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Unemployment is related to economic, political and social aspects. One of the least analysed economic aspects is the relationship of unemployment to the level of confidence that characterizes some macroeconomic relevant agents, such as consumers or investors. Expanding previous work on this matter, this chapter considers a fuzzy logic methodology in order to uncover the relationship that exists between the unemployment rate and the consumer confidence level for a large group of European Union countries, in the period 1995-2015. It is concluded that this relationship is stronger than apparently it looks, especially in certain countries. This result should therefore be used as an extra argument in making economic decisions leading to the diminishment of unemployment, which will boost economic confidence.

Unemployment is related to economic, political and social aspects. One of the least analysed social aspects is the relationship between unemployment and the (individual) perceived levels of well-being, such as life satisfaction or happiness. This chapter complements previous work on the subject, using a panel-data econometrics methodology to analyze the relationship between unemployment and life satisfaction in a wide range of countries worldwide. The results confirm that unemployment has a negative effect, statistically significant, on life satisfaction, either for men or for women.

Unemployment is related to economic, political and social aspects. One of the least analysed political aspects is the relationship that, from a partisan or ideological perspective, should exist between the election results and the aging level of the voters, which is to be reflected in different electoral costs of unemployment. This chapter updates previous work on the subject, using a spatial econometrics methodology to estimate the relationship between the levels of aging and the election results that were obtained in the most recent elections that took place in Portugal, i.e. the October 2015 legislative elections. The results confirm the hypothesis that the level of unemployment involves a higher (resp. lower) electoral cost the less (resp. more) aged is the electorate.

The role of the electorate has been confirmed as fundamental to the development of democratic countries. However, governments and large corporations have increasingly intervened in the decision-making capacity of the voters who are now seen as "customers". This is the starting point for this article that will discuss the power of external influence in the decision-making process of the act the polling day and the importance of the context effect in the decision-making process of individuals.

The electoral cycle literature has developed in two clearly distinct phases. The first one considered the existence of non-rational (naive) voters whereas the second one considered fully rational voters. It is our view that an intermediate approach is more appropriate, i.e. one that considers learning voters, which are boundedly rational. In this sense, one may consider perceptrons as learning mechanisms used by voters to perform a classification of the incumbent in order to distinguish opportunistic (electorally motivated) from benevolent (non-electorally motivated) behaviour of the government. The paper explores precisely the problem of how to classify a government showing in which, if so, circumstances a perceptron can resolve that problem. This is done by considering a model recently considered in the literature, i.e. one allowing for output persistence, which is a feature of aggregate supply that, indeed, may turn impossible to correctly classify the government. ; peer-reviewed

The electoral cycle literature has developed in two clearly distinct phases. The first one considered the existence of non-rational (naive) voters whereas the second one considered fully rational voters. It is our view that an intermediate approach is more appropriate, i.e. one that considers learning voters, which are boundedly rational. In this sense, one may consider perceptrons as learning mechanisms used by voters to perform a classification of the incumbent in order to distinguish opportunistic (electorally motivated) from benevolent (non-electorally motivated) behaviour of the government. The paper explores precisely the problem of how to classify a government showing in which, if so, circumstances a perceptron can resolve that problem. This is done by considering a model recently considered in the literature, i.e. one allowing for output persistence, which is a feature of aggregate supply that, indeed, may turn impossible to correctly classify the government.

A retrospective analysis of the Portuguese business cycle synchronization with some business cycles of reference allows us to draw conclusions that support the vital need to focus in domestic production that, by its nature, is exportable and/or is a substitute of imports. From this point of view, the increase in competitiveness, resulting from productivity growth, is also important given the gains derived from business cycle synchronization with the European business cycle obtained through the consequent increase in exports. This second aspect, less obvious but equally important for a sustained growth path, is the main focus of this chapter.

Em termos gerais, Portugal caracteriza-se por um forte declínio na natalidade, sendo este um fenómeno que requer uma análise que sirva de base a uma intervenção, certamente necessária, dados os custos associados àquele fenómeno. Não obstante aquela tendência a nível nacional, uma observação dos dados suficientemente desagregada do ponto de vista regional permite verificar que, em determinadas regiões, o problema da baixa natalidade parece ser (bem) menos grave do que noutras, onde a desertificação humana parece eminente. Tendo em conta este contexto, o objectivo deste trabalho consiste em determinar, através de técnicas de econometria espacial, as variáveis determinantes das taxas de fecundidade nas regiões (concelhos) de Portugal continental. Mostra-se que a própria estrutura demográfica, os factores relacionados com a saúde assim como as condições económicas são importantes na explicação das diferenças nas taxas de fecundidade que se podem observar ao longo do território de Portugal continental.

