Academic literature on the topic 'Credit – Portugal'

The article examines how far the key Bologna objective of student mobility has been achieved in Portuguese higher education institutions and the main factors shaping it. It analyzes credit mobility, outgoing and incoming, between Portugal and Europe. Although mobility overall has risen, incoming mobility has grown faster, making Portugal an importer country. Portugal’s attraction power is explained mainly by its location, climate, and leisure opportunities. For outgoing mobility, employability is the main driver, explained by high unemployment and an uncertain home labor market. The main obstacle is financial, so country choice is increasingly based on proximity and living costs. Another important constraint is curricular inflexibility of Portuguese higher education institutions. The findings suggest that mobility in Portugal is far from reflecting Bologna’s policy goals, making the 2020 mobility target of 20% an ideal rather than an achievement.

The literature recognizes that credit cooperatives are the “appropriate technology” for relatively backward economies, but should fade away or disappear altogether as economic development proceeds. However, surprisingly, they are among the fastest growing groups of financial institutions in some advanced economies. Though the credit cooperatives in Portugal and Spain present relatively small market shares, they perform a very important role in the rural economy. Over the last decades, the Iberian credit cooperatives have adopted a process of economic and financial restructuring, through an intensive wave of mergers and the creation of banking networks: Caja Rural Group, in Spain, and Crédito Agrícola Group, in Portugal. Despite that common path, the Iberian reality is still very different. In this paper we describe the historical roots of Portuguese and Spanish cooperative credit, focusing our analysis on the governance structure, especially on the issues arising from the strict application of traditional cooperative rules.

In this study, we assess the main determinants of banks' profitability in Portugal over the period 2015–2018. We divide the factors that can influence bank profitability into several groups: management quality, credit quality, capital adequacy, liquidity (internal bank factors), and GDP growth (an external factor). The panel dataset is composed of annual report data for the 18 major banks operating in Portugal, representing about 98% of the Portuguese banking product. Profitability has been a persistent challenge for banks since the global financial crisis. Moreover, the Portuguese banking system had been facing several structural problems, which makes this topic particularly relevant. The profitability proxy used is the return on equity (ROE). The empirical strategy followed was pooled OLS. Variables relevant for explaining Portuguese banks' profitability are capital adequacy, liquidity and credit risk. As expected, the results show that capital adequacy (TIER 1) and credit quality (CVCT) have a negative and significant impact on banks' profitability, whereas liquidity (RAL) has a positive impact.

Purpose The Great Leveraging was an episode of rapid credit growth and booming housing markets leading up to the global financial crisis. It is important to identify the key drivers of the Great Leveraging and, to this end, the purpose of this paper is to model the relationship between domestic credit and net foreign liabilities in the EU countries most affected by the crisis. Design/methodology/approach The analyses show that domestic credit and net foreign liabilities were cointegrated one-to-one for Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, while there was no cointegration for Ireland. Estimation of vector error correction models (VECMs) shows that the adjustment to deviations from the cointegrating relationship took place through changes in domestic credit for Greece and Italy, while the adjustment was bidirectional for Spain and maybe also for Portugal. Findings These results suggest that external factors in the form of foreign capital inflows were important drivers of the pre-crisis leveraging in the southern crisis countries, although to varying degrees across the countries. Originality/value Key novelties include the use of stock variables instead of flow variables and the estimation of VECMs for the countries individually instead of in a panel.

Credit-scoring becomes increasingly important in poor economies and recessions. Decreasing liquidity due to reduced access to both money and debt markets has induced banks to impose restrictions on offering credit, including credit for mortgage loans. In this paper we analyze the internal rating system used by one of the top-five banks in Portugal, and propose a methodological framework which, based on an application of the Delphi technique, allows adjusting trade-offs among evaluation criteria and provides decision makers with a fairer, more accurate and transparent mortgage risk evaluation system.

This study aims to examine the compulsory courses related to the game and game teaching in special education teacher training undergraduate programme in terms of number, term, credit and content. The data in descriptive study have been determined using document analysis technique. It has been stated that pre-service teachers in most of the EU countries such as Belgium, Finland, Hungary, Luxemburg, Malta, Portugal, etc. take the courses related to game teaching in the first, second and third years of their education, and the courses with the lowest credit are included in Greece’s and Holland’s special education teacher training programmes with four ECTS and the highest credits are included in Malta’s special education teacher training programme with 20 ECTS. In Turkey, special education teacher training programme which is updated in 2018 includes two ECTS of ‘Game and Music in Special Education’ course in the sixth term. Keywords: Special education, teacher training programme, game, game teaching.

