Global Business Issues eJournal最新文献

{"title":"Looking Beyond Accession: Challenges to Implementing the World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement in China","authors":"Daniel J. Cook","doi":"10.1108/JOPP-15-01-2015-B004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/JOPP-15-01-2015-B004","url":null,"abstract":"Much of the literature on China's ongoing attempts to accede to the World Trade Organization (“WTO”) Agreement on Government Procurement (“GPA”) focuses on which Chinese entities will ultimately be covered by the Agreement. While coverage issues are, no doubt, important, this paper argues that China will face an even greater number of challenges when implementing and harmonizing the requirements of the GPA with its own domestic procurement laws. In particular, the GPA's Article XVIII requirement for an effective domestic review mechanism may be especially difficult for China to achieve. In light of these challenges, this paper argues that current GPA members should address problems with China's domestic legal framework for procurement now, not look to the domestic review device to resolve problems after accession.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"223 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116031203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"State-Created Barriers to Exit? The Example of the Acquisition of Alstom by General Electric","authors":"N. Petit","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2521378","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2521378","url":null,"abstract":"This paper seeks to understand the competitive impact of State restrictions to M&A transactions which target domestic corporations. In the economic literature, a rich body of papers has examined the impact of State restrictions in terms of market access, international trade and FDI. In contrast, the consequences of State restrictions in terms of economic competition remain poorly understood. To discuss the competitive effects of State restrictions to M&A transactions that target domestic firms, the present paper offers a case study of the takeover of the French company Alstom by the US conglomerate General Electric (“GE”) in 2014, and of the measures adopted by the French Government to undermine it. This case is interesting. Unlike in the conventional scenario where Government intervention leads to prohibit the transaction, the Government interference did not kill the GE/Alstom transaction. Rather, in GE/Alstom, the French Government re-engineered the initial transaction. In lieu of an “absorption” of Alstom by GE as initially envisioned, the parties were forced to seal an “alliance”. Our case-study shows that State interference may influence the competitive conditions in the market. In particular, we advance a counterintuitive idea. Whilst the traditional market access literature would lead to envision State interference as a form of measure that protects the domestic firm, we show that State interference can also harm the domestic firm. In particular, in the case in point, the French Government measures may have locked Alstom behind exit barriers, by preventing it to leave the energy markets it purported to quit. We review empirical data to test our hypothesis. In practical terms, we believe our findings are important, because the literature on failed industrial projects suggests that Governments are often bad at making exit choices. This should be kept in mind, at a time where proponents of strong industrial policy agendas are increasingly vocal. Moreover, our analysis may have implications for antitrust policy. As much as entry barriers, barriers to exit prevent the emergence of competitive markets and are thus a concern for antitrust agencies. Moreover, State interference with M&A risk undermining the efficacy of merger control systems, in depriving the antitrust agencies’ of the ability to negotiate remedies that remove competition concerns.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122042549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Funding and Publication Performance in Higher Education","authors":"I. Huang, S. Lo","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2550088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2550088","url":null,"abstract":"Universities play a vital role in transmission and generation of new discoveries and knowledge. In this paper, we study how research input and research output are related in these institutions. We focus on two types of research input: research funding and human resources, and employ various forms of publication to measure research output, namely books, book chapters, journal articles and conference papers. More importantly, we examine the recent trend of switching to a performance-based funding system by both developed and developing countries alike to support university research. We study these issues by exploring research activities carried out by Australian universities from 1992 to 2010. Australia first adopted a performance-based funding system in 1995 and further strengthened it in 2002. We find that research funding plays an important role in generating research output, particularly journal articles. On average, a one percent increase in the total research income brought about a 0.1074 percent increase in a measure of the total research publication and led to a 0.1753 percent increase in journal article publication. Among various sources of research income, competitive grants promoted all forms of publication while research income secured from industries and private sources posed a drag to research publication. Such effects were more visible in well-established, elite universities than those with a shorter history. On the other hand, the effects of human resources were stronger on these new, small and regional universities than on their elite counterparts. Exploring more closely, we find that academic staff was a key factor in journal article publication and its impact was more pronounced on the new, small and regional universities. Lastly, the adoption of a performance-based funding system appeared to boost research output.