Cesaltina Pacheco Pires

Innovation in services – how different from manufacturing?

Using standardised firm data a comparative analysis of the determinants of product and process innovation in manufacturing and services is performed. Results show that in services there are significant differences in innovation behaviour, in terms of intramural and extramural R&D. It is also found that size matters less in services than in manufacturing. Although youth has a positive effect in both cases, young service firms are more likely than young manufacturing of being pioneer innovators. The results reveal the importance of learning by doing in service process innovations, as young service firms are less likely to introduce process innovations.

A Rule For Updating Ambiguous Beliefs

When preferences are such that there is no unique additive prior, the issue of which updating rule to use is of extreme importance. This paper presents an axiomatization of the rule which requires updating of all the priors by Bayes rule. The decision maker has conditional preferences over acts. It is assumed that preferences over acts conditional on event E happening, do not depend on lotteries received on Ec, obey axioms which lead to maxmin expected utility representation with multiple priors, and have common induced preferences over lotteries. The paper shows that when all priors give positive probability to an event E, a certain coherence property between conditional and unconditional preferences is satisfied if and only if the set of subjective probability measures considered by the agent given E is obtained by updating all subjective prior probability measures using Bayes rule.When preferences are such that there is no unique additive prior, the issue of which updating rule to use is of extreme importance. This paper presents an axiomatization of the rule which requires updating of all the priors by Bayes rule. The decision maker has conditional preferences over acts. It is assumed that preferences over acts conditional on event E happening, do not depend on lotteries received on Ec, obey axioms which lead to maxmin expected utility representation with multiple priors, and have common induced preferences over lotteries. The paper shows that when all priors give positive probability to an event E, a certain coherence property between conditional and unconditional preferences is satisfied if and only if the set of subjective probability measures considered by the agent given E is obtained by updating all subjective prior probability measures using Bayes rule.

The Exit Decision in the European Venture Capital Market

This article analyses the exit decision in the European venture capital market, studying when to exit and how it interacts with the exit form. Using a competing risks model we study the impact on the exit decision of the characteristics of venture capital investors, of their investments and of contracting variables. Our results reveals that the hazard functions are non-monotonic for all exit forms and suggest that, in Europe, Initial Public Offering candidates take longer to be selected than trade sales. Moreover our results show that, in Europe, venture capitalists associated with financial institutions have quicker exits (stronger for trade sales), and highlight the importance of contracting variables on the exit decision. An unexpected result is that the presence on the board of directors leads to longer investment durations.

Measuring the Economic Value of the Electronic Scientific Information Services in Portuguese Academic Libraries

This article has three main objectives: i) to describe the use patterns of electronic and traditional resources in Portuguese academic libraries; ii) to estimate the value of the Portuguese electronic scientific information consortium b-on by using two alternative valuation methodologies; iii) to relate the use patterns with the valuation of b-on. We estimate the value of the Portuguese electronic scientific information consortium b-on by using two alternative evaluation methodologies: a) the value of the time saved by using this electronic resource; and b) the contingent valuation method to estimate how much the user is willing to pay for the service. Our results show wide differences in use patterns, with professors, researchers and PhD students having a more intense use of digital library services than undergraduate and masters students. Moreover, the benefit-cost ratios computed using the two valuation techniques indicate that the value of the electronic scientific information consortium b-on is well above its costs. Finally, the study shows that the valuation of b-on is higher for the user groups with higher percentage use of digital services.This article has three main objectives: i) to describe the use patterns of electronic and traditional resources in Portuguese academic libraries; ii) to estimate the value of the Portuguese electronic scientific information consortium b-on by using two alternative valuation methodologies; iii) to relate the use patterns with the valuation of b-on. We estimate the value of the Portuguese electronic scientific information consortium b-on by using two alternative evaluation methodologies: a) the value of the time saved by using this electronic resource; and b) the contingent valuation method to estimate how much the user is willing to pay for the service. Our results show wide differences in use patterns, with professors, researchers and PhD students having a more intense use of digital library services than undergraduate and masters students. Moreover, the benefit-cost ratios computed using the two valuation techniques indicate that the value of the electronic scientific information consortium b-on is well ...