Mortgage loans for home purchase require careful analysis by all parties involved in the transaction, and credit-scoring is usually adopted to assist the decision process. From a credit institution standpoint, credit-scoring for mortgage loan risk evaluation becomes even more important in scenarios of economic turbulence and recession, primarily because of the severe restrictions imposed on credit availability that result from reduced access to both money and debt markets and subsequent decreasing liquidity. Employing an AHP – Analytic Hierarchy Process – based approach in the creditscoring system used by one of the major banks in Portugal, this study proposes a methodological framework conceived to adjust trade-offs among evaluation criteria and provide decision makers with a more transparent mortgage risk evaluation system. Practical implications of our framework are also discussed.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the relationship between capital structure and firm performance in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is moderated by credit risk. Design/methodology/approach The authors empirically test whether an SME’s credit risk affects the SME’s relationship between capital structure and firm performance by using a 2012 cross-sectional sample of European SMEs from Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK. Findings The empirical results suggest that in low credit risk SMEs, the debt ratio is negatively related to firm performance; however, this relationship is not present in high credit risk SMEs. Therefore, it is indicated that SME credit risk moderates the relationship between capital structure and firm performance. Practical implications The findings of the paper will enable financial managers to understand the importance of SMEs’ credit risk and will assist them in maximizing firms’ performance. Originality/value This paper extends the findings of previous studies by examining whether credit risk affects the relationship between capital structure and firm performance.

Abstract This article aims to provide a comprehensive review of the empirical literature on irrigation water tariffs in several countries, particularly in Mediterranean European countries, and to offer insights into the Portuguese status quo. We analyze a wide variety of tariffs, and the largest differences among them are discussed. In various countries, in those regions with a higher demand for water, irrigation water tariffs are more complex and higher, varying from country to country and, within the same country, from region to region. Large differences in irrigation water tariffs among different water-use associations were found, mostly because each one has its own objectives. A SWOT analysis was performed for Portuguese irrigation water tariffs. It concludes that there is much to do to enact the proposed strategies, including recovering operation and maintenance costs and promoting the efficient use of water and efficient water allocation. Furthermore, the farmers' position in the value chain must be improved along with their ease of access to credit, thus increasing the added value of the produced goods.

Mestrado em Economia
Esta dissertação estuda os principais efeitos do sistema de crédito garantido (PME Investe) adotado em Portugal para as micro, pequenas e médias empresas (PMEs). O presente estudo baseia-se em três bases de dados, com informação individual para todas as empresas e bancos em Portugal, avaliado o impacto do programa sobre o mercado de crédito e a performance económica das empresas participantes. Ao combinar uma abordagem de "matching" com o estimador diferença em diferenças, os resultados demonstram que o programa ajudou as empresas participantes a melhorar o acesso ao mercado de crédito, a aumentar o volume agregado de crédito disponível, a proporção de crédito de longo prazo e a reduzir as despesas com juros. Adicionalmente, existe também evidência estatística de efeitos económicos de segunda ordem, como a criação de emprego e aumento do volume de exportações. O sistema adotado teve também efeitos positivos sobre o sistema bancário em Portugal ao reduzir a sua exposição ao risco, permitindo a melhoria dos seus rácios de capital definidos pelo Acordo de Basileia. No entanto, os resultados demonstram que ainda existe espaço para a melhoria das características intrínsecas ao sistema de crédito garantido em Portugal, em particular para as linhas de crédito direcionadas às empresas exportadoras ou de média dimensão.
This dissertation examines the main effects of the credit guarantee scheme (CGS) for Portuguese micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) initially adopted in 2009. The study relies on three large-scale data sources, with individual information for all Portuguese non-financial corporations and banks, to assess the impact over credit additionality and the ex-post performance of participating firms. By applying a difference-in-difference matching approach, the results have shown that the program helped participants to improve their access to the credit market, increasing the overall amount of loans granted, the proportion of long-term debt and reducing their interest expenses and the probability of default. Moreover, there is also statistical evidence of economic spillovers, such as employment growth and exports volume. The scheme also helped the Portuguese banking system to reduce their risk exposures, improving their capital ratios under the Basel Accord. Nevertheless, the results show that there is room for improvement in the scheme design and features, in particular for credit lines targeting medium-sized or exporters firms.
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Mestrado em Finanças
A crise do subprime foi considerada, por muitos economistas, a contracção económica e financeira mais longa e profunda da economia mundial desde a década de 1930. Após um período de políticas de crédito mais liberais e generosas, em que os bancos não avaliavam correctamente o valor das garantias e a capacidade de reembolso dos credores, actualmente presencia-se um comportamento mais prudente destas instituições financeiras, impondo mais condicionantes e requisitos para conceder crédito à economia. O presente trabalho pretende clarificar a questão de como as empresas portuguesas adequam a sua estrutura de capital nos períodos de racionamento de crédito bancário. A análise foi efectuada com dados em termos agregados e para as empresas do mercado de capitais português, de modo a comparar a evolução da estrutura de financiamento das empresas portuguesas, e perceber se a restrição de crédito bancário teve como efeitos a substituição dos empréstimos por outras fontes de financiamento, ou por outro lado, a desaceleração da actividade económica das empresas. Os resultados permitem concluir que são as PMEs, as empresas de construção e as empresas sediadas em Lisboa que, em média, obtêm mais empréstimos bancários. Quando estes estão limitados, a fonte de financiamento alternativa é, regra geral, os outros débitos e créditos comerciais. Por sua vez, a resposta das empresas do PSI-20 foi a substituição deste, essencialmente, por instrumentos financeiros de curto prazo, mas nalguns casos, tal não foi suficiente e o crescimento dessas empresas diminuiu.
The subprime crisis was considered by many economists the longest and deeper economic and financial contraction of the world economy since the 1930s. After a period of more liberal and generous credit policies, which banks did not evaluate correctly the value of collateral and the ability to repay of lenders, currently presence a more prudent behaviour of these financial institutions, imposing more constraints and requirements to grant credit to the economy. This work aims to clarify the question of how Portuguese firms fit their capital structure in periods of rationing of bank credit. The analysis was made with data in aggregate terms and for companies in the Portuguese capital market, in order to compare the financing structure evolution of Portuguese firms and understand if the restriction of bank credit had as effects, the substitution of loans by other sources of financing or on the other hand, the deceleration of economic activity of enterprises. The results allow to conclude that are the SMEs, the construction companies and the firms located in Lisbon that, on average, get more bank loans. When these are limited, the alternative source of financing is generally the other trade debts and credits. In turn, the response of the companies of PSI-20 was the replacement of this, mainly by short-term financial instruments, but in some cases, this was not enough and the growth of theses companies declined.

