O presidente da Galp é que sabe... e os bentos-lovers também

Arquivo de fontes para uso futuro:
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"How competition improves management and productivity":
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"But what determines productivity, or the amount of output that can be produced from a given set of inputs?
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In the 1990s, Stephen Nickell led a team of CEP researchers to address the productivity question head on. ... The first finding was a descriptive fact that has stood the test of time: there are huge differences in productivity between firms even in narrowly defined industries that last for many years. Yet the existence of persistently less efficient firms encountered in Nickell’s research was hard to square with the standard economic model of perfect competition, which assumed that such inefficiency could not persist.
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increases in competition provided a large and persistent boost to firm productivity. Competition could be increased in a number of ways: more openness to trade, lower barriers to entry and greater consumer choice.
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In the 2000s, Nicholas Bloom and I built on the insight that firms’ internal organisation was the key to  productivity by launching a major effort to measure management and organisation within firms (Bloom and Van Reenen, 2007).
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It turns out that the original intuition of the 1990s work was right: management really does matter in explaining productivity differences. And furthermore, a key factor in boosting management quality in both the private and public sectors is competitive intensity. This worked not only within firms, as Nickell emphasised, but also between firms. In other words, competition raise average productivity in a nation through a Darwinian selection effect where the low productivity firms are driven out of the market and the high productivity firms expand.
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Protecting inefficient firms from going under is a major reason for lower European productivity. The direction of policy is to make space for the more efficient firms to grow and prosper."
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À atenção do presidente da Galp (meu Deus...) "A range of recent econometric studies suggest that (i) competition increases management quality and (ii) improved management quality boosts productivity." e "Management Practices Across Firms and Countries":
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"On average, we find that in manufacturing American, Japanese, and German firms are the best managed. Firms in developing countries, such as Brazil, China and India tend to be poorly managed. American retail firms and hospitals are also well managed by international standards, although American schools are worse managed than those in several other developed countries. We also find substantial variation in management practices across organizations in every country and every sector, mirroring the heterogeneity in the spread of performance in these sectors. One factor linked to this variation is ownership. Government, family, and founder owned firms are usually poorly managed, while multinational, dispersed shareholder and private-equity owned firms are typically well managed. Stronger product market competition and higher worker skills are associated with better management practices. Less regulated labor markets are associated with improvements in incentive management practices such as performance based promotion.
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From a policy perspective, several factors seem important in influencing management quality. Product market competition has a critical influence in increasing aggregate management quality by thinning the ranks of the badly managed and incentivizing the survivors to improve. Indeed, much of the cross-country variation in management appears to be due to the presence or absence of this tail of bad performers. One reason for higher average management scores in the US is that better managed firms appear to be rewarded more quickly with greater market share and the worse managed forced to rapidly shrink and exit. This appears to have led American firms to rapidly copy management best practices from around the world,"
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taxes and other distortive policies that favor family run firms appear to hinder better management, while general education and multinational presence seem valuable in improving management practices."
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E os que defendem a saída do euro para proteger as empresas nacionais mal geridas ou que fizeram opções erradas, ou que se dedicaram a apostas válidas até à pouco... incapazes de ver o sucesso de tantas e tantas PMEs que lançaram pés ao caminho.
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BTW, daqui retirei este gráfico:

Está tudo ligado: China; colapso do mercado do meio-termo com a polarização dos mercados, a inovação, o aumento da dispersão de produtividades, a subida na escala de valor, a espiral aberta virtuosa e a espiral fechada viciosa, a aposta na eficiência versus a aposta na eficácia, denominar versus numerador, custos versus valor, ... "Changes in Wage Inequality"

Trabalhar a rede

Deste texto "Co-creating Development" de Venkat Ramaswamy retirei esta figura:

