Cette thèse porte sur l’étude de la communication orale parmi des locuteurs de langues romanes différentes, dans une situation professionnelle plurilingue. En utilisant la méthodologie et les principes théoriques de l’analyse de la conversation, nous proposons l’analyse d’un corpus audiovisuel, que nous avons réalisé dans trois salons commerciaux internationaux, en France et en Italie. Le but principal de cette recherche est d’étudier une dimension encore peu explorée dans le domaine de l’intercompréhension romane, celle de l’interaction orale plurilingue en situation de communication spontanée. La thèse s’ouvre par un cadre théorique sur la didactique de l’intercompréhension et l’analyse de la conversation et une présentation des données, puis propose trois chapitres analytiques. Premièrement, nous décrivons les spécificités des interactions dans les salons commerciaux – un contexte professionnel qui n’avait pas encore été étudié en analyse de la conversation – en nous appuyant sur des single cases représentatifs des trois corpus. Ensuite, nous proposons une analyse systématique des pratiques explicites et implicites de négociation et renégociation de la langue attestées dans le corpus et du discours des participants sur leurs (in)compétences linguistiques. Enfin, nous nous concentrons sur certains microphénomènes interactionnels caractéristiques de la communication entre locuteurs romanophones : le recours ponctuel à la langue maternelle lors de la formulation de noms propres et de nombres ainsi que lors des recherches de mots ; un type d’hétéro-répétition que nous avons appelé “répétition plurilingue” ; certaines séquences métalinguistiques qui témoignent d’un intérêt des participants envers les langues de leurs interlocuteurs. En nous appuyant sur ces analyses, nous développons enfin une réflexion didactique, fondée sur la notion de compétence d’interaction plurilingue, qui vise à contribuer à l’avancement des études sur l’intercompréhension romane. / This thesis focuses on oral communication between speakers of different Romance languages in a plurilingual professional context. By relying on the methodology and theoretical principles of conversation analysis, I present the analysis of an audio-visual corpus, which I collected in three international trade fairs, in France and Italy. The main goal of this research is to study a dimension which remains relatively unexplored so far in the field of Romance intercomprehension: plurilingual oral interactions in situation of spontaneous communication.The thesis opens with a theoretical framework related to intercomprehension teaching and conversation analysis, and a data presentation, and then unfolds through three analytic chapters. In the first one, I describe the characteristics of interactions in trade fairs – a work context that had not yet been studied in conversation analysis – by relying on single cases from the three corpora. Then, I present a systematic analysis of negotiation and renegotiation explicit and implicit practices found in the data, and an examination of participants’ speech about their linguistic (in)competences. Finally, I focus on some interactional micro phenomena that are recurrent in Romance speakers’ communication: ad hoc use of mother tongue for the formulation of proper names and numbers, and for word searches; a type of other-repetition that I propose to call “plurilingual repetition”; metalinguistic sequences that show the participants’ interest towards the language of their interlocutor. Finally, by relying on these analyses, I develop a teaching-oriented reflexion, based on the notion of interactional competence, which aims to contribute to the progress of the research on Romance intercomprehension.

A presente dissertação possui o objetivo de tratar as características inerentes à prática do outsourcing pelas empresas. Nesse sentido, serão abordados os aspectos motivadores para a realização do acordo, as várias classificações do outsourcing de acordo com seu escopo, bem como possíveis consequências sob a perspectiva jurídica e comercial. O outsourcing refere-se à transferência da responsabilidade de execução de determinadas atividades pertencentes a determinado departamento de uma empresa ou, até mesmo, de subsidiária, para a outra. A referida prática possui ligação com o processo de desverticalização promovido pelas grandes empresas a partir da segunda metade do século XIX, como forma de atender às variações do mercado e promover inovação e flexibilidade na gestão de seus procedimentos internos, recursos humanos e ativos. Além disso, objetiva-se com a prática, a redução de custos associados à execução das tarefas pertinentes ao seu escopo, o aumento da eficiência e a maior disponibilidade de recursos dedicados à atividade-fim desempenhada pela empresa no mercado. Para isso, a realização do outsourcing internacional o offshore, também merece destaque, quando a prestação dos serviços é realizada a partir de outro país. Cumpre observar a necessidade de análise do outsourcing inserido em redes contratuais de cadeias produtivas, sua adaptação ao modelo relacional e aspectos éticos e sociais relacionados. / The purpose of this study is to provide the appropriate treatment of the main characteristics involved in the outsourcing practice. In this sense, the motivating aspects indicated by the parties of the contract, the outsourcing definitions and possible consequences from commercial and legal perspectives will be addressed. It is understood that outsourcing refers to the transfer of responsibility for implementing certain activities pertaining to a division of a company or even a subsidiary to another. Such practice is related to the restructuration process that has been promoted by large companies from the second half of the nineteenth century in order to be adapted to the market fluctuations, and also transform their internal procedures, human resources issues, assets and innovation matters more flexible. Moreover, the usual objectives of such practice are the reduction of costs associated with the implementation of relevant activities to the scope, the efficiency increase and also the promotion of a higher availability of dedicated resources to the core business performed by the company in the market. Taking it into consideration, the execution of international outsourcing - the offshore is also noted and verified when the services provision is realized from another country. It should be observed the need for analysis of the outsourcing agreement inserted into supply chains networks, its adaptation to the relational model and its ethical and social issues related.

