IV · Education and research

Education and research

Training in economics in Portugal and Brazil, and a research programme on what, in a valuation opinion, is estimate and what is convention.

Education

Academic background

Post-doctorate in Economics

Feb – Jul 2026

UFRJ — Institute of Economics (PIPD · PPGE) · Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro — Institutional Post-Doctoral Programme (CEPG Resolution 04/2018), attached to the PPGE. Project: “Epistemic surplus and criteria of empirical meaning in asset valuation: Constitutive Pragmatic Epistemology applied to mergers, acquisitions and corporate restructuring”. Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Franklin Serrano. A Discussion Paper and four articles within the fellowship period; four further articles completed in September 2026.

PhD in International Political Economy

2019 – 2026

UFRJ — Institute of Economics (PEPI) · Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro — Thesis: “The problem of formulating an adequate explication of the criterion of empirical meaning: toward a constitutive pragmatic epistemology of international political economy”, approved on 6 January 2026. Proposes Constitutive Pragmatic Epistemology — six criteria of significance for international political economy — and the categories of Epistemic Surplus and Epistemic Rent, transposed from the surplus tradition, from the Physiocrats to Sraffa. Advisor: Prof. Dr. Nicholas Miller Trebat; co-advisor: Prof. Dr. Franklin Serrano. Committee: Profs. Daniel de Pinho Barreiros, Alberto Oliva, Ramón García Fernández (UFABC) and Maria Mello de Malta.

Read the doctoral thesis PDF · approved 2026 · in Portuguese

Master’s Degree in International Political Economy

2011 – 2018

UFRJ — Institute of Economics (PEPI) · Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro — Dissertation: “The problem of formulating an adequate explication of the criterion of empirical meaning”, approved on 3 April 2018. A critical reconstruction of the successive formulations of the criterion within logical empiricism — verifiability, falsifiability, translatability, confirmability and Carnap’s 1956 Minnesota criterion — proposing additional restrictive conditions on reduction pairs and chains. Advisor: Prof. Dr. Nicholas Miller Trebat. Committee: Profs. Franklin Serrano and Alberto Oliva.

Read the master's dissertation PDF · approved 2018 · in Portuguese

Bachelor’s Degree in Political Economy

2005 – 2011

UFRJ — Department of Political Economy

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro — The Brazilian academic path started from the beginning, as the Portuguese degree had no equivalence.

Licenciatura in Economics

1995 – 2000

University of Porto

Research

The academic root of the positions

A single question, pursued since 2005: under what conditions a statement about value says something that can be confronted with the world. It is the question behind every valuation opinion and every restructuring plan.

The question, always the same

The dissertation and the thesis share a title: “The problem of formulating an adequate explanation of the criterion of empirical meaning”.
That criterion separates the statement that can be confronted with the world from the one that can only be confronted with another statement.
The master’s dissertation reconstructs the formulations of the criterion, from verifiability to the Minnesota criterion, and proposes restrictive conditions on reduction chains.
The thesis traces the failure to three assumptions — semantic atomism, observational neutrality, the separation of fact and value — and proposes the Constitutive Pragmatic Epistemology.
The last article of the post-doctorate returns to reduction sentences, applied to the perpetual growth rate.

What the thesis proposes

Six criteria of significance: structural-relational, hegemonic adequacy, systemic sustainability, democratic resonance, normative legitimacy and causal transparency.
Epistemic surplus — the category of surplus, from the Physiocrats to Sraffa, carried over to the judgement of theories — and epistemic rent, whose distribution technical conditions do not determine.
Applied to development, macroeconomics, the Reinhart–Rogoff controversy, artificial intelligence, epistemic coloniality and international economic negotiations.
Examining boards: Nicholas Trebat, Franklin Serrano and Alberto Oliva; for the PhD, also Daniel de Pinho Barreiros, Ramón García Fernández (UFABC) and Maria Mello de Malta.

None of this appears in a valuation opinion. What appears is the consequence: the obligation to declare which parameters are estimates and which are adopted conventions — and to write it down before knowing the result they produce.

Research

From the thesis to the mandate

From February to July 2026, the post-doctoral fellowship produced a Discussion Paper and four articles, each applying the same framework to one domain. Three of those domains are the everyday matter of mandates.

