O presente trabalho apresenta a análise dos Contratos de Compra e Venda de Energia Elétrica (CCVEE), principal instrumento que materializa a comercialização de energia elétrica no Ambiente de Contratação Livre (ACL), a partir das lições da Nova Economia Institucional (NEI), notadamente a abordagem da Economia dos Custos de Transação e dos Contratos Incompletos. Desde a abertura da Indústria de Energia Elétrica Brasileira (IEEB) à livre comercialização na década de 1990, as transações e os agentes que atuam neste mercado vêm crescendo significativamente, consolidando suas transações de compra e venda de energia elétrica prioritariamente por meio de CCVEE. Ocorre que tais instrumentos sofrem os reflexos da evolução da regulação da IEEB e também estão sujeitos à ocorrência de eventos não previstos à época de sua formatação. No processo de renegociação, adaptação ou discussão de tais CCVEE, os agentes incorrem em diversos custos de transação. Assim, a partir desta abordagem, este trabalho visa avaliar a qualidade dos CCVEE, considerando seus atributos, contradições e perspectivas de evolução. / This paper presents the analysis of Contracts for Purchase and Sale of Electricity (Contratos de Compra e Venda de Energia Elétrica CCVEE), the main instrument that embodies the sale of electricity in the Free Contracting Ambiance (FCA). Such analysis was based on lessons extracted from the New Institutional Economics (NIS), mainly the approach focused on the Economy of Transaction Costs and Incomplete Contracts. Since the opening of the Brazilian Electric Power Industry (Indústria de Energia Elétrica Brasileira IEEB) to free trade in the 1990s, transactions and agents operating in this market have grown significantly, consolidating their business of purchasing and sale of electricity primarily through CCVEE. However, these instruments suffer the consequences of the evolution of IEEB regulation and are also subject to the occurrence of unanticipated events at the time of their formatting. In the process of renegotiation, adaptation or discussion of such CCVEE, agents deal with various transaction costs. Thus, from this approach, this study aims to evaluate the quality of the CCVEE, considering their attributes, contradictions and perspectives of evolution.

Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo explicar a gestão municipal de tributos pelas regras de controle fiscal na arrecadação do Imposto Sobre Serviços de qualquer natureza, quando fortalecidas pela tecnologia da internet, sob uma perspectiva da Nova Economia Institucional (NIE), com ênfase na visão da sua vertente a Economia de Custos de Transação (TCE). Por meio de um estudo de caso único (piloto), identificaram-se os procedimentos de controle fiscal e analisou-se o fluxo das informações processadas e os resultados econômico-sociais proporcionados. Seguiu-se com um estudo de casos múltiplos de dez Municípios do Estado de São Paulo (Brasil), a partir de um modelo lógico elaborado em função das conclusões do estudo piloto, apurando-se o aumento da capacidade de controle pela ampliação da quantidade, agilidade e qualidade das informações processadas, que diminui, ainda que limitadamente, a assimetria de informações entre as partes, podendo gerar uma redução nos custos de oportunismo presentes nos custos de obtenção da informação que, se produzida, reflete um acréscimo do valor de imposto pago pelo contribuinte, alterando o desempenho da arrecadação do ISS para o Fisco municipal. O uso da tecnologia revelou-se fortalecedor para as regras de Controladoria e Contabilidade Gerencial existentes na área fiscal municipal. / This research aims at explaining the municipal management of taxes according to the fiscal control rules about collecting the ISS (tax on services of any nature), when strengthened by the Internet technology, based on a perspective of NIE (New Institutional Economics), with emphasis on the viewpoint from the TCE (Transaction Costs Economics). Through the study of a unique case (pilot), the procedures of fiscal control were identified and the flux of processed information and its socio-economic results were analyzed. Furthermore, multiple case studies of ten municipalities of the State of Sao Paulo were studied, underpinned by a logical model developed from the conclusions of the pilot case, of which resulted in the increase in the control capacity through the amplifying of quantity, agility and quality of processed information, which decreases, in a limited manner, the asymmetry of information between the parties and therefore generating a reduction in the opportunism costs found in the costs of information gathering, which when produced reflects an addition in the amount of tax paid by the tax payer, altering the accomplishment of the collection of ISS to the municipal Revenue. The use of technology revealed itself to strengthen the rules of the controlling and management accounting that exist in the municipal tax area.