Mestrado em Finanças
Este estudo empírico pretende contrinuir para a explicação dos determinantes do refinanciamento da dívida pelos agregados familiares. Apesar da importância atual do refinanciamento, existe um gap de literatura teórica e empírica sobre o mesmo. Este estudo empírico, baseado numa base de dados única proveniente de um gabinete de aconsellhamento de crédito, contribui para prencher esta lacuna, uma vez que descreve as características das famílias que utilizaram os serviços de aconselhamento de crédito e que decidiram recorrer ou não à renegociação da dívida. Além disso, esta pesquisa demonstra uma síntese do enquadramento legal em que o refinanciamento tem sido formalizado em Portugal. Adoptou-se o modelo binário, cuja variavel dependente é a procura do refinanciamento (ou não) da dívida e foram testados vários fatores explicativos: economico-financeiros, socio demograficos e comportamentais. Os resultados sugerem que o rendimento e a riqueza, a educação, a dimensão do agregado familiar e ser mulher influenciam positivamente o recurso à renegociação. Por outro lado, os fatores com influência negativa na probabilidade de renegociação são a capacidade de pagamento, ser divorciado e a idade do representante do agregado familiar.
This research aims to contribute for the explanation of the determinants of the renegotiation of the debt by the households. Contrasting with the actual importance of the debt renegotiation by the households, there is a gap in the theoretical and empirical literature about the issue. This study, based on a unique microdata data set from a Portuguese credit counseling office, contributes to fill that gap because describes the characteristics and analysis the behavior of a set of households that use the credit counselling and decide or not to renegotiate their debt. Moreover, this research also presents a synthesis of the legal framework under which the refinancing is done in Portugal. Adopting a binary model where the dependent variable is renegotiating (or not) the debt, different kind of explanatory factors were tested: economic and financial, socio-demographic and behavioral. The results suggest factors that have a positive contribution to the negotiation: income and wealth, education, family size and being female. By contrary, some other factors are more likely to decrease the probability of renegotiate: ability to pay, being divorced and age of household representative.
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Mestrado em Finanças
O presente trabalho de investigação visa analisar a tipologia dos indivíduos que em Portugal possuem cartão de crédito (posse) e o utilizam, atendendo à forma como liquidam o saldo do cartão de crédito no final do período ou como o usam pagando parte do saldo existente (uso). Estuda ainda as causas dos comportamentos dos indivíduos e famílias em relação à posse e uso do cartão de crédito. Existe uma teoria designada por credit card puzzle que é essencial ao debate teórico em torno dos cartões de crédito. Por falta de informação para pesquisa exata se existe ou não um puzzle em Portugal, procuro verificar se existe uma associação entre ter cartão de crédito com saldo negativo e diversas características da família como por exemplo: o escalão de rendimento disponível, a idade, a necessidade de pedir empréstimos, o indicador de pobreza, entre outras. A conclusão a que se chega é que há fortes indícios da existência de um credit card puzzle em Portugal. A pesquisa empírica sobre os fatores que determinam a posse e uso do cartão de crédito é baseada no Module Ad-Hoc “On Over-Indebtedness And Financial Exclusion-2008” (EU-SILC) para Portugal e EU, guiada por 10 hipóteses explicativas baseadas na literatura consultada. Os resultados obtidos são de que existe uma relação positiva entre o rendimento do agregado e a posse e uso do cartão de crédito; o número de pessoas no agregado familiar influencia a posse e o uso do cartão de crédito; conforme aumenta o grau de educação, aumenta também a posse do cartão de crédito, no entanto, o uso com saldo negativo, diminui; o género influencia a posse e uso do cartão de crédito, uma vez que é o sexo masculino o maior detentor da posse mas é o feminino o maior detentor do uso com saldo negativo; a nível da situação de atividade, são os empregados a possuírem mais o cartão de crédito e os desempregados a usarem-no mais; no estado civil são os casados que mais possuem e os solteiros os que mais usam com saldo negativo; em relação à idade, quem tem entre 26 e 35 anos possui mais, mas quem tem entre 19 e 25 usa com saldo negativo mais. Duas hipóteses testadas que são em geral omissas na literatura sobre os cartões de crédito tiveram resultados relevantes. Quem pede ajuda a familiares e amigos e possui cartão de crédito 333333usa-o menos do que quem não pode contar com essa ajuda; os que vivem acima do limiar da pobreza possuem com maior frequência cartão e utilizam-no com saldo negativo menos do que quem vive abaixo do limiar da pobreza. A investigação contribui para identificar quem são os utilizadores dos cartões de crédito, de que forma o usam em função das suas necessidades de crédito, de que forma contribui o uso com saldo negativo para o endividamento. São ainda efetuadas comparações internacionais quer em relação ao perfil do detentor de cartão de crédito quer em relação à explicação dos comportamentos.
This research aims to analyze how the Portuguese hold credit cards (owner) and use them taking in account the way they liquidate the credit card balance at the end of the period, or how do they use the debit balance paying just part of the existing balance (use). This research also investigates causes to individuals’ and families’ behavior regarding the possession and use of the credit cards. An existent theory called “credit card puzzle” is essential to the theoretical debate around the credit cards subject. Due to lack of information for exact research whether or not there is a puzzle in Portugal, I try to check if there is association between having credit card balance and various family characteristics such as: the level of disposable income, household size and the need for loans, the poverty indicator, among others. I reached the conclusion that there is strong evidence of the existence of a Credit Card Puzzle in Portugal. The empirical research on the factors that determine the possession and use of the credit card is based on the Ad-Hoc Module "On Over-Indebtedness and Financial Exclusion-2008" (EU-SILC) for Portugal and EU countries and guided by 10 explanatory hypotheses based on the literature consulted. The results point to a positive relationship between household income and the ownership and use of the credit card; the household size influences the ownership and the use of the credit card; as the level of education increases, so increases the ownership of the credit card, however, the use with negative balance, decreases; the gender influences the possession and credit card use, since it is the male gender that holds most credit cards but is the female gender the biggest holder of the use negative balance; considering employment status, employees is the group which holds more credit card and the unemployed group is the group that use more unbalanced; on marital status, married men hold more credit cards and singles use more unbalanced; considering age, those who are between 26 and 35 years old hold more credit cards, but those who are between 19 and 25 years old hold more unbalance. Generally omitted in the literature on credit cards, the two hypotheses tested have relevant results. Those who eventually can trust on family financial help and or friends financial help and have credit cards use less than those who cannot rely on such aid; those who live above the poverty line hold more frequently credit cards and use it with negative balance less than people who live below the poverty line, however, still 16% of households living below the poverty line own credit cards. This research helps to identify who are the users of credit cards, how they use them on the basis of their credit needs, and how carrying a negative balance contributes to indebtedness. International comparisons in relation both to the profile of the credit card holder and to explain personal behavior, were also carried out.

