potential pests. These strategies may include ecological friendly solutions such as endogenous production of specialized metabolites to retrieve plant self-defences. Further, our results showed that B. salicorniae herbivory also induced the production of higher number of specialized metabolites with important known biological activities. In years in which high infestations reduce organoleptic qualities for fresh consumption plants can be used in biorefinery industries for metabolite extraction.

The wine industry is an example of how globalisation is reshaping the market structure, on both sides. The supply side has registered an increase in competition, as a result of new entrants. On the...

This article addresses the question of the stability of preferences over-time for preserving the attributes of the Alto Douro Wine Region, a cultural landscape world heritage site. A test–retest choice experiment is conducted with a broader time period of a five-year lag. Distinctly from the majority test–retest choice experiments, that assume scale homogeneity across respondents, a particular form of the generalised mixed logit model is applied to capture both scale heterogeneity for a pooled data set and data-specific scale heterogeneity effects. The results suggest the presence of a structural change between the two periods, indicating that the policy decision makers should be aware of the influence of external shocks on consumers’ preferences and on their willingness to pay for cultural heritage.

Export activities have become crucial to firms’ competitiveness, with determinants of export performance being a challenging field of research, since there is no consensus regarding the explained and explanatory variables or on the econometric methods to be used. Using a panel data of Portuguese wine firms, this paper aims to contribute to this debate, combining both resource- and institutional-based views of the firm. This paper tries to overcome the methodological hurdle, addressing sample selection issues and considering the fractional response nature of export performance. Given the pros and cons of each econometric approach, the Heckman selection model, the fractional probit model and the two-part fractional response model are estimated, and the results compared. From a public policy perspective, the results show that policies that promote wine firm size, labor productivity and wine promotion in third countries have a positive impact on export performance at firm-level. Age does not appear as a key factor on the internationalization of Portuguese wine firms

This review discusses the fate of antimicrobial resistance and virulence genes frequently present among microbiomes. A central concept in epidemiology is the mean number of hosts colonized by one infected host in a population of susceptible hosts: R0. It characterizes the disease’s epidemic potential because the pathogen continues its propagation through susceptible hosts if it is above one. R0 is proportional to the average duration of infections, but non-pathogenic microorganisms do not cause host death, and hosts do not need to be rid of them. Therefore, commensal bacteria may colonize hosts for prolonged periods, including those harboring drug resistance or even a few virulence genes. Thus, their R0 is likely to be (much) greater than one, with peculiar consequences for the spread of virulence and resistance genes. For example, computer models that simulate the spread of these genes have shown that their diversities should correlate positively throughout microbiomes. Bioinformatics analysis with real data corroborates this expectation. Those simulations also anticipate that, contrary to the common wisdom, human’s microbiomes with a higher diversity of both gene types are the ones that took antibiotics longer ago rather than recently. Here, we discuss the mechanisms and robustness behind these predictions and other public health consequences.

This study examines the macroeconomic determinants of exports, taking quality into account through vertical differentiation and using data on Portuguese Douro wines. Based on a gravity model from 2006 to 2015 and covering a range of 192 potential trade partners, estimations show that quality influences export performance. However, quality differences are not assimilated in the same way in all international markets, resulting in an export surplus of the best categories of wine to some world regions (West Europe and AngloSaxon countries) and a correspondingly export deficit to other regions (Middle East, North Africa, East Europe and Central Asia).

Assuming horizontal differentiation and using an expanded gravity model, the main objective of this article is to assess the determinants of Portuguese wine exports. Horizontal differentiation is considered, with still and fortified wines being distinguished, as well as three distinct designations of origin: Vinho Verde, Douro, and Port wines. The results from the period between 2006 and 2016 suggest that wineries and private and public agencies should focus their commercial and policy efforts on countries with high purchasing power and/or with great potential for growth, regardless of whether the customs costs are higher. Moreover, it is concluded that horizontal differentiation influences the export determinants, suggesting there should exist different internationalization strategies for distinct types of wine. (JEL Classifications: F10, F14, L66)