Chamo a atenção para as "network capabilities"... as redes estão por todo o lado, é fundamental identificar os clientes-alvo mas não chega, há que sintonizar e harmonizar um conjunto de relações de parceria, de cumplicidade entre vários intervenientes numa rede.
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Agora, atentemos em "Delivering service, shifting solutions and shaping markets" de Robert Spencer e Bernard Cova.
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"the site of value creation and in particular innovation, is thus the service “space” between supplier and buyer, with both actors contributing towards the process (the co-creation of value-in use, and value to the customer and the supplier).
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“if solutions are seen as inherently customised, the outcomes are not generic but unique to the situation”. Outcomes of solutions can thus range from solving consumers’ known or articulated problems over time to enabling them to achieve a certain peace of mind. This puts emphasis, then, not only on value creation for the customer, but also on the creation of a new and unique situation for the customers, suppliers, and in their environments.
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They then go on to propose “a switch from customer value proposition to customer network value proposition”.
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emphasizes that experiences and relationships themselves, especially in the co‐creation and sharing of resources, create customer value. Thus, inter‐organizational collaboration in value‐production appears highly relevant to understanding 21st century business marketing in which suppliers’ and customers’ traditional roles are becoming more complex and intertwined. This inter‐organisational role, portrayed thus far as a dyadic supplier‐buyer, or else at best a supply chain issue, has been seen as being insufficient to cover and explain the phenomena at play in all instances, and has been extended to cover co‐creation by multiple actors from a systemic standpoint. Factors explaining value creation thus are considered as being of a network kind. The actors involved involve, but not only, other firms, including the supplier himself. Outcomes in terms of value creation are also of different kinds.
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Suppliers are no longer seen as good just for selling a product to a customer, but are seen rather as consultants who assist their customers in making their activities grow. Consequently, simple delivery of a combination of products and services is no longer a sufficient answer to the customer’s needs. Redesigning and reengineering the customer’s processes require the implementation of consultancy and expertise.
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solution selling builds as much on the anticipation and construction of customer needs as on the mobilization of pertinent actors in and around the customer to generate integrated solutions. Such integrated solutions thus become projects for the customer just as much as for the supplier. Solutions are not simply a group of products and services which, “bundled together, may give some increased margins in the form of savings, efficiency, lack of redundancy, and so on but … don’t create new value”
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solutions are cocreated by a customer and a supplier. In fact, by co‐creating the function as well as the meaning of its experience, the customer co‐constructs value for himself: “the customer is always a co‐creator of value”. For Grönroos “suppliers only create the resources or means to make it possible for customers to create value for themselves. In this sense at least, when suppliers and customers interact, they are engaged in co‐creation of value”. Thus, SDL recognizes that firms can only make a “value proposition” and that value itself is a continuous process that unfolds over time as customers take part in the value‐creation process.
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SDL also recognizes that customers as well as suppliers are resource integrators, consistent with the concept of co‐creation of value. SDL not only brings the customer into the process of co‐creation of value, but organization’s partners throughout the value network as well. Consequently, SDL recognizes that each entity should collaborate with other entities and integrate resources with them. In addition, SDL opens onto the actors involved in the cocreation of value: it is the “customer and supply chain partners [which] are collaborators in the entire marketing process”

Customer Centricity (part I)

"a fundamental acknowledgment that not all customers are created equal; a commitment to identify those customers who matter most; and a willingness to dedicate disproporcionate amounts of resources not only to understand what those customers want but to deliver what they want - and by extension, create a stable, lucrative, and ever-more profitable future.
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identify a select set of customers. These are the important ones, the lucrative ones, the ones you should be spending your time thinking about, planning around, producing and working for - the right customers. These are the customers who matter.
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Of course, in the product-centricity world, there are no right customers. There is no dividing line between the important ones and the rest. They are all just customers - the nameless, faceless hordes who gobble up (or ignore) whatever it is Company X is attempting to sell.
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Customer-centricity firms acknowledge the heterogeneity among our customers. More than that, we celebrate it - because we understand that heterogeneity offers us opportunity. In a customer-centric company, weunderstand that some customers do matter more."
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Trechos retirados de "Customer Centricity" de Peter Fader.

Let me guess: Acabou a auditoria ISO 9001?

Excelente, by-pass ao status-quo

Excelente: "Bit by Britt, farm family makes its mark the milky way":
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"His wife, Rachael, said the family was regularly approached by locals wanting to buy milk direct from the farm, which is illegal. "But a lot of doctors are also recommending people that have certain illnesses drink unhomogenised milk, because it's more natural," she said. Mrs Peterken said their own brand, Inglenook, had already been stocked by local businesses.
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Bottles of Inglenook had also been sold at Essendon farmers' market, and should be available in IGA stores in the new year.
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Mrs Peterken's father, Basil, said the dairy industry was in a "pretty ordinary" state, with the big supermarket chains squeezing farmers' margins."

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Ontem, a meio da tarde, uma mensagem de SMS da patroa chegou.

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Saí de casa, andei 300 metros, entrei numa casa e comprei numa casa de lavradores:

• uma abóbora de 11 kg (que descasquei e foi para a arca aos bocadinhos para substituir a batata na sopa);
• 3 pencas que foram cortadas à minha frente;
• 1 dúzia de ovos sem carimbos de veterinários.

Isto é qualidade de vida!