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132318542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Managing Activities Supporting the Elimination of Civilization Diseases","authors":"V. Lieskovská, S. Megyesiova","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2549765","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2549765","url":null,"abstract":"One of the strategic objectives of the World Health Organization is also promoting healthy lifestyle and reducing risk factors for health. Unhealthy lifestyle, including improper diet, stress situations and sedentary lifestyle are the main risk supporting the formation of hypertension, elevated blood sugar, blood lipid levels, increased weight and obesity, and consequently the formation of chronic diseases such as cardio-vascular system, cancer or diabetes. A significant improvement in the health and prosperity of the population has also become one of the objectives of the new European policy for health. The present paper briefly describes the situation regarding the development of population mortality with the most common diseases of civilization in the European Union, and consequently seeks for alternatives in order to improve the quality of health. Standardised death rates of selected causes of death are compared between countries using time series analysis. Correlation and regression analysis of some socio-economic indicators and mortality rates will answer the question whether there is a statistically significant dependency between socio-economic indicators and selected demographic rates. Expected is a statistically significant association between socio-economic situation in the EU Member States and standardised mortality rates, life expectancy at birth rates or healthy life years.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"96 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116532868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Institutionalised and Non-Institutionalised Exemptions from EU Public Procurement Law: Towards a More Coherent Approach?","authors":"W. Janssen","doi":"10.18352/ULR.307","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18352/ULR.307","url":null,"abstract":"From a EU public procurement law perspective, contracting authorities have a discretionary power to decide upon who is allowed and best suited to provide public services to the public. When public authorities deem the in-house performance of a service to be the most suitable, the Court of Justice of the EU has allowed these authorities to rely on the institutionalised and non-institutionalised exemptions, which exempt a possible duty to contract out a public contract. The first part of this contribution discusses the recent codification of these exemptions in Article 12 Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement. It concludes that this codification creates some legal certainty, but it mostly expands the scope of these exemptions from public procurement law. The second part of this contribution proposes a more coherent approach for these exemptions by discussing the challenges of regulating and enforcing the pre-procurement phase (the make-or-buy decision) in which a public authority decides to favour the internal or external performance of a service. It concludes by providing legal perspectives to regulate and enforce this decision-making phase.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"106 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114008655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comparing Wealth - Data Quality of the HFCS","authors":"Anita Tiefensee, M. Grabka","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2533371","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2533371","url":null,"abstract":"The Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) provides information about household wealth (real and financial assets as well as liabilities) from 15 Euro‐countries after the financial crisis of 2007/8. The survey will be the central dataset in this topic in the future. However, several aspects point to potential methodological constraints regarding crosscountry comparability. Therefore the aim of this paper is to get a better insight in the data quality of this important data source. We will first present a synopsis of cross‐country differences, which is the core of the paper. We will compare the sampling processes, the interview modes, the oversampling techniques, the unit and item non‐response rates and how itis dealt with them via weighing and imputation as well as further points which might restrict country comparability. In addition we give a first insight in the selectivity of item nonresponse in a cross‐national setting. We make use of logit models as well as apply a decomposition method suggested by Fairlie (1999, 2005) to identify differences in characteristics as well as structural (cultural) differences in the item non‐response missing process.