This article examines the supply structure and merging level of tourism-related services of wineries, focusing on a set of internal and external resources, namely corporate information, win...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of a World Heritage site (WHS) nomination as perceived by a specific group in a community, namely, the residents of the Alto Douro Wine Region. Design/methodology/approach The primary data were gathered through a face-to-face questionnaire, and the data analysis was performed using multivariate statistical methodologies (categorical principal components and cluster analysis) and the multinomial logit model. Findings Since the UNESCO nomination, the economic return was perceived as higher for almost half of the owners within the viticulture activity, for over half (56 per cent) within the tourism activity sector, and for 38 per cent in commerce. The general benefits mainly contributed to the residents’ positive view of the UNESCO’s classification. The viticulture activity negatively influences the perceived impact of listing on economic revenue. This is a very interesting and disturbing conclusion, since it suggests that not all grape-growers are feeling positive effects from the UNESCO nomination. Originality/value This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the WHS perceived effects by local residents. Methodologically, the paper presents a more refined analysis compared to most existing studies. By performing group segmentation, the paper provides more generalised information on community perceptions, bringing forward detailed knowledge about the interests of distinct groups such as wine makers, residents employed in tourism industry and commerce.

Price is a core component of both wine firms’ and consumers’ decision-making and so there has been a lot of analysis of the determinants of wine price. Most of the research has used the hedonic price function and assumed that the wine market is homogeneous with respect to both distribution channel and price segments. In this paper, a hedonic price function is estimated using data from a specialist retailer and a large supermarket, i.e., retailers in two different consumer market segments, niche and mass market, respectively. We conclude that the wine market is heterogeneous, and the importance of the various price determinants differs between distribution channels and, in the case of the specialist retailer, throughout the conditional statistical distribution of the price. This result may help the wine companies to place themselves in the market value chain.

This paper extends the traditional gravity model to explain the effect of digitalization on international tourism flows to five Southern European countries, where tourism plays an important economic role. The analysis is based on balanced panel data covering the period 2004–2019. Internet-user statistics and Google Trends search data are used as a proxy for digital adoption and virtual proximity, respectively, by source markets. Results lend support to the notion that virtual proximity rather than digital adoption aided international travel, demonstrating that digitalization cannot be interpreted as a fluid and vague concept that exerts a consistent effect. Results also present evidence that Southern European countries should not be treated as a block of homogenous destinations. These findings inform stakeholders regarding the significance of digital platforms as strategic tools to empower consumers.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate international trade determinants, paying special attention to variables related to climate change and non-tariff measures (NTMs), as they shape more and more world trade flows, with particular incidence on globalised goods, such as wine.Design/methodology/approachBased on panel data of Port wine exports to 60 countries, between 2006 and 2018, a gravity model has been estimated through Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood. Explanatory variables include NTMs, mean temperature, temperature anomaly, gross domestic product (GDP), exchange rate, ad valorem equivalent tariffs and home bias.FindingsThe findings show that exports are inversely related to both mean temperature and temperature anomaly in importing countries. Regarding NTMs, it is found that only part of them are trade deterrent. Additionally, purchasing power in importing countries is one of the main determinants of Port wine exports.Research limitations/implicationsThe results show that, besides traditional economic variables, policymakers and wineries should include in their exports' decisions the impact of variables related to climate change and NTMs.Originality/valueThe novelty of this paper is to incorporate the impact of climatic variability of importing countries as a determinant of international trade of wine. Most former studies inspired of the gravity model consider explanatory variables such as GDP and exchange rate, and more recent ones started to consider NTMs too, however, this study may be the first paper to include the impact of climate change (quantified by mean temperature and temperature anomaly in importing countries) on exports.