Satisficers (parte III)

"A solution to a given problem is called optimal if one can prove that no better solution exists. Some skeptics might ask, Why should intuition rely on a rule of thumb instead of the optimal strategy? To solve a problem by optimization—rather than by a rule of thumb—implies both that an optimal solution exists and that a strategy exists to find it. Computers would seem to be the ideal tool for finding the best solution to a problem. Yet paradoxically, the advent of high-speed computers has opened our eyes to the fact that the best strategy often cannot be found."
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Trecho retirado de "Gut Feelings" de Gerd Gigerenzer.
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"Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics because he demonstrated conclusively that people do not function according to the hyper-rational, cold calculating benefit maximizing cost minimizing Homo economicus that traditional economic theory presupposes."

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Trecho retirado de "Kahneman on Well-Being and Domains of Consciousness"

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"Decision makers often have imperfect information. We develop a choice theoretic experiment to explore choice mistakes that result from incomplete search. Our choice process methodology generates data on how choices change with contemplation time, thereby illuminating the search process. We demonstrate that most subjects behave in line with a reservation-based model of sequential search, altering their reservation utilities in response to the size of the choice set and the complexity of the environment. These …ndings support Simon’s model of satis…cing behavior and suggest simple measures of contextual e¤ects on the quality of decisions."

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Trecho retirado de "Search and Satis…cing"

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Tudo o que contribua para a explosão de diversidade é bem vindo... Mongo agradece!!!

It's not the euro, stupid! (parte V)

Parte I, parte II, parte III e parte IV.
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Escrevemos, no primeiro postal de 2012:
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"As dificuldades criam, geram, proporcionam, escondem oportunidades.

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"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity" (Einstein).
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As dificuldades podem ser a chispa que desencadeia a revolução que estava por detrás da rolha, o tsunami preso pelas comportas.
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As crises podem ter o condão de criar a oportunidade de libertar os factores aprisionados a velhas fórmulas, a velhos modelos.
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Claro, os incumbentes de espírito tentarão até à última defender o status-quo... os que não têm nada a perder arriscam e constroem o futuro."

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Bem na linha de "A Trapped Factors Model of Innovation" de Nicholas Bloom, Paul Romer e John Van Reenen, publicado em Outubro de 2010.

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"When will reducing trade barriers against low wage country cause innovation to increase in high wage regions like the US or EU?

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We develop a model where factors of production (such as skilled labor) are used to either produce or innovate. (Moi ici: Exploitation versus exploration) Because of sunk investments (like learning bydoing) they become “trapped” in producing old goods. In this model, trade liberalization with a low wage country reduces the profitability of the old good and so the opportunity cost of innovating falls. (Moi ici: Talvez a escassez de capital que vivemos, a par do colapso na procura interna, reduzam os custos da inovação, reduzam os custos de retirar recursos escassos (capital, gente talentosa, tempo, ...) de apostas que passaram o seu prazo de validade, para novas apostas) Interestingly, the “China shock” is more likely to induce innovation than liberalization with high wage countries, as richer countries will compete in both old and new goods."  (Moi ici: Gente perigosa... De acordo com o que sucedeu a Portugal com a entrada na CEE. Os produtos alemães não vinham competir com os produtos portugueses, os produtos portugueses é que foram competir pelo preço com os produtos alemães naquela questão 

"Para um dado nível de desempenho, quão barato o podem oferecer?")

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"we show, paradoxically, that increased trade with a low-wage trading partner, which drives down prices and forces firms to shut down some lines of production, can also increase the rate of innovation. Instead of increasing the return to innovation, this kind of trade effect reduces the opportunity cost of the resources used to innovate." (Moi ici: evolução dos euros produzidos por trabalhador na indústria do calçado e na do têxtil e vestuário)

"workers acquire human capital that is specific to a firm and the goods that it produces. This makes the human capital used by each firm a “trapped factor”. If a factor of production is trapped in a firm, a trade shock that reduces the value of this factor in specific lines of production can encourage the firm to reallocate this factor to other activities including innovation. Because the human capital is firm-specific, the shock reduces the opportunity cost of the human capital that it uses without having any effect on the cost of human capital to other firms.

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The nature of the market failure is that skilled workers should specialize in innovation but they do not because the private incentive to innovate is below the social incentive. Their product specific skills cause them to be “trapped factors” from planner’s point of view.

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we describe the predictions of this theory for innovation in a high wage country under two types of trade shock: a “China shock” (liberalization of goods with a low wage country) and an “OECD shock” (liberalization of trade with a high wage country). We show that the positive effect of liberalization holds only for the China shock."