Mestrado em Ciências Económicas
O objectivo principal desta dissertação é estudar o microcrédito, enquanto meio de ajudar pessoas em situações económicas difíceis, nomeadamente desempregados, trabalhadores precários, entre outros casos em que o indivíduo não consegue sobreviver num mercado cada vez mais exigente e competitivo, que tende gradualmente a preferir empregados mais jovens. Estas pessoas, que não têm forma de subsistir, lidam, na maior parte das vezes, com oportunidades escassas de obter créditos normais por parte dos bancos, uma vez que não oferecem garantias suficientes. Sendo uma medida relativamente recente no nosso país, o microcrédito veio para Portugal para responder às necessidades dessas pessoas, conferindo-lhes a oportunidade para criar o seu próprio emprego, através das microempresas que os ajudam a garantir uma qualidade de vida decente, uma vez que, assim, se conseguem manter e desempenhar um papel relevante na sociedade, pagando impostos e contribuindo para um futuro melhor como qualquer um de nós. Quando apareceu pela primeira vez, pela mão de Muhammad Yunus, Professor de Economia e, devido a esta grande iniciativa reflectida no microcrédito, Nobel da Paz, o seu inventor ponderou-o, alicerçando-se na crença verdadeira de que, dando às pessoas as oportunidades certas, podemos, juntos, diminuir e até erradicar a pobreza por todo o mundo. Ele também não tem dúvidas de que todos nós possuímos qualidades que nos podem ajudar a prosperar, embora, infelizmente, para alguns, nem sempre surgem as ocasiões favoráveis para mostrar essas aptidões. Motivado pela sua filosofia, metodologia e processos, decidi estudar o microcrédito, mediante, entrevistas, a algumas das microempresas de Lisboa (60), e comparar os meus resultados com pesquisas similares efectuadas pela Associação Nacional de Direito ao Crédito (ANDC), procurando corroborar se o microcrédito representa, de facto, uma ferramenta de sucesso para o emprego e, por conseguinte, para a Economia Portuguesa.
The major purpose of this dissertation is to study the microcredit, as a means for helping people in economically difficult situations, namely unemployed, precarious workers and other cases in with a person cannot make ends meat to survive in a increasingly exigent and competitive market which tends gradually more to prefer younger employees. Those people, who do not have a way to make money, deal, most of the times, with scarce regular credit opportunities given by banks, because they do not enclose sufficient warranties. Being a relatively recent measure in our country, microcredit came to Portugal to respond to those people's needs, giving them the opportunity to create their own jobs, through microenterprises that help them maintaining a decent life quality, once they can sustain themselves and play an important role in society, paying taxes and contributing to a better future like anyone else.When it first appeared, by the hands of Muhammad Yunus, this Professor of Economy and, for that great initiative reflected on microcredit, the Nobel of Peace, its inventor thought of this out of a true believing that giving people the right opportunities we could, together, diminish and even eradicate poverty all over the world. He also has no doubts that all of us have qualities that can help us reach prosperity, but, unfortunately, for some of us, there are not always the right occasions to show those attributes. Motivated by its philosophy, methodology and processes, I decided to study, through interviews, some of the Lisbon's microenterprises (60), and compare my study with the results of similar research carried out by the Association of the Right to Credit (ANDC), in an attempt to corroborate if microcredit is indeed a successful tool for Portuguese employment and therefore for Portugal's Economy.

