Cristiano Morini

Public-Private Partnerships for Trade Facilitation: A Theoretical Model

Trade Facilitation (TF) is a response to the observed growth in international trade over the last few years. Part of the solution to today’s problems has been provided by Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). This type of partnerships became known as one of the alternatives to increasing the effectiveness of investments and improvements. Since TF involves a relation between public and private agents, alternatives to solutions within the international trade field fall on this kind of partnerships. However, simply establishing a relation between both agents does not insure that all the benefits of TF will be reached. The objective of this research is to propose a theoretical model which can contribute to the measurement of the factors which mostly influence TF oriented PPPs. Such model derives from the theory of PPPs and presents a relationship matrix between Critical Success Factors (CSFs) and the perceived/expected performance of a TF oriented PPP. The relationship between each variable and the performance of a partnership was tested in order to quantify its strength. In order to validate the proposed theoretical model, we use the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method. The research is dedicated to answering the following research problem: which factors influence the success of TF oriented PPPs the most? Data was gathered both at national and international level, focusing on professionals from the private and public sectors and academia that either work with TF within their regular functions, or have an understanding about it. Results have shown that the variables of “macro-environment”, “micro-environment” and “abilities of parties” presented, in that order, the most influence over TF oriented PPPs.

The impacts of trade facilitation measures on international trade flows

This paper analyzes the impacts of selected trade facilitation measures on international trade flows. A gravity model is used to estimate four equations: a pooled cross-section model; a fixed-effects model; a random effects model; and a Poisson maximum likelihood estimator. The contribution of the paper is twofold. First, the analysis uses a recent data set, a panel that includes trade data from 2011 and 2012 for 72 countries. Second, to measure the impacts of trade facilitation measures, the analysis includes dummy variables for the presence of an authorized economic operator program, the existence of a single-window program in the countries in the sample, and the existence of a mutual recognition arrangement between pairs of countries in the sample. The results show that the presence of an authorized economic operator program and the existence of a single-window program will improve countries’ trade performance. By contrast, the existence of a mutual recognition arrangement will not necessarily improve countries’ trade performance. These results suggest that, in general, trade facilitation measures as a whole will help countries improve their trade performance.

Indicadores de desempenho da Aduana do Brasil: em busca de uma abordagem equilibrada

Procurement in international markets is a current practice in today’s global supply chains, leading logistics operations to include import and export activities in their procurement process. Such activities are usually of complex nature, since they are subject to diverse customs requirements in different countries. In this context, Brazilian customs is ranked low in terms of competitiveness according to various international organizations. However, published studies on customs administration in Brazil are rare, and there is no research addressing performance measurement in the specialized literature. Thus, this paper aims to present and discuss performance indicators employed by customs administrations around the world, with a special attention to Brazil. Customs is part of a global supply chain management. As an exploratory qualitative research, this manuscript provides a comparison of performance indicators employed in Brazil against those used by countries with high-performance customs. A set of performance indicators was selected according to international standards. Data concerning Brazilian customs was collected from the Ministry of Finance, using the Law on Access to Information, and published Management Reports related to the Brazilian Revenue Authority, in charge of tax and customs administration. This topic is relevant in Brazil because the indicators used so far favour tax collection and controls (related to “enforcement practices”) to the detriment of the service level provided to the taxpayer (related to “compliance practices” and the “service charter”), as used in countries with high customs performance. As a result, this paper puts into evidence the need to reform the Brazilian customs system, favouring a balanced approach combining “enforcement” and “compliance” in order to increase the competitiveness of international supply chains crossing this country.

Analysis of the Brazilian Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

The objective of this study was to analyze the Brazilian entrepreneurial ecosystem in the light of the National System of Entrepreneurship - NSE theory, through the implementation of the Global Entrepreneurship Index methodology - GEI. The study indicates that Brazil has low quality average institutional interaction. However, social context is the main bottleneck in the national entrepreneurial ecosystem. Differences between the performance quality of the institutional framework and social factors promote entrepreneurship low socioeconomic impact. The results of the article show that the Brazilian entrepreneurial ecosystem presents low internationalization of companies, innovation in products and processes, formation of human capital and high-growth enterprises. The results of the article provide insights for decision makers on the factors that determine the opening of new businesses.

The Role of Private Sector in Customs and Border Management Reform: a comparative study.

THE ROLE OF PRIVATE SECTOR IN CUSTOMS AND BORDER MANAGEMENT REFORM: A COMPARATIVE STUDY. Caroline Schneider (IC), Cristiano Morini (PQ). Abstract This paper aims to gather information on the role played by private sector in partnership with Customs (the government body which control borders and flow of goods). A literature review on Public-Private Partnerships was conducted in order to analyze this different approach in delivering public services and to map the main characteristics of it. Then a comparative study between the border management in Brazil and in the UK was made to find the main differences between them and thus detect the weaknesses of the Brazilian management, since UK is considered as a benchmark in these aspects.