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E das Conclusões:

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"In this paper we have considered a “trapped factor” model where some factors of production due to sunk costs are partially irrerversible and are therefore “trapped” in a firm (e.g. when there is firm-specific human capital from learning by doing). We show that in such a model that when a rich OECD country reduces trade barriers with a low wage country like China this can act to speed up the rate of innovation and therefore economic growth in the OECD country. This is because the trapped factor will be used (in part) to produce old goods and this sets the opportunity cost of innovation. A China shock reduces the profitability of producing these old low tech goods and therefore reduces the opportunity cost of innovation. Abstracting from market size effects, integration with a high wage OECD country does not have these pro-innovation effects.

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First, opening up to trade with China appears to have generated faster technical change in firms in richer countries (like Europe and the US) not simply from reallocation but also through within firm innovation. Secondly, the effects of opening up to trade with countries like China appears to have stronger effects on innovation than trade integration with other rich countries."

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Por que é que esse choque em Portugal foi tão violento, levando à morte de tantas empresas?

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Porque a maioria das empresas portuguesas competia no mesmo campeonato da China, usando como vantagem competitiva os preços baixos, ou seja, muitas empresas estavam longe da fronteira do seu sector:

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"It is important to understand the factors that infl‡uence a country’s transition from the production of low-quality to high-quality products since the production of high-quality goods is often viewed as a pre-condition for export success and, ultimately, for economic development. In this paper, we provide the fi…rst evidence that countries ’import tariffs affect the rate at which they upgrade the quality of their products. We analyze the effect of import competition on quality upgrading using highly disaggregated export data to the U.S. from fi…fty-six countries in 10,000 products using a novel approach to measure quality. As predicted by recent distance to the frontier models, we fi…nd that lower tariffs are associated with quality upgrading for products close to the world quality frontier, whereas lower tariffs discourage quality upgrading for products distant from the frontier."
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"we show that there is a signi…cant relationship between import tariffs and quality upgrading. The direction of the effect depends importantly on how far the product is from the world quality frontier. For products close to the frontier, low tariffs encourage quality upgrading whereas for products distant from the frontier, low tariffs have the opposite effect, discouraging quality upgrading. (Moi ici: O exemplo que nos vem do Brasil!)
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Our findings support the theories by Aghion and Howitt (2005) and ABGHP (2009) that highlight two forces: one, the “escape-competition ”effect that induces a fi…rm close to the frontier to invest in quality upgrading in order to survive competition from potential new entrants; and two, the “appropriability” effect that discourages …firms distant from the frontier from investing in quality upgrading because they are too far away from the frontier to be able to compete with potential new entrants. Our results show that support for these theories is strongest in countries with good business climates, a fi…nding that is perhaps not surprising given that lower tariffs are unlikely to alter signi…cantly the competitive environments in countries that face many other restrictions on competition."
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Trechos retirados de "Import Competition and Quality Upgrading" de Mary Amitiy e Amit K. Khandelwalz, publicado na versão final em Novembro de 2011.
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Ah! E para os que acham que o problema é do euro... recomendo a figura 2 na página 24.

Israel e Suécia não são conhecidos por isto

Imagem retirada de "Chapter 1 Fiscal Deficits and Debts: Developments and Outlook".

Então?

"Cavaco Silva quer “agenda para o crescimento da economia e para o emprego”
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Então, o Presidente da República não sabe que foram anos sucessivos de agendas para o crescimento da economia que nos trouxeram até aqui?
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Então, o Presidente da República não sabe que o emprego não é um objectivo mas uma consequência?

Colhemos o que semeamos

"The spirit of an organization is a mirror of the environment the leader creates."
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O espírito de um sector industrial é um espelho do ambiente que os seus líderes associativos criam!!!
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Algo que já descobri há algum tempo!!! Ver aqui e aqui. Ver, também, aqui e aqui.

Cuidado com as comparações

Comparações económicas que não se fazem entre períodos homólogos são comparações da treta.
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Ontem, entrei na A25 em Angeja, ao km 20, e segui em direcção à Guarda. Só vi, e ultrapassei dois pesados, duas cisternas de combustíveis, ao km 63. Saí da A25 e entrei na A23 já depois da Guarda... não vi nenhum pesado em direcção à fronteira

Votos de um 2012 cheio de oportunidades

As dificuldades criam, geram, proporcionam, escondem oportunidades.
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"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity" (Einstein).
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As dificuldades podem ser a chispa que desencadeia a revolução que estava por detrás da rolha, o tsunami preso pelas comportas.
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As crises podem ter o condão de criar a oportunidade de libertar os factores aprisionados a velhas fórmulas, a velhos modelos.
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Claro, os incumbentes de espírito tentarão até à última defender o status-quo... os que não têm nada a perder arriscam e constroem o futuro