Motivated by challenges that emerged from Complex Event Processing (CEP) in Big Data contexts, an Intelligent Event Broker (IEB) was previously proposed as a CEP system built on flexible and scalable Big Data technologies and techniques, being already applied to Industry 4.0 scenarios. A key feature of the IEB lies in an effective visualization system for meta-monitorization and management. An analysis of previous scientific and technical literature has shown scarcity of proposals or development of such mechanisms. This paper proposes a Web Visualization Platform for managing and monitoring an IEB system based on novel approaches that include interactive exploration techniques, tridimensional visualizations and mixed-reality environments. Being mainly targeted towards Industry 4.0, this paper presents a demonstration case at Bosch Car Multimedia Portugal. Results indicate that significant value can be obtained when the visualization system is applied to decision support scenarios within organizations foreseeing event processing, Big Data, and Industry 4.0 projects., This work has been supported by national funds through FCT–Fundaçãopara a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2019 and the Doctoralscholarship PD/BDE/135101/2017 and by European Structural and Investment Funds in theFEDER component, through the Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Pro-gramme (COMPETE 2020) [Project nº039479; Funding Reference: POCI-01-0247-FEDER-039479]. Authors acknowledge the Virtual and Augmented Reality work of Ana Dias, AndréDomingues, Maria Cardoso, Rui Faria and Vanessa Ferreira, the Bosch Car Multimedia and the8thWall team that supported our work during the development phase.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the macroeconomic determinants of Port wine exports, taking into account the diversity and various quality levels associated with this product.Design/methodology/approachPort wine is a fortified wine only produced in Portugal. In the period 2006-2014, an extended gravity model is applied to data on the exports of the top 20 importing countries, accounting for 94 per cent of total exports. The authors base their empirical strategy on the Hausman–Taylor estimator (1971), overcoming endogeneity and accounting for time invariant variables. They estimate the impact of several factors on the total trade of Port wine, namely: gross domestic product (GDP), GDP per capita, tariffs, exchange rates, distance from original supplier, mutual language familiarity, landlockedness, wine consumption per capita and presence of Portuguese emigrants, all measured in volume and value terms, and for each of the four categories (Standard, High Standard, Vintage and Aged).FindingsThe findings show that the quantity and value of total Port wine exports are positively determined by overall GDP per capita, the presence of a Portuguese emigrant community (which implies that to some degree a common language and culture are shared), while exports are negatively influenced by landlockedness. In contrast to the traditional gravity model, distance from the source of supply does not appear to be a significant determinant, a fact explained by the specific and singular nature of Port wine and by the long tradition of this product in international markets. In addition, the results revealed specific determinants for specific product categories – such as GDP for aged Port and wine consumption per capita for high standard, vintage and aged Port, suggesting that Portugal needs to increase its exports of high-quality Port wine to markets that exhibit a tendency towards increased wine consumption per capita and are coming to be considered large and fast-growing economies.Originality/valueThis paper extends the literature, by respecifying the typical gravity model for aggregate goods to permit the analysis of wine exports. There has been relatively little application of this model to assess the determinants of the wine trade, and when it has been used, generally it has been in studies focusing on aggregate wine trade between countries. This paper seeks to fill this gap by focusing on the determinants of exports of a specific wine – Port wine, which is an internationally recognised product, with a clear internal product differentiation according to distinct quality levels – and in this regard provides new insights into the international patterns of trade in wine.

This paper investigates the presence of spatial spillovers in firms’ productive (in)efficiency. For this purpose, a spatial stochastic frontier model is specified and estimated, accounting for spatial dependence and persistent and transient (in)efficiency. This approach is applied to a panel dataset from 2014 to 2019 of Portuguese wineries. Apart from the traditional input and output quantities used in the estimation of a production function, the novelty of this study is the inclusion of information on the firms’ exact location, which allows incorporating the neighboring dependence in the productive efficiency analysis. Empirical findings show that despite the Portuguese wineries’ technological positive dependence on spatial closeness for both inputs and outputs, the geographic closeness is not strong enough to provide overall productive efficiency gains.

Current trends in technology development, both in terms of processing and communications, brought a new paradigm known as IoT (Internet of Things). Notwithstanding all anticipated advantages, from business to quality of life impacts, there are important challenges to overcome. Above all security and privacy requirements need to be addressed carefully looking for ways to control trust levels. Concerning system architecture, another problem arises from the limited bandwidth available at the Cloud level (where processing today occurs for the type of applications in question), to connect directly to million of devices sending very little amount of information, but continuously. This problem has been addressed through the concept of Edge or Fog Computing. This project aims to design such an edge, with specific requirements to support Smart Cities or similar environments, such as: accept and deal with different devices’ security levels; dynamically process the information and provide it through an API; keep historical data to provide a proper big data/machine learning information source; offer a platform to securely manage the deployed devices; and design a dynamic and intuitive dashboard displaying the information, warnings and alert messages, in formats suitable to all stakeholders.

This research analyzes the physical network of river cruise holiday packages as a relational system. A comprehensive network analysis is undertaken based on data from the Douro River (Portugal). Adjacency matrices are built to derive network centrality, constraint, and modularity metrics, further integrated into a Geographic Information System. Centrality and constraint measures are regressed on river-cruise holiday packages' attraction and logistical factors. Results reveal a major impact of logistical attributes rather than attraction on most centrality and constraint metrics. River cruising's destination network proves to be a multimodal transit network structure in a hub-and-spoke network framework, exhibiting several modules linked by connector hubs, which is consistent with a power-law distribution common to real-world networks. The results confirm river cruising's complex physical network of destinations, geographically diffused, which raises systemic and scale concerns that call for an integrated approach that articulates destination planning comprehensively.

