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AbstractAcross countries, average incomes are related to population density, but not population per se. At the same time, the number of firms in both manufacturing and services are essentially proportional to population but unrelated to density (controlling for population). Why are these distinctions important? Moving from autarky to free trade is much more like increasing population while keeping density fixed. In this paper, I extend a simple variety model by considering an economy made up of a large number of geographical markets of fixed area. Firms must incur a cost to access each market, and this cost is convex in the number of markets entered. Assuming no firm chooses to access all markets within an economy, increasing both population and the number of markets proportionately has no effect on firms' market access decision and so the number of firms per capita and average incomes remain unchanged. The implications of the model for trade are stark. If two identical countries open up to trade, there are no gains from trade. If two different countries open up to trade but no comparative advantage exists, there are no gains from trade. Countries trade (and gains from trade exist) only if comparative advantage exists. If comparative advantage exists, the gains from trade are lower than in a standard variety model. But if comparative advantage is ignored, the true gains from trade can be much higher than the gains calculated using a standard sufficient‐statistic formula.

In the last decades, the obsolescence of major equipment (oldest bullrings, railway stations, military facilities, old hospitals, unused factories, etc.) and the existence of urban voids in most European cities (generally old peripheral areas which have transformed into interstitial areas without a particular use) has created exceptional conditions for the emergence of a new urban typologies in central cities, namely retail areas, usually known as Urban Shopping Centres. At the same time, the phenomenon of urban shopping centres in city centres has been followed by an increasingly rich and intense debate throughout the academia. In this context, a controversial issue remains unclear: are these artefacts generating new collective spaces capable of creating synergies with public space? Or, on the contrary, will they introduce ruptures and compete with public space? This article tries to address this contentious issue arguing that in the observation of certain circumstances the urban shopping centre is in fact a powerful artefact capable of creating important collective spaces.

Mestrado em Engenharia de Computadores e Telemática ; This document and the developed work lie on the perception that the World is always changing. Internet has taken a major role in one's daily routine and is the vehicle to spread the most quantity of information, that mankind as ever witnessed. Regions of the World such as Europe and the Americas, have great ease in exchanging information between the citizens and their governments, but this reality does not re ect in every continent, and Africa is one that still presents insu ciencies regarding this matter. To ful l some of the needs of African countries, in which regards E-Government services communication, the United Nations developed the African I-Parliaments Project, which developed the Bungeni Parliamentary System. This system aims to help automatize the legislative process of African Parliaments. By analysing the system and developing tools, the work described in this document tries to get the Bungeni Parliamentary System to be implemented in the Lusophone Africa, therefore allowing ease of legislation access and creation, through the Internet, helping in the building of government to citizens transparency. ; Este documento e trabalho desenvolvido, assentam na perce c~ao que o Mundo est a em constante mudan ca. A Internet, hoje em dia, desempenha um papel enorme na vida quotidiana e e a forma mais r apida de ve cular informa c~ao que a Humanidade j a presenciou. Regi~oes do Mundo como a Europa e Am erica, t^em grande facilidade em efetuar transi c~oes de informa c~ao entre os seus cidad~aos e governos, atrav es da Internet, (servi cos de EGoverment). Por em, esta realidade n~ao e re ectida em todas os continentes e Africa e um dos que ainda apresenta muitas insu ci^encias. Para colmatar algumas necessidades, no que respeita a comunica c~ao por servi cos de EGovernment, as Na c~oes Unidas criaram o projecto \African I-Parliaments", que desenvolveu o Sistema Parlamentar Bungeni. Este sistema parlamentar, tem como nalidade automatizar o processo legislativo ...