Vectores em desenvolvimento em 2012

• "China manufacturing activity falls again"
• "M.I.T. Game-Changer: Free Online Education For All"
• "France approves soda tax"
• O by-pass aos bancos"
• "Comércio a retalho continua em forte queda" e "Quebra no consumo das famílias leva a recuo de 9,7% nas vendas a retalho" em conjunto com esta questão "IS THERE A COMPELLING REASON TO GO BUY FROM SEARS, KMART, OR YOU?"
• "Sarkozy quer manter empregos baixando salários"
• "Dieter Helm: Shale Gas Will Transform Europe's Energy Roadmap"
• E, por que não se pode fugir a Mongo, "Why 2012 will be year of the artist-entrepreneur", "Make it magic", "The Shape of Things to Come: GE and the Future of Manufacturing"

Custo versus experiência

Retomando este postal, e compondo a figura ficamos com:

Ocorreu-me esta ilustração ontem, ao seguir no twitter uma conversa sobre hotéis de 5 estrelas que estão a cortar custos em plena radioclubização que só leva ao "hollowing".
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As empresas que estão no campeonato do preço mais baixo concentram-se na cadeia de actividades que levam até ao ponto de venda, até ao momento da compra. Realizam o mínimo de actividades possível, idealmente só fazem as que o cliente paga, procuram realizar essas actividades da forma mais eficiente possível.
No campeonato do preço mais baixo as empresas definem as especificações com que se comprometem no ponto de venda, e daí, trabalham para trás para o oferecer ao custo mais baixo.
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Quando a procura baixa,  e como fazem do preço o "order winner", e como só conhecem essa alavanca o que é que fazem?
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Baixam o preço!!!! Será que algum conhece os números de Dolan e Marn? Ou os de Marn e Rosiello?
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As empresas que estão no campeonato do valor, as que querem legitimamente subir preços num universo competitivo, não desprezam os custos das actividades que levam até ao momento da compra, mas não os colocam no altar dos "order winner", preferem olhar para eles como "order qualifyer".
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As empresas que estão no campeonato do valor, preocupam-se sobretudo com as actividades que, de certa forma, estão fora do seu controlo directo, preocupam-se com as actividades que vão ser executadas pelos clientes na sua vida e com as consequências tangíveis e intangíveis que vão emergir durante a experiência de uso... focam-se nas experiências que os clientes vão sentir.
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Quando a procura baixa, estas empresas não vão a correr baixar o preço, procuram reformular a proposta de valor e/ou a sua comunicação, sempre concentradas nas experiências que os clientes vão viver/sentir. Por exemplo, o modelo que apresentámos há um ano para birdwatchers endinheirados preocupar-se-ia com a qualidade das observações de aves, com a "máquina" de divulgação do que se viu, do que se sentiu, buzz, buzz, buzz assente na mensagem dos clientes que já viveram a experiência e actuam como referenciadores, como prescritores, como apóstolos. Por exemplo, procuraria que os seus guias ornitológicos marcassem presença em seminários, revista da especialidade e, no limite até publicassem artigos científicos... não para publicidade contraproducente mas para credibilizar a proposta de valor. E que tal contratar um aguarelista para criar e expor criações sobre as paisagens e observações no site da empresa...

Curiosidade

Gostava de relacionar isto "Cerâmica de Valadares aumenta exportações" onde se pode ler:
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"Actualmente, além de disputar a liderança no mercado nacional, cerca de 60 por cento da sua produção é exportada"

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Com isto "Cerâmica de Valadares pára produção por não pagar o gás"

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Será que tem a ver com isto?

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Será que tem a ver com uma queda das vendas para além do breakeven? Será que se pensou estar perante uma situação conjuntural e não perante uma recalibração estrutural?

Simplesmente delicioso (parte II)

A propósito de "Saab declara falência depois de falhar venda a chineses" interessante este exemplo de mensagem publicitária da empresa:
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"Researchers on consumer studies concluded that when targeting men, advertisers should associate the product with a single compelling message and feature it at the beginning of the ad. In contrast, when targeting women, they concluded that the ads should make use of ample cues that evoke positive associations and images. An automobile advertisement shows a Saab intently pursuing a straight path at a junction where large white arrows painted on the road point right and left. The headline reads: “Does popular acceptance require abandoning the very principles that got you where you are?” According to the ad, while other car manufacturers may compromise their design to win popular acceptance, Saab NEVER will! Never compromise is the single reason presented to buy a Saab."
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Trecho retirado de "Gut feelings : the intelligence of the unconscious" de Gerd Gigerenzer.