In Portugal, as in other countries, agricultural cooperatives have an important economic role in the food system. Similar to other economic organisations, agricultural cooperatives have witnessed structural changes in recent decades in terms of governance and/or management models. Portuguese agricultural cooperatives have been compelled by their context to adopt a traditional model of ownership and control. The main goal of this study was to analyse issues related to the management structure and financial performance of cooperatives, based on data collected for olive oil cooperatives located in the northern interior region of Portugal. Combining a qualitative analysis of structure and decision-making, a financial assessment and the application of a multi-criteria approach (PROMETHEE II), the overall results are in line with expectations (e.g. low levels of member participation, nonprofessional management, low profitability ratios, low leverage and an ability to fulfil financial commitments), except for the relationship between professional management and financial performance. The existence of professional management does not lead to better financial performance. This result reinforces the belief that cooperatives that are structured differently have different and conflicting stakeholder interests En Portugal, como en otros países, las cooperativas agrícolas tienen un papel económico importante en el sistema alimentario. Similar a otras organizaciones económicas, las cooperativas agrícolas han sido testigos de cambios estructurales en las últimas décadas en términos de modelos de gobernación y gestión. Las cooperativas agrícolas portuguesas se han visto constreñidas por su contexto a adoptar un modelo tradicional de propiedad y control. El objetivo principal de este estudio era analizar cuestiones relacionadas con la estructura de gestión y desempeño financiero de las cooperativas, basada en los datos recogidos de cooperativas de aceite de oliva situadas en la región interior norte de Portugal. La combinación de un análisis cualitativo de la estructura y toma de decisiones, una evaluación financiera y la aplicación de un enfoque en varios criterios (PROMETHEE II), los resultados están en línea con expectativas (por ejemplo, bajos niveles de participación de los miembros, gestión no profesional, ratios de rentabilidad bajos, bajo apalancamiento y una capacidad para cumplir compromisos financieros), excepto la relación entre la gestión profesional y el desempeño financiero. La existencia de gestión profesional no conduce a mejores resultados financieros. Este resultado refuerza la creencia de que las cooperativas que están estructuradas de diferente manera tienen intereses diferentes y contradictorios a las partes interesadas.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of the different property rights models of credit institutions (public, private, cooperative or mutual) in their credit policy and investment behaviour and in response to the current crisis and regulatory framework adjustments. Taking Portuguese credit institutions as the object, it concludes that overall banks’ business models are qualitatively identical and their lending and investment behaviours are similar, except for the saver profile of cooperative banks and the deeper focus on loans to customers to the detriment of financial investments of the mutual savings banks. Moreover, the reactions to the crisis were equivalent, except for the state-owned banks, which presented the most favourable reaction, albeit not deep enough to be significant.

The globalization of the wine industry needs to be perceived as a challenge and an opportunity to innovate by traditional European producers’ countries, like Portugal, characterized by a terroir model, that is, an economic structure supported by a large number of grape growers, small and medium wine firms and high public regulation, to compete in international markets. Using a cluster approach, this article presents the case of the most important Portuguese wine region, the Demarcated Douro Region (DDR), which is a strong reference of terroir and known for producing Port wine. To increase its competitiveness in the world wine market, the DDR needs to evolve from an organized to an innovative cluster.

PurposeThe paper aims to identify “problematic” agricultural credit co‐operatives (CCAM) and to evaluate their risk of insolvency as a function of financial indicators, providing regulators and other stakeholders with a set of tools that would be predictive of future insolvency and perhaps bankruptcy.Design/methodology/approachUsing a database of CCAM failures in the period between 1995 and 2009, statistical models of failure of CCAM, are estimated and compared, using logistic regression analysis and multiple discriminant analysis for assessing the potential failure of CCAM as a function of financial/economical indicators.FindingsThe paper identified the variables customer resources growth, transformation ratio, credit overdue, expenses ratio, structural costs, liquidity, indebtedness and financial margin as determinants of CCAM failure. It suggests that CCAM take measures geared to boosting business, to shoring up the financial margin and the deposit base, to bolstering the complementary margin and to improving the credit recovery processes. Additionally it is necessary to increase cost efficiency, rationalizing structures and procedures consistent with reducing operating costs without detriment to the quality of service provided.Originality/valueThis paper helps to understand why agricultural credit co‐operatives fail.