<p>This paper draws on communications research to complement existing models of the political economy of trade policy by introducing the role of media as an institution interacting with policy makers, special interest groups and the public, influencing the formulation of policy and supporting a bias towards protective trade policies. Through the concepts of framing and perceived public opinion, media can contribute to and reinforce problem definitions and suggested solutions that limit the range of alternative policies available to policy makers. In the case of trade policy, established frames for conflict discourse that are efficiently represented in media give incentives to special interest groups to voice demands for support that focus on foreign adversaries, trade interventions and import restrictions. The hypothesis that media effects can contribute to trade policies based on tariffs or other forms of import restrictions is tested by an empirical examination of media coverage leading up to the U.S. decision to impose tariffs on imported steel in the spring 2002. The empirical study of news coverage in the New York Times suggests that to the extent that policy makers are concerned about real or perceived public opinion, they have incentives to adopt tariff-based or other import-restricting trade policies, rather than economically more efficient redistributive policies, wherever the conflict frame is prevalent and special interest groups have media access.</p>

Since 1989, there has been a period of rapid change of the economies of the former Eastern bloc. Within a few years, the majority of the formerly centrally administered economies had begun restructuring their economic systems, including the privatisation. of formerly state-owned enterprises. This process developed differently in different countries, depending among other things on their historical traditions and the momentum of their social, political and economic transformations. This doctoral dissertation examines the privatisation of large-scale industrial enterprises in Slovakia prior to 1997. In particular the thesis analyses the changing political and institutional framework governing the process and method of privatisation; and how the governance of firms was affected by the new markets and ownership- and control-structures that were established. Special attention is paid to the role played by investment funds andinvestment-companies established as a consequence of voucher privatisation. The research problem is approached both from an aggregate national level and from the enterprise level. The thesis includes a number of case studies of enterprises in Slovakia that underwent privatisation, and of investment funds that emerged to take part in the process. In addition, two panel-data sets were constructed for the sake of statistical analysis. The study points to the drastic changes in privatisation policy and its enactment, under different governments. It leads to the conclusion that privatisation is a highly political process, whose economic effects cannot be separated from its distributional effects. This politicised nature of ownership reform is shown to have some negative side-effects with regard to the development of well-functioning governance structures. It is, for example, pointed to that the capital market, as it developed during the period of study, was highly non-transparent,characterised by high transaction costs and insider-trading. The study also documents an increasingly concentrated ownership structure of the Slovak industry and relates it to the changes in privatisation policy. In the final analysis attention is drawn to a recurring theme in the study, namely the issues related to the relative stability and durability of the institutional set-up. In many cases an insecurity about "the rules of the game" led to short-term incentives and opportunism on behalf of the economic and political agents.

This paper draws on communications research to complement existing models of the political economy of trade policy by introducing the role of media as an institution interacting with policy makers, special interest groups and the public, influencing the formulation of policy and supporting a bias towards protective trade policies. Through the concepts of framing and perceived public opinion, media can contribute to and reinforce problem definitions and suggested solutions that limit the range of alternative policies available to policy makers. In the case of trade policy, established frames for conflict discourse that are efficiently represented in media give incentives to special interest groups to voice demands for support that focus on foreign adversaries, trade interventions and import restrictions. The hypothesis that media effects can contribute to trade policies based on tariffs or other forms of import restrictions is tested by an empirical examination of media coverage leading up to the U.S. decision to impose tariffs on imported steel in the spring 2002. The empirical study of news coverage in the New York Times suggests that to the extent that policy makers are concerned about real or perceived public opinion, they have incentives to adopt tariff-based or other import-restricting trade policies, rather than economically more efficient redistributive policies, wherever the conflict frame is prevalent and special interest groups have media access.

