This paper calls attention to the implications of using cost or revenue data in efficiency measurement through Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). In many empirical settings this issue arises, since frequently input and/or output quantities or prices are not available, and only value measures are...

Project finance is the process of financing a specific economic unit that the sponsors create, in which creditors share much of the venture’s business risk and funding is obtained strictly for the project itself. Project finance, often used for capital-intensive facilities and utilities, is...

A VAT Laffer Curve is estimated for the EU-27 countries in the period 2000-2010. Results show that countries such as Portugal are already in the prohibitive range of the curve. Structural differences exist between low growth years and high growth years. Collected VAT revenue is smaller in low...

We view innovation as a productive process, with outputs and inputs. We aim at compare the productivity of innovation across the twenty seven Member States of the European Union (EU-27), having a particular focus on Portugal. The data on inputs and outputs of innovation were collected from the...

Structured finance (SF) – project finance (PF) loans and asset securitization (AS) bonds – and straight debt finance (SDF) – corporate bonds (CB) – transactions are priced in segmented capital markets. Credit spreads are higher for PF loans than they are for AS and CB issues. SF and SDF...

This paper develops on a Solow type of model where the government is introduced as a decision maker. Additionally, this paper introduces consumer decisions and assumes that individuals can be differentiated by their relative factor endowment (labor and private capital). The results indicate that...

This paper analyses a model of a common value English auction with discrete bidding. In this model, we show that there exists a communication equilibrium in which the high signal bidder strategically chooses his first bid so as to maximise his expected utility. Straightforward bidding, or...

A two-stage procedure based on impulse saturation is suggested to distinguish mean and variance shifts. The resulting zero-mean innovation test statistic has a non standard distribution, with a nuisance parameter. Hence, simulation-based critical values are provided for some cases of interest....

This paper investigates empirically the determinants of air quality in a large cross-section of countries. We assess air quality by sulfur emissions and, following the literature, we consider three different groups of determinants: economic, political and cultural. We confirm the existence of an...

Assessing child well-being through composite summary indexes is one of the most recent developments regarding child well-being measurement. Using a new index that takes into account the children’s own perspectives, this paper presents empirical evidence on the main determinants of overall...