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Qual a proposta de valor para o potencial cliente? 

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Uma mensagem sobre a marca... centrada no fabricante.

It's not the euro, stupid! (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

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Comecemos tendo em conta as imagens e a mensagem deste postal "As mudanças em curso na China - parte II" e esta imagem

retirada deste postal "O choque chinês num país de moeda forte (parte II)". Hoje, corrigiria o título para "O choque chinês num país com salários mais elevados". Os norte-americanos não têm uma moeda forte e, mesmo assim sofreram o mesmo impacte chinês como nós em Portugal.
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A figura é elucidativa do que acontece com o choque chinês:

• muitas empresas desaparecem;
• as empresas maiores desaparecem mais do que as mais pequenas, o nº de trabalhadores por empresa diminui;
• a quantidade total produzida diminui.

BTW, não percam os outros gráficos que se seguem nesse mesmo postal.

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Ontem, este "amigo" apresentou-me este outro "amigo": "An Alternative Theory of the Plant Size Distribution with an Application to Trade" de Thomas J. Holmes e John J. Stevens" publicado em Abril de 2010.
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Por um lado pensei "Duh! É o que andamos a dizer há anos neste blogue", por outro lado também pensei, "Meu Deus, se isto é assunto para artigo publicado é porque é novidade, logo... ainda vai durar a entrar na mente dos encalhados... bem dizia Max Planck:
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"Uma nova verdade científica não triunfa convencendo seus oponentes e fazendo-os ver a luz, mas porque seus oponentes finalmente morrem e uma nova geração  que está familiarizada com ela cresce" (Moi ici: Mas Max Planck esqueceu-se da linha de montagem que os oponentes comandam nas escolas).
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Vamos lá ao que escrevem Holmes e Stevens no artigo, começamos pelo fim, pelas conclusões:
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"This paper develops a model in which industries are made up of mass-production factories making standardized goods and specialty plants making custom or niche goods. (Moi ici: Os governos e encalhados acham que uma unidade de produção pequena pode ou deve fazer o mesmo que uma grande) The paper uses a combination of confidential and public Census data to estimate parameters of the model and, in particular, produces estimates of plant counts in the specialty and standardized segments by industry. The estimated model fits the observed plant size/geographic concentration relationship relatively well. The estimates reveal that, for those industries that have been heavily affected by a surge of imports from China, there has been a dramatic decline in plant counts for the standardized segment, while the specialty segments have been relatively stable. (Moi ici: Em sintonia completa com a nossa recomendação de anos: fujam do campeonato de preço mais baixo. Esse campeonato joga-se com produtos maduros, grandes quantidades e é para quem pode e não para quem quer)
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The paper also shows that for the China surge industries, locations with large concentrations of the industry and large plants, like High Point, North Carolina, have declined relative to the rest of the country. (Moi ici: Recorrendo mais uma vez ao exemplo do calçado, recordar estes postais sobre o declínio das multinacionais do calçado em Portugal- aqui, aqui e aqui. Recorrendo ao exemplo do têxtil estes postais sobre a TMG e o renascer do sector - aqui e aqui) These results are consistent with the hypothesis that products made in China are close substitutes to the products of big plants (like those in High Point), and not so close substitutes to the products of the small plants that are diffuse throughout the country. The results are inconsistent with standard theories that assert that small plants are just like large plants, except for having a low productivity draw. (Moi ici: DUH!!!!! Que teoria tão tola e afastada da realidade... peca por desprezar o valor potencial do que se produz... É claro que se medirmos a produtividade em quantidade de coisas produzidas por unidade de tempo as fábricas maiores são mais produtivas. No entanto, se medirmos a produtividade num rácio entre o que se ganha a vender e o que se precisa de gastar para produzir o que se vende, a história é bem diferente como demonstram os outros gráficos do postal acima referido)