No description available.

The Ezemvelo Farmers’ Organisation (EFO) is a certified organic smallholder group in KwaZulu-Natal province (South Africa) that exists as an institution to improve smallholder access to niche markets by reducing unit production and transaction costs. The study is motivated by the need to understand drivers of collective action, prevalence of internal group free-riding, and the impact of contract terms on contract performance. These three theoretical concepts are pertinent in understanding organisational and institutional issues affecting the performance of smallholder organic farming groups and in formulating policies to promote the performance of such groups. The study relies on the theoretical foundations of collective action, free-riding and contracts found within the realm of New Institutional Economics (NIE). These theories, though separate, are in fact related in certain respects. Collective action in smallholder groups, apart from being a function of a plethora of socio-economic factors, including transaction costs, could be constrained by free-riding within the group, which in turn could be influenced by flawed contractual arrangements. This study of collective action focuses on 200 farmers drawn from a sample survey of 49 non-EFO members, and a census survey of 103 partially certified and 48 fully certified EFO members. A ‘collective action’ model investigates the impact of perceived benefits and savings on production and transaction costs attributed to collective action by drawing comparisons between EFO members and non-members using a multinomial logit model. The study of free-riding uses data from 151 members of the EFO to construct an index of free-riding within the group using principal components analysis (PCA). A ‘contract model’, which also focuses on EFO members only, attempts to measure the impact of verbal contract provisions on contract performance in addition to evaluating the determinants of preferred contract terms using a combination of PCA, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression, and logit models. Results indicate that continued participation in EFO is not influenced by the age or gender of the farmer, but positively influenced by growth in the net benefits of participation, and negatively by an increase in the size of the household’s cropland or on-farm earnings. With respect to production and transaction costs, the results suggest that EFO has reduced fully certified members’ concerns that crops would be damaged by livestock or constrained by inadequate technical information. However, this is not the case for other problems such as price uncertainty in conventional markets, a lack of affordable operating inputs, a lack of affordable transport, and a lack of communications infrastructure. The index of free-riding behaviour constructed using principal components analysis suggests that free-riding poses a serious threat to EFO’s collective marketing efforts. Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis of the index scores shows that members who are male, poorly educated, partially certified, aware of loopholes in the grading system, and who do not trust the buyer are more likely to free-ride. Benefits accruing to EFO members are limited and there is substantial confusion among members about the terms of EFO’s verbal contract with the pack house that purchases their organic produce. Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis of the impact that perceived contractual terms have on quantities delivered to the pack house yielded interesting findings. Perceptions that delivery calls are made by the buyer, that grading procedures are flawed and that prices are not jointly established were found to reduce quantities delivered to the pack house, after controlling for differences in farm and farmer characteristics. Logit models estimated to identify the determinants of preferred contract clauses indicate that farmers with higher levels of formal education and farm income, and lower levels of experience, favour a written contract over a verbal contract. Similarly, farmers with higher levels of formal education and lower levels of family farm labour favour a contract denominated by area rather than weight. It is concluded that EFO should recruit households that rely on farming for income and which are land constrained. EFO is more likely to survive if it continues to secure fully subsidised information, transport, fencing, and certification services for its members, and if it improves the benefits of participating by synchronising harvest and delivery dates, negotiating price discounts for organic inputs, and by maintaining an office with telephone, fax and postal services. In the longer-term, EFO should address institutionalised free-riding by issuing tradable ownership rights. In the short-term, EFO must engage with the pack house (buyer) to remove flaws in the grading process that conceal the origin of low quality produce. Transparent and mediated negotiations leading to an incentive compliant contract with the buyer may also help to build trust and reduce free-riding within EFO. It is also recommended