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New silk road : trade and investment. perspectives for eu and new partnerships

Publication . Ilhéu, Fernanda

China has already given a fundamental contribution to the present globalization process and have also highly benefited from it by integrating becoming the final stage of the Global Chains Production networks in Asia. This process in China was the result of a survival economic strategy that saw in the attraction of Foreign Direct Investment in intensive low cost workmanship oriented to exports, a fundamental condition to overpass it´s millenary delay. This strategy accepted that the add value that remain in China, although very small was very important to give jobs to millions of Chinese and take them out of the absolute poverty line where they were in 1978 when Deng Xiao Ping launch the 4 Modernizations and the Open Door Policies. Other policies token during the first 30 years of the China Economic Reform, like the Grasp the Big Let Go the Small, the Socialist Market Economy, the Go West and the Go Global were equally important transforming Chinese economy in the second world biggest one. This first globalization stage had its big push in 2001 when China joined the WTO we can say that a new world economic order had begun in that date, placing China in the center of the world.

2016Working paper

Open access

New Emigration and Portuguese Society: Transnationalism and Return

Publication . Peixoto, João; candeias, pedro; Ferreira, Bárbara; Tiago de Oliveira, Isabel; Azevedo, Joana; Marques, José Carlos; Góis, Pedro; Malheiros, Jorge; Madeira, Paulo Miguel; Schiltz, Aline; Ferro, Alexandra; Santana, Eugénio

This chapter addresses the theme of transnationalism and return in recent Portuguese emigration, namely the flows that occurred after the turn of the century. It starts with a brief theoretical overview on those topics, which constitute two relatively neglected characteristics of Portuguese emigration. Next, based on a survey carried out in 2014–2015 to more than 6000 recent emigrants, it reveals some of the links that they maintain with their home country, as well as their plans for the future, which include settlement in the destination country, return and re-emigration. Lastly, it examines data on returning emigrants – especially those that returned between 2001 and 2011 – extracted from the 2011 Census. The evidence reveals a significant number of returns, including individuals at both working and retirement ages and at all skill levels, thus exposing the unexpected complexity of movements. The results are based on the research project “Back to the future: new emigration and links with Portuguese society” (REMIGR), which aimed to ascertain the extent and characteristics of the new emigration wave. The project included an overview of emigration and return to and from all regions of the world, as well as case studies in UK, France, Luxembourg, Angola, Mozambique and Brazil.

2019Book part

Open access

Contractual incompleteness and renegotiations of public private partnerships : a mixed-methods analysis

Publication . Sarmento, Joaquim

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are frequently renegotiated. The reason is that these long-term contracts (of over 30 years) require major investments and therefore are necessarily incomplete. Thus, research perceives the renegotiation of PPPs as their biggest pitfall. The abnormal occurrence of renegotiations leads to low efficiency and potential problems in this type of organizational choice. This study addresses the contractual incompleteness and the effect of renegotiations by using Portuguese PPPs. The use of mixed methods (a qualitative approach using fsQCA and a quantitative one) provides a deeper knowledge of the conditions that can cause renegotiations. The results show that investment, debt, type of shareholder, and type of payment have a strong effect on the occurrence or absence of renegotiations. Regulatory agencies responsible for both the creation and the renegotiation of PPPs must consider these findings in the design of PPP contracts, particularly regarding the payment conditions of each project, as this is a critical condition for posterior renegotiation of contracts.

2019Journal article

Open access

Social risks of forest fires : a methodological proposal for their monetary evaluation

Publication . Mendes, Isabel

The risk of forest fire in Portugal ranks among the highest in Europe. In recent times, fears have risen over the incidence of major forest fires with a scale and dimension that generate extremely high economic, environmental and social costs. Combatting this type of fire represents a particularly difficult and expensive objective and, in some cases, with a far from desirable level of efficiency. Particularly due to the national context characterised by severe budgetary restrictions, guaranteeing greater effectiveness and efficiency in forest fire prevention and fighting represents core objectives. One of the ways of improving the decision making process involves the monetary estimation of the total costs caused by fires and their respective risk levels, thus the cost of the risk of fire (in the sense of the economic cost calculated from the perspective of society in contrast to the concept of economic cost calculated according to the private ownership perspective) and that includes the probability of the incidence of fire and its propagation and the total cost of the damage that incorporates both the specific social costs, the economic cost and the environmental cost. This working paper holds the objective of contributing towards the conceptual and methodological discussion around this theme.

2018Working paper

Open access