In our theory, if a plant in the United States is huge, it is a signal that the plant is potentially vulnerable to competition from China. A huge plant is likely making something that can be traded across space–something that can be put in a container and shipped–as a local market would not likely be able to absorb all the output of a given huge plant."
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O que é estranho é que estas conclusões, para a comunidade científica são ... novidade!!!
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Do abstract retiro:
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"There is wide variation in the sizes of manufacturing plants, even within the most narrowly defined industry classifications used by statistical agencies. Standard theories attribute all such size differences to productivity differences. This paper develops an alternative theory in which industries are made up of large plants producing standardized goods and small plants making custom or specialty goods. ... the predictions of the model for the impacts of a surge in imports from China are consistent with what happened to U.S. manufacturing industries that experienced such a surge over the period 1997—2007. Large-scale standardized plants were decimated, while small-scale specialty plants were relatively less impacted." (Moi ici: Os encalhados da tríade não fazem ideia disto... )
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Isto vai ficar comprido mas vale a pena:
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"Take wood furniture as an example. The large plants in this industry with more than a thousand employees are concentrated in North Carolina, particularly in a place called High Point. These plants make the stock bedroom and dining room furniture pieces found at traditional furniture stores. Also included in the Census classification are small facilities making custom pieces to order, such as small shops employing skilled Amish craftsmen. Let us apply the standard theory of the size distribution to this industry.
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Entrepreneurs that enter and draw high productivity parameters would likely open up megaplants in High Point, North Carolina; those that get low draws might open Amish shops in other locations. The Melitz model and the BEJK model both predict that the large North Carolina plants will have large market areas, while the small plants will tend to ship locally. So far so good, because this result is consistent with the data, as we will show. But what happens when China enters the wood furniture market in a dramatic fashion, as has occurred over the past 10 years? While all of the U.S. industry will be hurt, the Melitz and BEJK theories predict that the North Carolina industry will be relatively less affected because it is home to the large, productive plants. In fact, the opposite turns out to be true in the data.
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To address this shortcoming, our theory takes into account that most industries have some segment that provides specialty goods, often custom-made goods, the provision of which is facilitated by face-to-face contact between buyers and sellers. (Moi ici: Há anos que chamamos a atenção para a importância da proximidade, do desenvolvimento de relações amorosas, da flexibilidade, da rapidez, da relação) This specialty segment is the province of small plants. Large plants tend to make standardized products. ... When China enters the wood furniture market, naturally it follows its comparative advantage and enters the standardized segment of the market, making products similar to the stock furniture pieces produced in North Carolina. Thus, in our theory, the North Carolina industry is hurt the most by China’s entry into the industry, as actually happened.
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We show that over the period 1997 to 2007, in industries where exports from China have surged, the domestic industry has shifted toward large metropolitan areas, places where average plant size has typically been small. 
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These are places where we expect to see a large demand for specialty and custom goods.
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And we also expect to find there a large supply of inputs suited for specialty and niche products. These are different from the low-skill inputs used in mass production of standardized products in large plants–inputs readily available in China and places like High Point.
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(Moi ici: O mesmo no sector têxtil) That study explained how large plants in places like North Carolina tended to mass-produce standardized garments like nurses’ uniforms, while the small plants in New York City tended to produce fashion items. The new development is that China has entered to play the role of North Carolina, while New York still plays New York (Moi ici: É assim tão difícil perceber o que aconteceu por cá também?) (albeit in a relative sense, given the overall decline of manufacturing as a share of the domestic economy).
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When we take into account that plants vary in productivity as well as in function (with small plants specializing in specialty goods), we cannot tell a priori whether a given large plant will be more likely to survive a trade onslaught than a small plant."

It's not the euro, stupid! (parte III)

Parte I, parte II.
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Ontem, durante o jogging, ouvi uma uma parte do livro "Gut feelings : the intelligence of the unconscious" de Gerd Gigerenzer".
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No capítulo 6 com o delicioso título: "Why Good Intuitions Shouldn't be Logical" gigerenzer chama a atenção para esta particularidade:
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"Mark got angry and Mary left.
Mary left and Mark got angry.
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Verona is in Italy and Valencia is in Spain.
Valencia is in Spain and Verona is in Italy.
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We understand in a blink that the first pair of sentences conveys opposite causal messages, whereas the second pair is identical in meaning. Only in the last pair is the and used in the sense of the logical AND. Even more surprising, we also know without thinking when and should be interpreted as the logical OR, as in the sentence
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We invited friends and colleagues.
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To this day, linguists are still working on spelling out the rules of thumb that underlie this remarkably intelligent intuition. No computer program can decode the meaning of an and sentence as well as we can. These are the interesting unconscious processes that we only partly understand, but which our intuition masters in the blink of an eye."
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Escrevo isto porque não me canso de me surpreender com o que os investigadores escrevem sobre a competitividade e a produtividade das empresas. A tríade de encalhados usa modelos obsoletos para explicar a realidade e, quando os modelos deixam de explicar a realidade... deixam de falar na realidade e continuam, como lapas, agarrados a ideias antigas que agitam sem contraditório.
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Ainda mais surpreendente, os investigadores que descobrem que os modelos estão obsoletos e avançam para a realidade para formularem modelos mais robustos, depois de muita investigação, depois de um caminho árduo, chegam ao topo da montanha onde já me encontro há alguns anos...
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Arrogância intelectual da minha parte? Não!
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O contacto permanente com PMEs que têm sucesso a exportar e a reflexão... por que é que estas empresas têm sucesso apesar da procissão de desgraças que os encalhados da tríade previram? Por que é que os gerentes das PMEs, muitos com a 4ª classe, fizeram o que Daniel Bessa postulava como sendo impossível?
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O percurso que me tem levado a Mongo, a "somos todos alemães", à vantagem do numerador e da eficácia sobre o denominador e a eficiência está retratado neste blogue e pode ser condensado neste postal de Agosto último "Promotor da concorrência imperfeita e de monopólios informais".
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Ainda hoje ouvimos os governos apelarem às empresas pequenas a seguirem o exemplo das empresas grandes, ainda hoje ouvimos dizer que as empresas grandes são mais competitivas que as empresas pequenas, que têm produtividades, que podem ser mais resistentes a choques de competitividade.
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Continua na parte IV, que tentarei escrever ainda hoje, com um exemplo que deita por terra todas estas ideias com um vector chamado China!