that the terms of EFO’s contract with the pack house should be revised so that; (a) delivery calls can be made by either the pack house or by EFO during specified periods and with reasonable notice, and (b) grading procedures are fully transparent and ensure traceability so that losses caused by poor quality can be internalised to members who deliver inferior produce. In addition, it is important that prices be negotiated at the beginning of each season and that the contractual parties have recourse to pre-agreed facilitators and an arbitrator to resolve disputes on price and quality. A written contract is recommended to support these more complex terms, with the proviso that the contract is explained to current and prospective members, and that growers are fully informed of their rights and obligations. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka måluppfyllelsen av etableringsreformen, som trädde i kraft den 1 december 2010, samt aktören etableringslotsens funktion inom denna reform. Detta görs utifrån de uttalade målsättningarna i regeringens proposition 2009/10:60 Nyanlända invandrares arbetsmarknadsetablering – egenansvar med professionellt stöd. Därutöver belyses vilka hinder som finns för målens uppfyllelse. Studien baseras på rapporter och andra dokument från offentliga myndigheter, vilka bland annat kompletteras med egeninsamlad data. Primärdatan bygger på intervjuer som genomförts med fyra handläggare på Arbetsförmedlingen och fyra etableringslotsar som är verksamma i Linköping och Norrköping, samt en mailintervju med Arbetsförmedlingen på central nivå. Resultaten tolkas utifrån institutionell ekonomisk teori med fokus på teorier av Douglass North.Studien visar bland annat att likvärdigheten av etableringsinsatserna har ökat över landet och att arbetsmarknadsperspektivet är tydligare med Arbetsförmedlingen som huvudansvarig istället för kommunerna. Dock lider etableringsreformen av icke-individanpassade etableringsinsatser och en hög samordningsproblematik. Detta drabbar i slutänden de nyanlända som redan möter höga barriärer vid etablering i det svenska samhället. Även externa faktorer påverkar etableringsarbetet och de möjligheter som ges till de nyanlända. Framförallt är det bostadssituationen som påverkar olika ledtider och begränsar de nyanländas möjligheter till deltagande i etableringsinsatserna.De ekonomiska incitamenten för etableringslotsarna att fylla sin tilltänkta funktion är för låga och fokus från lotsarna läggs på socialt stöd istället för arbetsförberedande insatser för den nyanlände. Innovationer från positiv konkurrens har till stora delar uteblivit. Systemet innehåller även vissa brister som tillåter oseriösa eller opportunistiska etableringslotsar att verka, vilka sänker kvaliteten på etableringsarbetet och försämrar de nyanländas möjligheter till etablering på arbetsmarknaden. / The aim of the study is to assess the compliance between the goals and the results of the Establishment reform, which entered into force on December 1st 2010, and the role of the participant called the Introduction guide. This assessment is done on the basis of the goals in the proposition from the Swedish government 2009/10:60 Nyanlända invandrares arbetsmarknadsetablering – egenansvar med professionellt stöd. In addition the obstacles to achieving the goals are highlighted. The study is based on reports and other documents from public bodies that are supplemented by, amongst others, the primary data of the study. This primary data consists of interviews with four employees at the Public Employment Service and four Introduction guides in Linköping and Norrköping as well as of mail correspondence with the Public Employment Service at a central level. The results are interpreted using New Institutional Economic Theory, focusing on the theories by Douglass North.The study shows, among other things, that the differences between various establishment activities have diminished, and that there is a stronger labour market focus now that the Public Employment Service has taken over the responsibility from the municipalities. However, the Establishment reform does suffer from a lack of individually adapted establishment activities as well from a failure in collaboration and coordination. This ultimately afflicts the new arrivals, which are already facing high barriers while trying to become a part of the Swedish society. External factors also affect the establishment process and the possibilities for new arrivals. It is foremost the living situation that is affecting different lead times and limiting the immigrants possibilities to participate in establishment activities.The economic incentives for the Introduction guides to fill their intended function are too low and the guides are primarily providing social support for the new arrivals instead of labour market oriented activities. Innovations as a result of competition are largely absent. The system contains various flaws that allow for flippant or opportunistic Introduction guides, which in turn lowers the quality of the Establishment work and worsens the new arrivals’ chances of getting established on the labour market.