Mestrado em Finanças
Este trabalho tem como objectivo analisar a evolução do crédito ao consumo em Portugal para o período de 1998 a 2011. De forma a se elaborar um enquadramento da actividade do crédito ao consumo e se poder retirar conclusões acerca da sua evolução, foi realizada uma análise descritiva de dados. A análise descritiva incidiu sobre os principais tipos de crédito concedidos e produtos financiados. Após a análise descritiva, estudou-se o impacto de algumas variáveis macroeconómicas na evolução das variações do crédito concedido através de seis modelos de regressão linear. Através dos resultados obtidos concluiu-se que as variações actuais do crédito concedido são fortemente influenciadas pelas variações do período imediatamente anterior, bem como pelo factor sazonal presente no quarto trimestre de cada ano do período em análise. Por fim, também se concluiu que a evolução das importações desempenha um papel determinante na evolução da concessão deste tipo de crédito.
The goal of this paper is to study the evolution of the consumer credit market in Portugal between 1998 and 2011. In order to achieve this goal it was made a descriptive data analysis. This analysis focused on the main credit subtypes and financed products. After the first descriptive data analysis, we studied the impact of some macroeconomic variables in the evolution of the consumer credit trough six linear regression models. Trough the obtained results it is concluded that the present credit consumer variations are heavily influenced by the ones occurred in the last period and by a seasonal influence in the fourth quarter. Finally, it was also concluded that Imports have a crucial role on the evolution of this credit concession.

Mestrado em Ciências Empresariais
Sendo a luta contra o desemprego e o aumento da produtividade factores determinantes na erradicação da pobreza e exclusão social, o microcrédito tem um papel importante nesta problemática uma vez que promove o empreendedorismo e a auto-sustentabilidade. Tratando-se, os destinatários do microcrédito, de uma população que não tem acesso ao crédito na banca convencional, é necessária a análise de diversos factores para avaliar o perfil de risco do candidato ao microcrédito. Este estudo pretende identificar as características que mais impacto têm no comportamento dos microempresários face ao cumprimento dos contratos de crédito. Para tal, recolheu-se uma amostra dos projectos creditados num período de dez anos, por uma instituição de microcrédito portuguesa. Constatou-se que, as habilitações literárias, o montante do crédito e o sector de actividade reduzem a probabilidade de default dos microempresários. Verificou-se ainda que, neste tipo de instituições, o agente de crédito tem um papel fundamental na análise do risco dos microempresários, mas que deve ser complementado por um modelo matemático-estatístico de scoring, dadas as vantagens enunciadas.
Being the fight against unemployment and the increase of productivity determinant factors in the eradication of poverty and social exclusion, microcredit has an important role in this problem since it promotes entrepreneurship and self-sustainability. The recipients of microcredit are people considered non-creditworthy by traditional banking, thus it is necessary to analyze several factors to assess the risk profile of the candidate to microcredit. This study aims to identify the characteristics that have more impact on the behavior of micro-entrepreneurs in credit agreements. To this purpose, we've gathered a sample of projects credited within ten years, from a Portuguese microfinance institution. It was found that the qualifications, the amount of credit and the industry reduce the probability of default of micro-entrepreneurs. It can be also verified that, in this type of institutions, the loan officer has a key role in the analysis of micro-entrepreneur's risk, but must be complemented by a mathematical-statistical scoring model, given the advantages listed.

Mestrado em Finanças
O Microcrédito é um fenómeno crescente no Mundo desde os seus primeiros passos na índia e Bangladesh na década de 1970. Afirmou-se como uma alternativa eficaz no combate à pobreza e à exclusão social. No entanto, os seus méritos terão sido de certa forma sobrevalorizados à custa de uma menor preocupação com a eficiência e sustentabilidade financeira. Sugerimos que a sustentabilidade financeira é uma condição sine qua non para promover a capacidade das instituições de Microcrédito servirem mais e mais pobres populações. Dado oseu impacto na sustentabilidade financeira, a gestão do risco de crédito é um factor chave para o sucesso de uma instituição de Microcrédito. Assim, existem alguns mecanismos interessantes, alguns dos quais muito inovadores, que as instituições de Microcrédito encontraram para lidar com o risco de crédito. Um desses mecanismos, já em utilização massiva no crédito convencional, é o Scoring. Acreditamos que a utilização de Scoring no Microcrédito, mesmo tendo em conta os seus custos e pressupostos, pode ser um importante passo para o futuro da indústria, uma vez que promove uma gestão de risco de crédito mais precisa e eficiente e, desse modo, contribui decisivamente para um modelo de negócio mais sustentável.

