This paper examines the negotiations which led to the Brussels Convention of 1902 for the abolition of subsidies on sugar exports, showing how the practice of multilateral commodity trade negotiations was an outcome of this experience. Encompassing diverse fiscal systems, these negotiations...

Three nominal exchange rate series are presented, for the mil-reis and the dollar in relation to sterling, and for the mil-reis in relation to the dollar. For each of these, two series are constructed: current rates and long-term rates, representing the secular tendency of these exchange rates....

This paper discusses quantitative information as a historiographic instrument: its individual characteristics and those it shows in sets of data, its capacity to describe historical phenomena and the uses historian give to them. It specially examines the sense and limits of quantitative...

The subsidies and protection structure of the sugar sectors in the European Union originated from the individual national protection systems, unified with the creation of the Common Agricultural Policy. The COM for Sugars is based on an intervention price quite higher than international prices....

During the six decades which encompass state planning of the sugar and alcohol industry in Brazil, production quotas were possibly the most important instrument for control of its productive activities. Their distribution obeyed rules, which, though general, contained a clear political...

Demographic statistics were few and unreliable for Brazil and specially for Pernambuco during the XIXth century. This paper discusses some pre- 1872 census statistics, including the creation of public cemeteries, which concentrated information on mortality. Text in Portuguese.

In explaining economic phenomena, economic analysis concentrates on selected influences and fixes the host of other factors under a ceteris paribus clause. This view, which goes back to Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), is developed in the first part of the book. Aggregation is viewed as a particular...

Life annuities provide a guaranteed income for the remainder of the recipient’s lifetime, and therefore, annuitization presents an important option when choosing an adequate investment strategy for the retirement ages. While there are numerous research articles studying annuities from a...

Even 50 years after Modigliani/Miller’s irrelevance theorem, the basic question of how firms choose their capital structure remains unclear. This survey paper aims at summarizing and discussing corresponding recent developments in empirical capital structure research, which, in our view, are...

There has been a wide-spread misconception based on the imprecise wording of Art. 52 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) that the protection of business methods by patents is prohibited in Europe. This paper investigates the legal framework set by patent laws with respect to the...