Companies can use working capital management as an approach to influence their profitability. This paper studies the impact of working capital management and its components upon the profitability of European companies. Cash Conversion Cycle is used as a comprehensive measure for working capital...

Setting targets to increase the levels of R&D, a component that is present in the political and economic agendas of the European Member States with the promotion of active tax policies, suggests that it is possible for R&D to cause an impact on economic growth. This research work aims at...

Regarding states and state-like entities as producers and taxation as a price, this paper connects the thoroughly studied impacts of the market structures in microeconomics to the controversial Laffer curve, suggesting that the outcome of the “taxation market” depends also on competition. By...

The purpose of this working paper is to identify the main factors that are at the origin of the Shadow Economy in Portugal, and to analyze its evolution over the period between 1977 and 2011. For the econometric analysis we used the Structural Model of Multiple Indicators and Multiple Causes -...

In this paper we study the performance reaction of investors in a small market context. Instead of the asymmetrical investors’ reaction to winners and losers, as usually documented for the US, an absence of risk-adjusted performance reaction was observed. The absence of reaction can be...

Based on a comprehensive theoretical model we investigate the determinants of government spending. Besides GDP, commonly associated with either Walra´s law or Keynesian macro stabilization policies, we consider some variables identified with the public choice approach, namely median voters,...

This paper contributes to the scarce empirical literature on the impact of foreign ownership on human capital intensity. New evidence is provided, based on a comprehensive, large-scale survey of technology-based firms located in Portugal. Using two alternatives measures of human capital (one...

The model that we develop here considers that an upstream firm sells a vital input to downstream firms. There are vertical spillovers and two different regulatory policies of the input price: cost oriented regulation and no-regulation. We also admit two alternative market structures: vertical...

This paper deals with the relationship between innovation and economic growth in the context of developed world. After examining the correlation between economic growth and R&D (research and development) intensity, and given that the impact of R&D on economic growth is mediated by the rate of...

With the Directive 2004/109/EC, of December 15, 2004 – Transparency Directive –, the European Union decided not to require listed companies to disclose financial information in the first and third quarters of each year. Each EU country now has to decide whether to oblige its companies to...