Which criteria matter most in the evaluation of venture capital investments

This study identifies the importance assigned to the various criteria used by the Portuguese Venture Capitalists (VCs) to evaluate and select early stage venture capital projects. The data was collected through a questionnaire answered by 20 Portuguese VCs. We use descriptive statistics techniques and non-parametric tests to identify the most valued criteria and test differences in the importance assigned to the criteria of several types of VCs and investments. The study reveals that the personality and experience of the entrepreneur and of the management team are the most valued groups of criteria. VCs with a majority of private share capital value more the personality of the entrepreneur and management team than the companies with a majority of public share capital. Additionally, the VCs that did not yet internationalize consider the personality of the entrepreneur and management team and the financial aspects, to be more important than the VCs that have already expanded abroad.

Recognizing Best Practice in Portuguese Higher Education Libraries

The purpose of this paper is to identify best practices in order to improve the quality of services in Portuguese academic libraries. This article describes an ongoing project to assess the performance of library services, resulting from a partnership of six Portuguese higher education libraries. The study has three main steps: (1) selection of criteria to be evaluated and selection of their corresponding performance indicators; (2) data collection and analysis; (3) identification of best practices. The selection of the criteria to be evaluated is based on a mixed model combining the Common Assessment Framework and the Balanced Scorecard. The associated performance indicators are in accordance with International Standards ISO 11620:1998 and ISO 2789:2006.

Delivered nonlinear pricing by duopolists

Abstract This paper presents a model of delivered nonlinear pricing by duopolists operating in a linear city with two types of consumers and having incomplete information. At each location, the higher cost firm offers a uniform price equal to its delivered marginal cost while the lower cost firm offers a nonlinear tariff. For nearby locations, the lower cost firm may charge monopoly nonlinear prices, but as the distance increases the quantity consumed by the low valuation consumer becomes less inefficient than under monopoly. In the market region closest to the competitor’s market we get an efficient outcome. If firms choose locations, before choosing tariff schedules, they will locate at the median of their equilibrium sales distribution.

Sustainability and cost - benefit analysis

In this paper I address the issue of incorporating environmental sustainability in project appraisal. I extend the results of Barbier, Markandya, and Pearce on ‘operationalizing’ a concept of sustainability into appraisal methods for practical decisionmaking. I generalize their results in two directions. First, I abandon their implicit assumption that benefits and costs of a given project in a given period depend only on the level of activity of the project in the same period. Second, I address the issue of which portfolio of projects to choose. My results show how to modify the net present value criterion for choosing a set of projects in the presence of a sustainability constraint.

Which Factors Influence the Willingness to Pay for Electronic Library Services? A Study of the Portuguese Electronic Scientific Information Consortium B-On1

This paper investigates the factors that influence the value for the users of the Portuguese electronic scientific information consortium b-on (Biblioteca do Conhecimento Online). We used the contingent valuation method based on a willingness to pay scenario to estimate the value that each user is willing to pay. Data were collected through an e-survey sent to all Portuguese academic users. The main aims of this study are: (1) to investigate whether the willingness to pay is influenced by a set of factors (the frequency of use, whether the user previously knew b-on or not, the type of the user, the scientific area of the user, and the institution of the user); and (2) to estimate the demand function of b-on services as function of the price and the previously mentioned factors. In order to achieve these objectives we use several regression analysis techniques – OLS, Tobit model, linear probability model (LPM), Logit and Probit models. The results show that the factors studied are all important explanatory variables of the willingness to pay for b-on and important determinants of demand for b-on services. Moreover, the demand for b-on services is quite sensitive to the ‘price’.

Estimating utility functions using generalized maximum entropy

This paper estimates von Neumann and Morgenstern utility functions using the generalized maximum entropy (GME), applied to data obtained by utility elicitation methods. Given the statistical advantages of this approach, we provide a comparison of the performance of the GME estimator with ordinary least square (OLS) in a real data small sample setup. The results confirm the ones obtained for small samples through Monte Carlo simulations. The difference between the two estimators is small and it decreases as the width of the parameter support vector increases. Moreover, the GME estimator is more precise than the OLS one. Overall, the results suggest that GME is an interesting alternative to OLS in the estimation of utility functions when data are generated by utility elicitation methods.