Tal como sucede na maioria dos países desenvolvidos, em Portugal, mesmo em pequenos centros urbanos, a oferta de artes performativas tem vindo a aumentar, devido à construção de novas estruturas culturais públicas. O elemento crucial para a sobrevivência e alcance da missão das instituições culturais, em especial das mais recentes, reside na captação e manutenção de audiências. O principal objectivo deste artigo é indagar da influência de variáveis relacionadas com o perfil social e económico na presença e frequência de artes do espectáculo, tomando como exemplo o Teatro de Vila Real. Para o efeito são estimados modelos microeconométricos de escolha discreta. Os resultados indicam que um aumento da audiência de artes performativas está, sobretudo, relacionado com a elevação do nível educacional e a oferta de um serviço de proximidade.

Cooperação interinstitucional, parcerias e redes são palavras-chave cada vez mais presentes nas dinâmicas de desenvolvimento de qualquer território ou sector de actividade. A cultura não foge a este quadro, embora não abundem exemplos de Redes Culturais em Portugal. Num âmbito mais regional e local, surgem as chamadas Redes de Programação Cultural, sendo a COMUM – Rede Cultural um dos poucos casos. Este trabalho debruça-se sobre a análise qualitativa de benefícios económicos e sociais resultantes da criação e consolidação da COMUM. Em termos de desenvolvimento económico, esta avaliação permitiu concluir por um efeito positivo sobre (a) o reforço da identidade e história colectiva da região, (b) a formação cultural individual, (c) a sociabilidade e (d) a formação de novos públicos, dentro de uma óptica de transferência de benefícios inter-geracionais e de um aproveitamento de infraestruturas culturais locais.

Agricultural markets are characterised by thinner margins, greater price and income volatility. Despite these changes, agricultural raw material markets are increasingly characterised by the vertical co-ordination of farmers and processors. The organisational form of a marketing co-operative is a common means adopted by farmers to achieve this end. In a world increasingly concerned with the importance of the separation of ownership and user, the survival and growth of agricultural co-operatives (in which the primary users of the services are also the main owners) is linked to their economic role, to how members exercise their property rights, and how inputs are used by the co-operative. This paper provides a function that summarises the economic role of agricultural co-operatives and goes on to analyse the contribution to the economic performance of Portuguese wine co-operatives (PWCs) made by the use of property rights, and the skills of the human resources and technology employed. The results of a multinomial logit model show that PWCs would indeed be able to improve their economic performance through the application of integrated management strategies to solve common property and horizon problems, as well as increasing their recruitment of skilled professionals in the areas of management, wine production and marketing, and by the adoption of new technologies of production and packaging.

O Alto Douro Vinhateiro (ADV) foi classifi cado pela UNESCO, em 2001, como paisagem cultural evolutiva viva. Além da diversidade física e paisagística, há uma multiplicidade de actores que intervêm no ADV possíveis de defi nir a três níveis: instrumentos e organismos públicos, ao nível da gestão do território; direitos de propriedade e responsabilidade da gestão, ao nível patrimonial; e stakeholders, quanto aos efeitos da preservação. Neste trabalho, pretende-se defi nir os atributos a considerar num programa de salvaguarda do ADV, tendo por base evidências sugeridas num estudo prévio, nos resultados de um pré-teste e em discussões públicas e reuniões com peritos. Da investigação efectuada resulta que os atributos a considerar são: (a) vinha em socalcos com muros de xisto; (b) mosaico paisagístico (diversidade de culturas vegetais), incluindo bordaduras; (c) aglomerados urbanos; (d) disposição a pagar expressa num preço.. The Alto Douro Wine Region (ADW) was listed by UNESCO in 2001 as a living and evolving cultural landscape. Besides the physical diversity of the landscape, there is a multiplicity of actors involved in ADW preservation defi ned at three levels: i) instruments and public entities (in terms of land management); ii) property rights defi nition and liability management (asset level); and iii) stakeholders (as regard the preservation effects). In this paper, we defi ne the relevant attributes to formulate a program to preserve and safeguard the ADW, based on the evidence suggested in a previous study, on the results of a pretest and using information from public discussions and meetings with experts. The research carried out shows that the attributes to consider are: (a) terraced vineyards supported by schist walls, (b) landscape mosaic with agricultural diversity, including plots planted with and bordered by traditional crops, (c) traditional agglomerations and built heritage and, (d) a price, expressed by an annual tax increase per household.