Nos últimos anos, verifica-se uma crescente preocupação com o risco de crédito, sendo dado especial enfoque à performance das empresas não financeiras, muitas vezes as responsáveis pelo incumprimento perante a banca e outras instituições financeiras. Assim sendo, é importante que se analisem os principais determinantes que influenciam o risco de crédito, de modo a melhor compreender os fenómenos que o caraterizam, e definir quais são os fatores que levam a uma maior probabilidade de incumprimento. O objetivo de estudo desta dissertação passa por determinar os principais fatores que influenciam o risco de crédito e compreender qual a natureza do impacto desses mesmos determinantes no setor do Alojamento em Portugal, no período compreendido entre 2010 e 2016. Através de uma análise logit, aos dados de painel de 915 empresas provenientes do Banco de Portugal, concluiu-se que as variáveis significativas para a probabilidade de incumprimento das empresas do setor do Alojamento são o rácio de Liquidez Geral, o rácio de Rotação do Ativo, o rácio Clientes / Total do Ativo, o rácio Fornecedores / Total do Ativo e o distrito onde as empresas se encontram; Determinants of the Credit Risk of Non-Financial Companies in Portugal. The case of Accommodation. Abstract: In recent years there has been a growing concern about credit risk, with particular focus on the performance of non-financial corporations, often those responsible for defaulting on banks and other financial institutions. Therefore, it is important to analyze the main determinants that influence credit risk, in order to better understand the phenomena that characterize it, and to define which factors lead to a higher probability of default. The objective of this dissertation study is to determine the main factors that influence the credit risk and to understand the nature of the impact of those same determinants on the Accommodation sector in Portugal, between 2010 and 2016. From a logit analysis of the panel data of 915 companies from Banco de Portugal, it was concluded that the significant variables for the probability of default of companies in the Accommodation sector are the General Liquidity ratio, the Asset Turnover ratio, the Customers / Total Assets ratio, the Suppliers / Total Assets ratio and the district where the companies are located.

This thesis evaluates how the social capital embodied in social networks influences the performance of small businesses. Specifically, it assesses whether the use of social networks is beneficial or detrimental to the development of the business. It is based on the analysis of a sample of 42 Portuguese small business partnerships in the furniture and graphic arts industries. To assess the social determinants of failure and success, I sampled a population of businesses according to their perfonnance, and systematically compared their histories. The method of data collection, the narrative interview, focused on the development of businesses from their start-up in 1993 until 2000, when the data were collected. I find that the use of social ties is essential for the start-up and survival of businesses. Once this first stage of business development is overcome, however, there are two negative impacts of social networks. At the second stage of development, the dependence on social networks stifles growth. Ventures that desire to grow have to become independent from their social network, and have to rationalize production. A further negative effect arises from malfeasance within the partnership, which often condemns the business to failure. The thesis concludes that while social networks are essential in the early stages of a business, they later often become detrimental to its development, and can even be the leading cause behind a business's demise.

The fourth chapter shows the Marlborough-Godolphin partnership challenged by Nottingham for control of grand strategy. The expansion of the war into Portugal, Spain, the Mediterranean, and the Americas makes Godolphin anxious about over-extension of resources. He also has to bring about the union of England with a violently nationalist Scotland to fulfil the queen’s desire and safeguard the Protestant succession. Marlborough is prevented by the Dutch from following up his success in the Low Countries and the Holy Roman Empire comes under threat from France. But Godolphin’s rigorous management of the Treasury gains the confidence of the City, thus lowering the interest rates for public credit, enabling him to pay subsidies to the Allies, exercise control over strategy, and fund Marlborough’s secret plan to save Vienna. With the aid of Robert Harley, Marlborough and Godolphin use the parliamentary contest over Occasional Conformity to divide the Tory opposition.

This chapter examines the organization of the troika as it was constituted for the first Greek program and then renewed for the programs for Ireland in late 2010 and Portugal in spring 2011. It reviews the modalities of the troika’s negotiations with borrowing countries and several, though not all, points of disagreement among the three institutions over program design: financing, fiscal adjustment, banking sector restructuring, and structural reform. The Irish crisis resulted from excessively risky lending through the banking sector, whereas the Portuguese crisis inhered in structural rigidities with consequences for the banking sector and fiscal sustainability. The programs for these countries demonstrate that the European Central Bank played a critical role through decisions on Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) and bail-in of private creditors to banks, while its policies lay outside the programs’ scope. They also demonstrate that creditor governments effectively decided the institutional arrangements for the rescues.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

In this chapter, the authors assess the short-term effects of the pandemic (COVID-19) on banks with activity in Portugal. Namely, with regard capital buffer, it is intended to describe, in a succinct way, the measures taken by Portugal government to minimize the crisis effects. On the other hand, researchers divided the factors that can influence bank capital buffer in several groups, namely management efficiency, credit quality, and profitability. The panel dataset is composed of report annual data of 18 banks operating in Portugal, representing about 98% of the Portuguese banking product. The dependent variable is the capital buffer (BUF). The results show that credit quality (ICV), management efficiency (CTIN), and profitability (ROA and ROE) have a significant impact on bank capital buffer. Banks that have good credit quality indicators (ICV), management efficiency (CTIN), capital adequacy, and capital buffer (BUFF) will be better prepared to face the pandemic that is just taking its first steps.