About twenty years ago, an article by van der Ploeg analysed the implications of the J-curve effect for the political business cycle in a small open economy [van der Ploeg (1989c)]. It was then shown that a sudden jump on the exchange rates in the election day should be observed if the government, in order to maximise its popularity, explores a J-curve effect. As a way of celebrating this work, that should have been more influential, it is presented in the paper a simulation study, which confirms that exchange rate overvaluation result a la van der Ploeg.

A análise dos resultados eleitorais em Portugal, quer ao nível das eleições legislativas quer das autárquicas, reconhece, de um modo geral, a existência de zonas geográficas onde a influência dos diversos partidos, sobretudo de alguns dos principais, parece ser mais evidente. Sendo certo que aquelas zonas do território português se caracterizam por uma certa dinâmica, do ponto de vista temporal, e dependem, também, do tipo de eleição em causa, não deixa de ser também verdade que, de eleição para eleição, qualquer que seja o seu tipo, a análise criteriosa dos resultados eleitorais exige que se tenha em conta a componente espacial dos mesmos. Assim, o uso de técnicas estatísticas que explorem convenientemente a informação associada à localização espacial das observações, neste caso os resultados eleitorais, torna-se claramente recomendável. No prosseguimento de trabalhos anteriores, onde estas mesmas técnicas de estatística espacial foram também usadas, pretende-se agora mostrar até que ponto a variável espaço é importante para a explicação dos resultados eleitorais (para a Assembleia da República e para as Autarquias) que os principais partidos obtiveram nas eleições de 2005. Os resultados confirmam que a componente espacial não pode ser ignorada na explicação dos resultados eleitorais em Portugal.

About twenty years ago, an article by van der Ploeg analysed the implications of the J-curve effect for the political business cycle in a small open economy [van der Ploeg (1989c)]. It was them shown that a sudden jump on the exchange rates in the election day should be observed if the government, in order to maximise its popularity, explores a J-curve effect. As a way of celebrating this work, that should have been more influential, i is presented in the paper a simulation study, which confirms the overvaluation result a la van der Ploeg.

The literature on electoral cycles has developed in two distinct phases. The first one considered the existence of non-rational (naive) voters whereas the second one considered fully rational voters. In our perspective, an intermediate approach is more interesting, i.e. one that considers learning voters, which are boundedly rational. In this sense, neural networks may be considered as learning mechanisms used by voters to perform a classification of the incumbent in order to distinguish opportunistic (electorally motivated) from benevolent (non-electorally motivated) behaviour. The paper shows in which circumstances a neural network, namely a perceptron, can resolve that problem of classification. This is done by considering a model allowing for output persistence, which is a feature of aggregate supply that, indeed, may make it impossible to correctly classify the incumbent.

The purpose of the paper is to explore, from an assessment viewpoint, the ideas below. Economics, as a social science, has always considered sets of individuals with assumed characteristics, namely the level of knowledge, although in an implicit way in most of the cases. In this sense, an influential approach in Economics assumed that society, as a global set of individuals, was characterised by a certain level of knowledge that, indeed, could be associated with the one of its representative agent. In fact, an attentive recall of the evolution of these matters in Economics will immediately recognise that, since the very first economic models of the government, it was assumed that the level of knowledge of society, represented by a set of voters, was not the same as the one of the agent being elected, i.e. the government. The irrelevance of the difference in the level of knowledge of economic agents was soon abandoned after some seminal works of Hayek and Friedman. More recently, the viewpoint of Economics has changed by focusing on the characteristics (e.g. knowledge) of individuals, who may interact in sub-sets of society. From this point of view is clearly relevant, given the close connection with the assumed level of knowledge, to distinguish the adaptive behaviour from the rational one, as well as the full rational from the bounded rationality behaviour by people. Quite recent developments in the Economics of Knowledge, i.e. the so-called learning models, have been considered as more realistic approaches to model the process by which individuals acquire knowledge, for instance from other individuals that are, themselves, acquiring knowledge.