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Revista de Economia e Sociologia Rural, Volume: 41, Número: 1, Publicado: 2003
  • Use of crops and livestock futures contracts in portfolios: an analysis of feasibility

    Mattos, Fabio L.; Ferreira Filho, Joaquim Bento de Souza

    Resumo em Inglês:

    According to Portfolio Theory, by combining assets that show a correlation inferior to one (1) among their individual returns, it becomes possible to create portfolios that reduce risk without damaging expected return. Crop and livestock futures contracts and company stocks show such a characteristic, which signals potential benefits when forming portfolios combining these two types of assets. This investment strategy is not often utilized in Brazil. The purpose of our research was to assess whether such an asset combination is actually advantageous to those creating investment portfolios in the Brazilian market. Our evaluation used instruments of analysis developed by Markowitz in Portfolio Theory and data about the return from crop and livestock futures contracts and stocks. The data was gathered from the Brazilian Futures and Commodities Exchange (BM&F) and Brazil’s National Association of Open Market Institutions (ANDIMA) between July 1994 and December 1998. The results of this work showed that the combination of these two types of assets in investment portfolios can be an interesting portfolio management alternative.
  • Financial risk monitoring and transaction costs in coffee & soybean trading companies and processors

    Bignotto, Edson Costa; Azevedo Filho, Adriano

    Resumo em Inglês:

    This study characterizes the use of risk monitoring mechanisms by coffee and soybean trading and processing companies. It also investigates the role these mechanisms play in the mitigation of certain transaction costs associated to bounded rationality, information asymmetry, and business opportunism in negotiations involving derivatives. The results presented are based on literature and original research, which consisted of interviews with 19 coffee and soybean trading and processing company agents that deal with the management and execution of derivatives trades. The interviews suggest that the interest in formal risk monitoring mechanisms depends strongly on the organizational structure of the business. In family businesses, in which the owner participates actively in negotiations, the interest is limited. In non-family businesses, where there is a clear separation between supervisory upper-management and agents involved with trading, the interest in risk monitoring systems is more evident. This result seems to indicate that the mitigation of transaction costs associated with information asymmetry and opportunism might be stronger motivations for interest in risk monitoring mechanisms than the costs resulting from bounded rationality.
  • The soybean production frontier and economic efficiency in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil

    Richetti, Alceu; Reis, Ricardo Pereira

    Resumo em Inglês:

    This work evaluates the economic efficiency of productive resource utilization in the cultivation of soybeans in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. The study area comprises the state’s main soybean producing counties. Economic efficiency was estimated for a sample of 151 soybean producers through the production frontier function. The producers in the state’s northern region are operating near the established production frontier, signaling a favorable tendency in resource reallocation and achieving efficiency.
  • Sources of small family farm production inefficiency, recôncavo region, Bahia, Brazil

    Pereira Filho, Carlos Augusto; Ferreira Filho, Joaquim Bento de Souza

    Resumo em Inglês:

    The main objective of this study was to identify and analyze the sources of inefficiency in family operated small agricultural properties in the Brazilian state of Bahia’s Recôncavo region from a sample of 44 producers. A non-parametric approach, in the context of cost minimizing behavior under constant returns to scale, was used to estimate the indices of technical, scale, allocative, and total (economic or cost) efficiency. Results indicated that the largest source small family farm inefficiency in the Recôncavo region is allocative inefficiency, that is to say, the non-observance of price relationships when making production decisions. On the average, 79.1% of these farms’ total inefficiency is due to allocative inefficiency, 9.3% to technical inefficiency, and 11.7% to scale inefficiency.
  • Methodology for comparative analysis of sustainability in agroforestry systems

    Lopes, Saulo Barbosa; Almeida, Jalcione

    Resumo em Inglês:

    The work analyzes the political/institutional links and technological formats of agroforestry systems in the Caí and Taquari river valleys of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul in an effort to determine a value for their ability to endure: their sustainability. Sustainability indicators are created for the analysis of these systems. The indicator values will be used to create a Sustainability Index (SI) for each studied agroforestry system and to identify each system’s sustainability pattern. The different agroforestry systems will also be classified according to their structural characteristics. Analysis of the identified patterns and indexes will reveal the adequacy of the methodology employed and the consequence of each system’s institutional arrangement, technological format, and sustainability pattern. The agro forestry system that combines exotic forest species with watermelon and the system that combines native forest species with citrus fruit stand out as being most sustainable while, from an institutional perspective, those systems that were linked in an "associative" arrangement had the highest sustainability index values.
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