[pt] O comércio internacional é uma atividade imprescindível que impacta diretamente a balança comercial e, por extensão, a capacidade de crescimento dos países. O comércio exterior brasileiro não foge à regra e precisa de todas as inovações e implementações possíveis de forma a contribuir para aumentar a competitividade do Brasil no mundo globalizado e inseri-lo definitivamente no cenário econômico internacional. Os Portos Secos - antigos Eadis - são uma ferramenta logística inserida neste contexto podendo desempenhar um papel vital no comércio exterior. São uma opção para o gargalo em portos e aeroportos, para a armazenagem entrepostada para importadores e exportadores, além de uma saída de industrialização alfandegada para pequenas e médias empresas. A utilização de portos secos é uma realidade em países que hoje estão na ponta do comércio internacional. Nesta dissertação serão apresentados o que são os portos secos do Brasil, as legislações que os regem, vantagens na sua utilização, evolução dos serviços oferecidos na conjuntura atual e os principais problemas enfrentados e que impactam na sua atuação mais efetiva como hub service. A partir da síntese das informações obtidas, avaliamos como estão estruturados os portos secos no Brasil, seu nível de profissionalização e tecnologias empregadas. / [en] The international trade is directly connected with the trade balance as well the capacity of commercial growth for each country. The same consideration is quite valid for Brazilian foreign trade that needs all of the innovations and new implementations in order to raise its competitiveness and, definitively, to insert Brazil into the economics international context. Known as Eadis in the past, the dry ports are a valid logistics alternative in the foreign trade context. Also, they are able to act as a smart key for Importers and Exporters. They are an option for some Brazilian logistics problems such as the follows: cleaning the bottleneck in the operation of ports and airports because they function as a customs warehousing; and, the option for smaller and medium size companies to use them as an industrial environment for custom production activities. Around the world, the dry ports have been used by countries operating at a top level in the international trade market. This dissertation will give information about the Brazilian dry ports, the laws involved in their functioning, the advantages of their utilization, the evolution of their services and the main problems impacting their performance as a hub service. In connection with all the information collected, an analysis is presented covering the structure of the dry ports, their professional level and the technologies applied.

This thesis consists of three independent papers, ordered chronologically with respect to when they were initiated. Empirical research has established that there are large and persistent productivity differences among firms in narrowly defined industries (Bartelsman and Doms, 2000). Other studies, in particular Bernard and Jensen (1999), have shown the existence of a causal link running from ex-ante firm productivity to export decisions. Furthermore, exposure to trade has been found to enhance growth opportunities only for some firms, reallocating market shares and resources toward the more productive ones and contributing thus to aggregate productivity growth (Clerides, Lach and Tybout, 1998; Bernard and Jensen, 2004). These findings have led to the development of new theoretical models emphasizing the interaction between firm heterogeneity and fixed market entry costs in generating international trade and inducing aggregate productivity growth. The first and third chapters of this thesis extend the framework developed by Melitz (2003) to analyze the implications of  firm heterogeneity for old and new issues in international trade. The first paper studies the effect of trade liberalization between countries that differ in their relative endowment of skilled workers when growth-promoting R&D activities are skill intensive with respect to goods production. In particular, the analysis focuses on the changes that falling trade costs induce on consumer welfare and on the number of firms active in the different markets. The third paper uses the heterogeneous firm framework to study the interaction between financial constraints and the market entry behavior of firms. It also analyzes whether the impact of trade liberalization on average firm productivity and on individual welfare is affected by the presence of credit frictions. The second chapter presents an empirical work that contributes to the recent but fast growing literature that studies how different institutions and their level of development affect countries comparative advantage. The analysis presented in this paper focuses on the role of legal and financial institution in driving the specialization in contract-intensive goods and on how the degree of institutional development interacts with the propensity of firms to vertical integrate with their suppliers. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan i Stockholm, 2011