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Satisficers (parte II)

"A lone, hungry rat runs through what psychologists call a T-maze.

 It can turn either left or right. If it turns left, it will find food in eight out of ten cases; if it turns right, there will only be food in two out of ten cases. The amount of food it finds is small, so it runs over and over again through the maze. Under a variety of experimental conditions, rats turn left most of the time, as one would expect. But sometimes they turn right, though this is the worse option, puzzling many a researcher. According to the logical principle called maximizing, the rat should always turn left, because there it can expect food 80 percent of the time. Sometimes, rats turn left in only about 80 percent of the cases, and right 20 percent of the time. Their behavior is then called probability matching, because it reflects the 80/20 percent probabilities. It results, however, in a smaller amount of food; the expectation is only 68 percent.3 The rat’s behavior seems irrational. Has evolution miswired the brain of this poor animal? Or are rats simply stupid?
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We can understand the rat’s behavior once we look into its natural environment rather than into its small brain. Under the natural conditions of foraging, a rat competes with many other rats and animals for food.

If all go to the spot that has the most food, each will get only a small share. The one mutant organism that sometimes chooses the second-best patch would face less competition, get more food, and so be favored by natural selection. Thus, rats seem to rely on a strategy that works in a competitive environment but doesn’t fit the experimental situation, in which an individual is kept in social isolation."
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Interessante... quando se pensa na dispersão de produtividades, na dispersão de dimensões, na dispersão de produtos e serviços, na dispersão de mercados... na economia. E, já agora, no destino económico ser a mongolização, o aumento exponencial da dispersão de opções.
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Trecho retirado de "Gut feelings : the intelligence of the unconscious" de Gerd Gigerenzer.

OMG... E vão viver de quê (parte XI)

"Portugal já exportou mais do que importou de Espanha":
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"As exportações portuguesas para Espanha ultrapassaram em outubro, pela primeira vez, as importações, com as vendas a atingirem o valor recorde de 1,9 mil milhões de euros, anunciou a Câmara de Comércio e Indústria Luso-Espanhola.
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Devido a este facto inédito, Portugal ascendeu, em outubro, ao quarto lugar do 'ranking' dos principais países fornecedores de Espanha, adianta o mesmo organismo em comunicado, citando os dados mais recentes da Agência Tributária espanhola.
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As importações de Espanha atingiram, no mesmo mês, 1,8 mil milhões de euros.
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Portugal vende para Espanha, sobretudo, artigos de moda (roupa, sapatos e produtos para bebés) e de lazer (óculos, motociclos, bicicletas e artigos desportivos)."
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Impressionante este desempenho nacional... é que não é à custa da redução das importações, que baixaram, mas à custa do aumento das exportações:
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"De acordo com os dados oficiais espanhóis, para o volume de exportações portuguesas para o país vizinho contribuiu o setor dos bens de consumo, que aumentou, em outubro, 479 por cento face ao período homólogo de 2010, para os 1,2 mil milhões de euros."
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"Contabilizando, no entanto, a totalidade dos dez primeiros meses de 2011, Portugal comprou mais a Espanha do que vendeu: o volume de exportações (8,8 mil milhões de euros) ficou quase a metade do das importações (14,2 mil milhões de euros)."