Resumo em Inglês:

Income smoothing is defined as the deliberate normalization of income in order to reach a desired trend. If the smoothing causes more information to be reflected in the stock price, it is likely to improve the allocation of resources and can be a critical factor in investment decisions. This study aims to build metrics to determine the degree of smoothing in Brazilian public companies, to classify them as smoothing and non-smoothing companies and additionally to present evidence on the long-term relationship between the smoothing hypothesis and stock return and risk. Using the Economatica and CVM databases, this study focuses on 145 companies in the period 1998-2007. We find that Brazilian smoothers have a smaller degree of systemic risk than non-smoothers. In average terms, the beta of smoothers is significantly lower than non-smoothers. Regarding return, we find that the abnormal annualized returns of smoothers are significantly higher. We confirm differences in the groups by nonparametric and parametric tests in cross section or as time series, indicating that there is a statistically significant difference in performance in the Brazilian market between firms that do and do not engage in smoothing.

Resumo em Inglês:

Based on the broader context of globalization as politics, this paper adopts the following assumption: cities through their transnational cooperation networks and economic projects are the expression of a new political actor that has shifted its scale of operations, and have thus partly emancipated themselves from the monopoly of the nation-state in the deployment of transborder public action. In pursuance of developing this assumption, this paper approaches the discussion on municipal paradiplomacy in three parts: firstly, it presents the historical and theoretical background of paradiplomacy in Brazil; secondly, it looks into the empirical reality of several Brazilian municipalities and their international actions; thirdly, it presents a series of critical questions for analyzing cities and their transnational networks as new political actors in the global arena. Empirically, this paper raises key issues related to the multiple ways in which municipalities throughout Brazil develop transnational activities, whereas analytically it aims to provide a better understanding of their soft-border approach, as well as their pragmatic association between a renewed identity in the global scenario and an innovative strategy of local international management.

Resumo em Inglês:

The objective of this article is to estimate insurance claims from an auto dataset using the Tweedie and zeroadjusted inverse Gaussian (ZAIG) methods. We identify factors that influence claim size and probability, and compare the results of these methods which both forecast outcomes accurately. Vehicle characteristics like territory, age, origin and type distinctly influence claim size and probability. This distinct impact is not always present in the Tweedie estimated model. Auto insurers should consider estimating total claim size using both the Tweedie and ZAIG methods. This allows for an estimation of confidence interval based on empirical quantiles using bootstrap simulation. Furthermore, the fitted models may be useful in developing a strategy to obtain premium pricing.

Resumo em Inglês:

In this study, Ohlson's Linear Information Dynamic (LID) is analyzed and the effect of other information on the abnormal earnings series is evaluated. The hypothesis that industry structure and market share have significant effects on abnormal earnings in the following period is tested, with Ohlson's LID persistence maintained. The results confirm the premise of LID in a sample of Brazilian public firms, considering all the statistical models. The hypothesis regarding market share is rejected as its effect on the degree of abnormal earnings persistence has no informational content, either directly or jointly. Finally, the results confirm that different industries affect abnormal earnings persistence differently. In view of these results, the research hypotheses are partially rejected. It is concluded that (a) industry contains other information that can impact abnormal earnings for the following period and (b) market share (in isolation and together with industry concentration) does not imply differentiated impacts on firms' abnormal earnings for the following period, and therefore do not reflect the presence of other information in Ohlson's Model (1995).

Resumo em Inglês:

The understanding of modern management in peripheral countries does not take into account research into their historical background that has come a different route from the Anglo-Saxons. In this study we shall be analyzing the case of Brazil, where the modernization process has been marked by a unique colonial heritage. The central hypothesis is that strengthening of the farming system that was inherited from the colonial period was a decisive factor when the country fell behind the social, political and economic modernization processes that were taking place at that time in other parts of the world. We set out with the premise that the persistence of rural logic in social and political spheres in republican Brazil was a determining factor for the configuration of industrial management with traits that were characteristic of patrimonialist societies. These are: (a) opting for protectionism based on political influence and privileges extended to the businessman, which characterizes relationships among the economic elite in Brazil; and (b) the subordination of formal authority and the technical competence of the professional manager to patriarchal personalist logic, which favors family ties and personal loyalty.

Resumo em Inglês:

The aim of this article is to understand the relationship between the meanings of social practices and strategy creation used by the produce merchants in Vila Rubim, Vitória, ES, from 1970 to the present time. To provide empirical evidence of the conceptual framework that was developed, we conducted a case study. The data gathered from the documents and interviews were treated using discourse analysis, and those obtained from observations were treated using content analysis. The possibility and the act of approaching the neighboring merchant's customer is the link that joins the homonymous strategy and tactic, but the process in each of them has different implications (strengthening or transgressing the established order) and develops in different and dynamic ways. Thus, the denomination of strategies and practices is dynamic, relational and temporary because the focus is on the process that permeates each strategy and its articulations in the practices and meanings in each flow. In their socio-historic process, the produce merchants in the VR Market articulate various flows. Among them, the empirical investigation identified fourteen flows, nine as strategies and five as tactics, according to the social references assumed in the analysis.