IE-UFRJ Discussion Paper 012/2026 · June 2026

The epistemic audit of asset valuation

What it shows. Turns the diagnosis into an applicable protocol: four tests on terminal value — anchoring, aggregation, decomposition and convention — and three estimation strategies.

Where it meets practice. The anchoring index measures what fraction of value rests on cash flows projected one by one, and what rests on the perpetuity. Applied to three configurations of Brazilian capitalism.

Read the PDF (in Portuguese)

Article · May 2026

Terminal value as a problem of empirical meaning

What it shows. In current practice, terminal value accounts for sixty to eighty per cent of an asset's present value — and it satisfies none of the verifiability criteria.

Where it meets practice. It is the reason for position 02: adjusted present value rather than weighted average cost of capital, as the only method that separates the production of surplus from tax transfer.

Read the PDF (in Portuguese)

Article · July 2026

Expectations as dispositional terms

What it shows. Expectations surveys are reputational tournaments with published results: measured anchoring cannot tell firm belief from conformity to the focal point.

Where it meets practice. At the table with creditors, the projection the debtor presents measures both its conviction and what it believes is expected of it. They are different things, and they decide different things.

Read the PDF (in Portuguese)

Article · July 2026

The unverifiable hierarchy

What it shows. The epistemic order of a rule is the depth of the hierarchy of beliefs on which its incentive depends; the higher it is, the less verifiable — and null at infinity.

Where it meets practice. It is the reason for setting the rule before the content, and keeping it at the first level. It also identifies mandatory, confidential arbitration as a suppression of the observational base.

Read the PDF (in Portuguese)

Article · July 2026

The impossible comparable

What it shows. No two transactions differ in location alone; and the fifteen per cent band of discretion in the Brazilian NBR 14653 standard makes the individual appraisal unfalsifiable.

Where it meets practice. In a real-estate portfolio, the individual appraisal cannot be tested. What can be tested is the fraction of value covered by contracts — and that is what decisions should rest on.

Read the PDF (in Portuguese)

The Discussion Paper and the four articles make up the output dossier of the fellowship; the Discussion Paper was presented at the PPGE Research Seminar on 18 June 2026. The complementary output, completed in September, follows.

Research

The complementary output

Four articles completed in September 2026, after the fellowship period: a synthesis of the four domains and three pieces that extend the framework to negotiation, to parties who are not anonymous, and to the perpetuity.

Article · September 2026

Three magnitudes and a single number

What it shows. Perceived value, value and price are not approximations of the same magnitude. Between value and price stand the parties’ perceptions and the distributive variable of the negotiation.

Where it meets practice. In a valuation opinion, separating the three is the first task: the appraisal sets the value; the price is decided at the table.

Read the PDF (in Portuguese)

Article · September 2026

Epistemic surplus and negotiation

What it shows. Separates the determination of a transaction’s surplus from its appropriation: due diligence produces epistemic surplus; the competitive process decides who appropriates it.

Where it meets practice. Maximising the price is not, in itself, the test of a good process: the dynamic — bilateral, restricted or auction — is chosen for the surplus it preserves, before the first buyer is approached.

Read the PDF (in Portuguese)

Article · September 2026

The perception of the cordial man

What it shows. Read as a trait of national character, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda’s concept instantiates all six modes of failure; reconstructed as a convention, it turns them into testable propositions.

Where it meets practice. It examines what the other pieces left tacit: parties who are not anonymous. That is the everyday matter of credit, of the board and of the family shareholders’ agreement.

Read the PDF (in Portuguese)

Article · September 2026

The solubility of finance

What it shows. Distinguishes three modes of vacuity — factual, nomological and epistemic — and reclassifies the perpetual growth rate as a systemic parameter and a constitutive principle.

Where it meets practice. It is the reason for declaring the perpetuity rate an adopted convention rather than a projection — and for doing so before knowing the value it produces.

Read the PDF (in Portuguese)

The eight articles are intended for coordinated submission to journals. Papers presented: “O valor terminal como problema de significado empírico”, National Meeting of Political Economy (SBEP), June 2026; seminar on the epistemology of business valuation at PPGE/IE-UFRJ, 16 July 2026.

CV and presentation

The professional record, on request

Roles, boards, partner houses and transactions are not identified on this site. They are set out in the CV and the presentation, sent directly to whoever asks for them.

Request by email · coutoramos@forta.pt