從熊彼得(1934)提出創新學說以來，創新理論業已有了相當大的進展。當代學者認為創新是藉由互動中所產生。創新不僅不再是閉門造車，組織與外在環境的關係也引起學者的興趣。國家創新系統取向即是此一當代創新學說的代表。然在審視國家創新系統取向的文獻後，可知雖然國家創新系統取向的研究將組織與組織間的互動及組織及制度間的互動視為研究的焦點，但眾家學者間對於何謂制度並無共識。制度有時是組織，有時是遊戲規則，有時兩者皆是。這也造成了學者間對話與研究上的困擾。事實上，制度與組織兩者在創新的過程中扮演著不同的角色。制度有時提供了組織在創新過程中的誘因，有時則阻滯了創新的發生。組織則扮演實際從事創新的執行者角色。在文獻上，這一方面的討論尚不多見，更僅止於推論之層次。因此，本研究乃意欲透過實際個案的觀察以形成更進一步的認識。本研究的目的為瞭解在創新的過程中，制度環境、組織、組織結構與文化間如何互動。本研究為一探索性的個案研究，並以工業技術研究院為本研究之個案組織。 研究發現在制度環境上，政治系統的各項制度相較於其他類型的制度對公共研發機構的運作提供了更多利於創新的功能。包含了「將資源導向創新活動」、「提供正(負)面誘因」及「管理衝突與合作」等功能之提供，其中以「將資源導向創新活動」之功能最顯著。而在創新的阻礙上，政治系統主要是經由經費的刪減及各項管制制度，文化系統則是透過認知制度阻礙了創新的腳步。而公共研發機構對制度環境的回應上有兩種方式，一是直接與制度環境對話，主要為「管理衝突與合作」、積極爭取「創新的資源」及尋求化解各種「創新的阻礙」。而「管理衝突與合作」及積極爭取「創新的資源」所形成各項制度可視為降低或消除各種「創新的阻礙」的作為；一是經由組織結構的設計及組織文化的形塑以滿足制度環境的要求。在制度的設計上，經由認知制度、管制制度、制定制度及聯合制度提供「提供資訊與降低不確定性」、「管理衝突與合作」、「提供正(負)面誘因」及「將資源導向創新活動」等功能，以促成組織創新的產出。雖然組織試圖經由組織結構的設計及組織文化的形塑以促成創新的產出或增加創新的產出，但執行創新活動的關鍵仍在於「人」。在本研究中，根據分析，工研院的員工較缺乏互動，且對於各項制度的認知往往會有不同的解讀。因此本研究認為個人層次中的文化系統的認知及行為制度是決定組織所形成的各項制度能否發揮作用的關鍵。

This thesis set out to explore the forces that determine the rise and fall of industrial leadership. It attempted to do this by applying an industry life cycle model to the shipping industry. The industrial life cycle was posited on the basis of existing literature, particularly the growth of knowledge, evolutionary and institutional literature, which lend themselves to patterns of industrial growth and entrapment. On this basis, this thesis set out to examine whether industrial leadership can be explained by a four-staged process of imitation, catch up, advance and entrapment. However, this thesis has exposed something more complicated. Processes of imitation, catch up advance and entrapment were shown to be at work in the shipping industry, but they were tempered by the effects of military and political forces that may not be exogenous, and the trend from regionalism to globalisation. The original model did not encompass early indigenous developments that are not based on imitation that do not immediately lead to a position of advanced leadership. In this light, a better description of the first stage would be capability building.