In a world where financial markets are hegemonic, credit is synonymous with value. Corporations, but also states, and even human beings, can be perceived as projects looking for investors. Within this global context, the European Union comes with two distinctive features: a rapidly aging population combined with a growing reluctance to open its borders to migrants. This means that, far from staking their credit on the restoration of some demographic dynamism, European nations continuously seek to raise the ratio of capital to labor. They do whatever is necessary to attract investments but also to prevent people deprived of favorably rated resources from coming in and to weed out the segments of their population that are the most likely to diminish their overall credit. Disposing of the discredited can thus be analyzed as a multidimensional European project rich in public-private partnerships: it involves letting migrants drown in the Mediterranean sea, making life unbearable for allegedly undesirable populations such as the Roma, pushing an increasing number of insufficiently malleable employees to suicide, erasing all traces of a large proportion of the unemployed from official registers, and, in countries like Greece, Portugal and Ireland, pushing more and more young nationals to migrate.

This chapter is presenting the most contemporary crises following the 2008 credit crunch and small scale following crises. Our sample consists of five countries (Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Argentine respectively) hit by crisis during 2010's. The Early Warning System (EWS) proposed is the Extreme Value Model (EVA) used previously for natural disasters and irregular phenomena. Its major advantage compared to other binary models is its focus to the turbulence periods and their characteristics contrast to possible trend models which exclude them. The results show that EVA fits better forecast and it gave positive and calm signals than similar logit and probit models for all five cases examined.

Abstract Since its referendum on independence in 1999, Timor-Leste has received extensive international support. This chapter looks at two distinct strands of judicial state-building assistance. First, it examines conventional donor assistance funded by the United Nations, the United States, and Australia. While imperfect, this aid helped promote the rule of law and foster a transition from competitive to cooperative legal pluralism. It then examines foreign aid from Portugal, which sought to build and consolidate a Lusophone legal order. Portuguese bilateral assistance enjoyed exceptionally strong support from high-level state officials but produced mixed results overall. To its credit, Portuguese assistance helped construct a modern justice system in Timor-Leste. This aid, however, emphasized the institutionalization of the Portuguese language within the nascent judicial order, leaving it structurally inaccessible to most ordinary people. Portuguese assistance also failed to engage meaningfully with the non-state justice sector.

This chapter assesses the Eurozone debt crisis as a conflict between creditor and debtor countries, pitting northern member states against the southern periphery, before looking at the distributional politics of austerity in the smaller southern Eurozone states of Greece and Portugal. The Eurozone crisis placed the European Union under extraordinary strain, as markets panicked, leaving the weaker and more indebted member states struggling to avoid financial collapse. The bailouts of Greece, Ireland, and Portugal may have saved them from crashing out of the single currency, but the price was harsh austerity for their citizens and an accumulation of debt comparable to wartime. Meanwhile, the political costs of the euro crisis can be seen in the destabilization of European party systems. Not only did Greece embrace anti-system politics, electing a government opposed to the bailout regime, but the northern European countries that had put up much of the money for the rescues also saw their own political backlash.

Abstract Bianchini the historian and archeologist was still Bianchini the astronomer. “From Mars to Venus” centers on his major projects of the 1720s: the trigonometric measurement of a meridian of longitude from Rome to Rimini and a study of the motion and surface of the planet Venus. The meridian anchored an accurate map of the papal states; the mapping of Venus secured nothing at all, since its surface is not visible to the naked eye. Such was Bianchini’s stature, however, that for a century and a half astronomers kept seeking the elusive markings he reported. The lavish volume describing his extensive inquiries about Venus was underwritten by a new royal patron, João V of Portugal. The chapter also describes Bianchini’s collaboration with the colorful Count Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli and the observatory of the institute the count established in Bologna, a byproduct of which was the commission by Pope Clement of the famous paintings of astronomical motifs by Donato Creti.

After their independence from Spain and Portugal, Latin American governments became frequent borrowers in international capital markets. However, the region’s political and economic instability also led to recurrent episodes of sovereign defaults. During the particular historical context of the nineteenth century, remedies to debt defaults were not limited to bilateral negotiations between creditors and governments. They also encompassed military interventions or control commissions formed by foreign governments, bondholders, or merchant bankers. In North Africa and the Middle East, debt defaults could even trigger military interventions from creditor states ending in the establishment of colonial regimes. This paper shows that such interventions were rare in Latin America, as creditors only enlisted their governments’ military intervention in the most extreme cases. In most cases, external control was exerted privately by bondholders and merchant banks through the imposition of economic policies promoting trade openness and fiscal management. Additionally, bondholders turned to legal methods of contractual enforcement to obtain debt settlements that limited the sovereignty of debtor states over their land, infrastructure, and resources. By the end of the century, Latin American jurists began to respond to the increasing use of legal techniques to settle sovereign debts by developing counter-legal discourses aimed at limiting foreign intrusion in sovereign affairs.