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131213166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Global Sustainable Development Governance","authors":"T. Pegram","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2518015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2518015","url":null,"abstract":"Effective implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) may be dependent upon domestic configurations of institutions and political will, but the irreducible nature of the challenge demands a global governance component. Myriad developmental issues are transboundary in character, from forest stewardship, to soil fertility, desertification and air pollution. Solutions to other goals first proposed in the agreement of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio in 2012 (Rio 20), such as poverty eradication, non-communicable disease control, health system reform and educational provision, are conventionally regarded as embedded principally in domestic (read: sovereign) political and institutional processes. But they also have a crucial global dimension – especially as policy space for transformative thinking on public goods delivery is increasingly circumscribed by prescriptive economic models and expansive transnational trade regulation. The massive scope of the SDGs poses a significant global governance dilemma, risking a potential retreat into silo particularisms and policy prescriptions which do not account for the cross-cutting nature of many of the goals, or, equally problematic, an overambitious governance frame which identifies all of these issues as facets of the same problem, but offers little in the way of concrete solutions. This paper provides an overview of a long history of goal-setting in global governance for sustainable development and highlights a number of pending challenges, including: a lack of normative clarity regarding the sustainable development norm; a stagnation in international law; profusion of private rule-systems; fragmentation in the UN sustainable development complex; and the challenge of rightful authority in the absence of an apex coordinating organisation.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126894498","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Supply-Side Barriers to Cross-Border E-Commerce in the EU Digital Single Market","authors":"Melisande Cardona, B. Martens","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2518460","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2518460","url":null,"abstract":"Between 2009 and 2012 the percentage of online consumers in the EU who made online purchases in another EU Member State increased from 8 to 11 per cent, below the target of 20 per cent put forward in the EU Digital Agenda. Both, subjective perceptions on the consumer side or objective barriers on the supply side can play a role. This study uses a mystery shopping survey to measure the relative importance of supply side barriers. While 97 per cent of domestic orders lead to a successful shipment, we find that suppliers accepted to ship only 48 per cent of all cross-border online orders. This high failure rate may overstate the ordinary consumer experience because of the artificiality of the mystery shopping trade patterns. We therefore focus on the factors that drive success and failure. A shared language between buyer and supplier countries increased and size of the goods decreased the chances of success. Goods that are subject to geographical sales restrictions (vertical agreements) between producers, wholesalers and retailers are the least likely to be available for online cross-border orders. This may indicate that restrictions in competition in offline markets are spilling over to online markets and prevent the realization of some of the benefits of e-commerce. We conclude that regional integration in digital markets is constrained by the lack of integration in traditional bricks & mortar markets.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125850477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Macroeconomic Potentials of Transatlantic Free Trade: A High Resolution Perspective for Europe and the World","authors":"Gabriel Felbermayr, Benedikt Heid, Mario Larch, Erdal Yalcin","doi":"10.1093/EPOLIC/EIV009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/EPOLIC/EIV009","url":null,"abstract":"Critics of the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) dismiss its potential welfare gains as small compared with its risks. We contribute to this debate by investigating the driving forces behind the magnitudes of the estimated welfare gains using the structurally estimated general equilibrium trade model by Egger and Larch (2011) for 173 countries. In our baseline scenario, the TTIP amounts to a reduction of ad valorem trade costs across the Atlantic between 16 and 26 percentage points. We find that the TTIP could yield substantial gains for the EU (3.9%), the United States (4.9%), and the world (+1.6%). While welfare gains are heterogeneous within the EU, the TTIP does not systematically favour richer or more central member states. The majority of third countries would be negatively affected (0.9% on average). We identify as key drivers for the magnitudes of the welfare effects different assumptions about trade cost specifications, about the assumed trade cost reducing potential of the TTIP, about different levels of aggregation, and about the regulatory spill-overs of the TTIP on third countries. Our insights on the drivers for the welfare effects help to understand differences across current evaluations of the TTIP.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"141 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115537143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Russia’s Foreign Trade in June 2014","authors":"N. Volovik","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2500117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2500117","url":null,"abstract":"Russia’s foreign trade turnover shrank in June 2014. At the same time, Russian export stagnation observed in the last months changed for the worse and began falling. Sanctions against Russia and retaliati on measures taken by the Russian government most likely will lead to the fall in Russia’s foreign trade indices.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132347145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}