As the euro is on its second decade, the European sovereign debt crisis and the ever more evident disparities in competitiveness among member states are prompting many to question whether monetary union is bringing more benefits than costs. The optimum currency area (OCA) theory provides a framework with several criteria for such analysis. Most literature focuses either or on OCA individual criteria or on an aggregate analysis of these criteria, using meta-properties. Differently, we start by a descriptive analysis of the first twelve euro countries under six criteria between 1999 and 2009. We detect signs of labour geographic mobility. However, nominal wages growth largely outpaced productivity growth in some periphery countries, resulting in losses of competitiveness. Financial markets seem to be deeply integrated. Total intra-EMU trade increased, though core countries seem to have benefited more, as their relative competitiveness improved. We detect no increased homogeneity of exports structures of EMU countries. Inflation rates alternated between periods of convergence and of divergence, though prices levels consistently converged between EMU countries. Finally, budgetary indiscipline was frequent preventing several countries from having fiscal room to face asymmetrical shocks.We conclude by estimating the impact of five OCA criteria on countries’ relative competitiveness, using real effective exchange rates as a proxy. Differences in the growth of unit labour costs, the dissimilarity of trade and the differences in output growth were found to be significant. With a higher confidence level, bilateral trade is significant and points towards the specialization paradigm. Thus, we identify some causes of the divergent competitiveness between some EMU countries that contributed to weaker economic growth in parts of the euro area.

La globalizacion esta poniendo en cuestion la esencia de la gobernanza cooperativa y su estructura societaria, sobre todo en los paises del Sur de Europa, como Portugal, donde muchos productores estan organizados en cooperativas agricolas tradicionales y de estilo mediterraneo. Este trabajo analiza los efectos de las variables de gobierno y control relacionados con el tamano sobre dos indicadores de comportamiento alternativos: los ingresos transferidos a los miembros/socios y la estructura del capital. Los resultados sugieren que estas cooperativas atraviesan dificultades para mantenerse sostenibles en un mercado de vino global y mas competitivo si siguen, en esencia, una politica de maximo retorno al socio, reduciendo su capacidad para de mejorar la estructura de su deuda y capacidad para financiar inversiones mas rentables, aunque con mayor riesgo, a largo plazo.

The objective of this paper is to analyse the impact of education on personal earnings during the reform of state-owned enterprises, comparing 1995 with 1998 in Hunan, China, using the Mincerian earnings equation method. The results show that the rates of return to education increased, indicating that human capital has been better rewarded as the reforms of the Chinese economic structure have progressed. Moreover, the findings show that primary education receives the highest returns, followed by tertiary education. Middle school education obtains the lowest rewards, reflecting the effects of the reform of state-owned enterprises on middle school graduates on whom the unemployment impact of this change has been the greatest.

In this paper we aim at studying efficiency, productivity and technological change in Portuguese banking during 1990–95, using information on the vast majority of banks operating in Portugal during that period. We use a translog variable cost function and a stochastic frontier model to estimate inefficiency and technological change. Our results suggest that the increased competition that Portuguese banks witnessed over the last few years did not lead to a better overall performance from the standpoint of costs: on the one hand, the annual efficiency average did not clearly increase over time; on the other hand, many more banks are now less efficient (in relative terms) than they were in the early 1990s. They also suggest that there is not a clear relationship between size and cost efficiency. Efficiency and scale economies also seem not to be related with size: some of the less efficient institutions (net assets below 50 million contos) are the ones facing global, although small, economies of scale and th...

This paper will evaluate productivity change in Portuguese banking using the Malmquist productivity index. The results show that between 1990 and 1997, banks in Portugal witnessed increased productivity and strong technological progress. Both small and large banks experienced higher productivity and technological change scores, while mid-sized institutions are putting more effort into catching-up policies. Rural banks have experienced strong productivity growth and are catching up with the best practices but lower levels of technological change. Urban banks show higher productivity growth and technological change levels. Government-owned banks have experienced lower levels of productivity change. Finally, the asset per employee ratio shows a positive correlation with the productivity scores, suggesting that this simple index is a good proxy for productivity.