The common features of the crises, which are resulted from global crisis rooted from the US and emerged in Euro Zone sequentially, are the rate of public debt and budget deficit of GNP far from reflecting Maastricht criteria. Beginning in Greece in 2009, it has been seen in Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain in a recent time. Although money union is established, leaving financial policies to country’s own initiative resulted in unsolved problems. Seeking solutions with IMF led to some sustainability programs. However, expectations show that debts will not be overcome for a long period. Towards this end, it is possible for Turkey to be affected since European Union is her biggest trade partner. There is a general consensus on that trade and credit channel of transmission mechanisms would affect Turkey. Export preserves its level at 55%. Likewise, a large part of foreign debt of Turkey is to European banks. Furthermore, sustainment of the recent growth trend of Turkey requires new funds. In case European banks strengthen their capital by means of downsizing their balance sheets as a restructuring, Turkey may be in a challenging position.

There is a growing interest from offshore and energy industry towards floating wind turbines. Since these systems are exposed to harsh metocean conditions, accessibility for inspection and maintenance purposes becomes of primary importance for a safe and cost-effective long-term operation. It is here proposed a methodology for evaluating the accessibility of a floating wind platform, by means of walk-to-work vessels. Two access means are considered: a catamaran equipped with fender and an offshore supply vessels with a motion-compensated gangway. The system composed by the platform and the vessel is modelled as a constrained multi-body system in the frequency domain. This allows to calculate transfer functions for the vessel motions and the contact forces. For given a short-term sea state the maximum crest height of a response variable is calculated assuming that crests heights are Rayleigh distributed, and compared to some threshold to determine whether the platform is accessible or not. For the catamaran, access is possible when the fender does not slip against the landing structure mounted on the floating platform; for the supply vessel, when the relative motions at the gangway tip do not exceed the compensation limits of the hydraulic system. Accessibility is calculated for a sample semisubmersible wind turbine located off the coast of Portugal using hindcast data for the period 1980–2013. Findings indicate that the catamaran and the supply vessel can ensure access for 20% and 76% of the time respectively. However, results are strictly dependent on the vessel types and the walk-to-work constraints.

O trabalho que agora se submete à apreciação é o resultado de uma parceria com a Fundação Caixa CA de Bragança, Portugal, iniciada em outubro de 2017 e concluída em junho de 2018. Essa parceria teve como finalidades educar para a inclusão, através da leitura de potencial receção infantil com alunos 1.º Ciclo do Ensino Básico a frequentar os 3.º e 4.º anos de escolaridade, fora do ambiente proporcionado pela sala de aulas, sem, no entanto, sair do contexto escolar; aprender a brincar com as palavras sem que as ideias de construção e desafio se perdessem; pôr à prova a capacidade de interpretação de cada aluno em trabalho de grupo; englobar e incluir diferentes ideias e formas de trabalho entre os alunos participantes sem olhar a raças, cores, credos, línguas, questões cognitivas ou meios financeiros, visto que a língua é de todos e todos devem ter os mesmos direitos na hora de enriquecer a sua literacia. O projeto de promoção da leitura e da escrita denominado “Cozinha (com) as tuas Palavras” abrangeu seis agrupamentos de escolas pertencentes aos distritos de Bragança e Vila Real num total de novecentos alunos. Após a leitura do conto infantojuvenil Maggy, a Fada, os alunos foram divididos em equipas constituídas, não só por crianças da escola frequentada, mas também por crianças oriundas de outras escolas do 1.º Ciclo localizadas no meio rural daqueles distritos. As equipas realizaram provas em que as palavras foram o mote para os desafios propostos em ambiente culinário. Depois de uma fase de apuramento, chegaram à fase final uma equipa do 3.º ano e outra do 4.º ano de escolaridade a representar cada um dos Agrupamentos de Escolas que aceitou integrar o projeto.

Out of ~11.000.000 enslaved Africans disembarked in the Americas, ~ 46% were taken to Brazil, where transatlantic slave trade only ended in 1850 (official abolition of slavery in 1888). In the Brazilian inland «capitania» Minas Gerais, slave numbers exploded due to gold mining in the first half of 18th century from 30.000 to nearly 300.000 black inhabitants out of a total ~350.000 in 1786. Due to gender demographics, intimate relations between African women and European men were frequent during Antonio da Costa Peixoto’s lifetime. In 1731/1741, this country clerk in Minas Gerais’ colonial administration, originally from Northern Portugal, completed his 42-page manuscript «Obra Nova de Língua Geral de Mina» («New work on the general language of Mina») documenting a variety of Gbe (sub-group of Kwa), one of the many African languages thought to have quickly disappeared in oversea slaveholder colonies. Some of Peixoto’s dialogues show African women who – despite being black and female and therefore usually associated with double subaltern status (see Spivak 1994 «The subaltern cannot speak») – successfully renegotiate their power position in trade. Although Peixoto’s efforts to acquire, describe and promote the «Língua Geral de Mina» can be interpreted as a «white» colonist’s strategy to secure his position through successful control, his dialogues also stress the importance of winning trust and cultivating good relations with members of the local black community. Several dialogues testify a degree of agency by Africans that undermines conventional representations of colonial relations, including a woman who enforces her «no credit» policy for her services, as shown above. Historical research on African and Afro-descendant women in Minas Gerais documents that some did not only manage to free themselves from slavery but even acquired considerable wealth.