University of Macau / Faculty of Business Administration / Department of Finance and Business Economics

This thesis deals with two theories of international trade: the theory of comparative advantage, which is connected to the name David Ricardo and is dominating current trade theory, and Adam Smith’s theory of absolute advantage. Both theories are compared and their assumptions are scrutinised. The former theory is rejected on theoretical and empirical grounds in favour of the latter. On the basis of the theory of absolute advantage, developments of free international trade are examined, whereby the focus is on trade between industrial and underdeveloped countries. The main conclusions are that trade patterns are determined by absolute production cost advantages and that the gap between developed and poor countries is not reduced but rather increased by free trade. / Die vorliegende Publikation vergleicht die zwei zentralen Theorien des internationalen Freihandels: die Theorie der absoluten Kostenvorteile und die Theorie der komparativen Kostenvorteile. Dieser Vergleich führt zu dem Schluss, dass die Theorie der komparativen Kostenvorteile im Gegensatz zu der Theorie der absoluten Kostenvorteile auf unrealistischen und problematischen Annahmen beruht. Im Anschluss werden auf Grundlage der Theorie der absoluten Kostenvorteile zentrale Tendenzen in der Entwicklung des internationalen Handels herausgearbeitet. Im Mittelpunkt steht hierbei die Auswirkung von Freihandel auf entwickelte und unterentwickelte Länder. Die zentralen Schlussfolgerungen dieser Arbeit sind erstens, dass die Richtung des internationalen Handels nicht durch komparative Kostenvorteile, sondern durch absolute Kostenvorteile bestimmt wird und zweitens, dass Freihandel zwar vorteilhaft für unterentwickelte Länder sein kann, aber dass durch Freihandel die Unterschiede zwischen Industrieländern und Entwicklungsländern nicht verkleinert, sondern vergrößert werden.

La présente thèse étudie l'importance des coûts non-traditionnels liés à l'échange en mettant l'accent sur les institutions nationales et sur les réseaux transfrontaliers sociaux et d'affaires. Au-delà de la nécessité d'identifier les coûts non-traditionnels, la question se pose également de les quantifier afin de pouvoir estimer la création de commerce associée à leur réduction et de formuler des recommandations précises en termes de politique économique. Les institutions et les réseaux augmentent la sécurité et assurent l'application des clauses contractuelles dans les transactions internationales, fournissent des contacts et des informations sur les partenaires potentiels étrangers, fait qui implique des coûts liés à l'échange inférieurs et moins d'incertitude dans les échanges internationaux. On montre que les potentiels de commerce sont généralement sous-estimés dans la littérature : l'intégration économique régionale peut créer beaucoup plus de commerce que l'on estime traditionnellement, et même quand la réduction totale des barrières aux échanges est achevée. L'amélioration et l'harmonisation des cadres institutionnels peuvent générer autant de commerce international que la libéralisation commerciale. Les réseaux sociaux favorisent l'échange par l'intermédiaire de liens ethniques, linguistiques etc. communs, mais aussi du à l'information et aux préférences acquises par la consommation des biens culturels d'origine étrangère. Les réseaux d'affaires sont illustrés par des associations de migrants et ont un effet positif sur le commerce plus fort que celui des réseaux sociaux.

The gravity equation is probably the most important tool in international economics to explain and estimate trade flows. However, since the gravity equation is important for political decisions, it is very important to achieve reliable results from its empirical application. Thus, it is necessary to employ the gravity equation using a theoretically and empirically proper methodology. One important discussion addresses the implausibly high measures for the impact of trade cost proxies on exports that frequently appear, especially in older works. This problem became known as the "border puzzle" (Obstfeld and Rogoff, 2001). The aim of the study is to contribute to the discussion about the suitability of the gravity equation's empirical applications. The basic idea is that trade costs between two countries could additionally depend on the exports between these two countries and not only on the (more or less) exogenous proxy variables for trade costs, as they are normally used. In this study, a new theory of endogenous trade costs is provided which shows that iceberg trade costs are likely to depend on exports. An interaction between exports and trade costs (or the gravity function and a trade cost function) leads to a simultaneity problem. Moreover, this theory can be confirmed after estimating the gravity equation with an alternative econometric strategy: A simultaneous equation system using a theory-based index to compensate for the directly immeasurable trade. A further target of the study is in its use of the comprehensive trade cost index to compute "multilateral resistances" of countries to trade, introduced in the trend-setting work by Anderson and van Wincoop (2003). These multilateral resistances are necessary to retrieve unbiased results from empirical gravity equations. A methodology was developed to make the heretofore unknown index of multilateral resistances visible. The result of the simultaneity approach and the use of constructed data for bilateral and multilateral trade costs is that the estimated direct effects of variables influencing exports decrease. The proposed methodologies of this study could help to achieve more plausible and reliable results from the gravity equation as the "workhorse for empirical studies" (Eichengreen and Irwin, 1998) of international trade.

This thesis consists of a summary and four self-contained papers. Paper [I] Following the 1987 report by The World Commission on Environment and Development, the genuine saving has come to play a key role in the context of sustainable development, and the World Bank regularly publishes numbers for genuine saving on a national basis. However, these numbers are typically calculated as if the tax system is non-distortionary. This paper presents an analogue to genuine saving in a second best economy, where the government raises revenue by means of distortionary taxation. We show how the social cost of public debt, which depends on the marginal excess burden, ought to be reflected in the genuine saving. We also illustrate by presenting calculations for Greece, Japan, Portugal, U.K., U.S. and OECD average, showing that the numbers published by the World Bank are likely to be biased and may even give incorrect information as to whether the economy is locally sustainable. Paper [II] This paper examines the relationships among per capita CO2 emissions, per capita GDP and international trade based on panel data spanning the period 1960-2008 for 150 countries. A distinction is also made between OECD and Non-OECD countries to capture the differences of this relationship between developed and developing economies. We apply panel unit root and cointegration tests, and estimate a panel error correction model. The results from the error correction model suggest that there are long-term relationships between the variables for the whole sample and for Non-OECD countries. Finally, Granger causality tests show that there is bi-directional short-term causality between per capita GDP and international trade for the whole sample and between per capita GDP and CO2 emissions for OECD countries. Paper [III] Fundamental questions in economics are why some regions are richer than others, why their growth rates differ, whether their growth rates tend to converge, and what key factors contribute to explain economic growth. This paper deals with the average income growth, net migration, and changes in unemployment rates at the municipal level in Sweden. The aim is to explore in depth the effects of possible underlying determinants with a particular focus on local policy variables. The analysis is based on a three-equation model. Our results show, among other things, that increases in the local public expenditure and income taxe rate have negative effects on subsequent income income growth. In addition, the results show conditional convergence, i.e. that the average income among the municipal residents tends to grow more rapidly in relatively poor local jurisdictions than in initially “richer” jurisdictions, conditional on the other explanatory variables. Paper [IV] This paper explores the relationship between income growth and income inequality using data at the municipal level in Sweden for the period 1992-2007. We estimate a fixed effects panel data growth model, where the within-municipality income inequality is one of the explanatory variables. Different inequality measures (Gini coefficient, top income shares, and measures of inequality in the lower and upper part of the income distribution) are examined. We find a positive and significant relationship between income growth and income inequality measured as the Gini coefficient and top income shares, respectively. In addition, while inequality in the upper part of the income distribution is positively associated with the income growth rate, inequality in the lower part of the income distribution seems to be negatively related to the income growth. Our findings also suggest that increased income inequality enhances growth more in municipalities with a high level of average income than in municipalities with a low level of average income.

This dissertation consists of three essays pertaining to the causes of the levels and composition of the international trade flows of nations, and the consequential implications for the levels of per capita income and welfare of their populations. The first of these documents a pattern of comparative advantage in product level, bilateral trade data that conventional quantitative trade models have difficulty explaining. It goes on to develop a theory of product level productivity differences based on endogenous differences in the allocation of research and development into product and process innovation across countries over time, and it shows that, when fitted to cross-country manufacturing wage data, the predicted product level technology distribution is consistent with the observed trade pattern. The second essay shows that the distribution of technology levels inferred in the first essay can help explain the inability of both ad-hoc and theoretically based gravity models of trade to account for the observed positive correlation between the percentage of manufacturing output that is traded and countries' per capita income. It derives a modified gravity equation based on a Ricardian model of trade with deterministic product level technology differences across countries. It then uses estimates from a product level gravity estimation to compute the component of this equation that differs from a conventional gravity equation in order to determine the extent to which the observed concentration of comparative advantage in a common set of products for low-income countries explains the small percentage of their output that is exported. The final essay shows that a simple model of firm profit maximization in the presence of sunk costs of entering the export market is broadly consistent with the observed persistence of exporting behavior in firm level data. It uses this simple model and moments from data on US manufacturing firms to estimate the value of the sunk export entry costs faced by these firms using an indirect inference strategy. These costs are shown to be substantial relative the revenue stream of a typical firm. / text