China and ASEAN are recognized as the most important markets in the world, hence they have emerged as global factories and parts production bases. And trade between China and ASEAN is rapidly expanding and ASEAN has taken position as one of China's three major trading partners. Over the last 20 years, there has been a rapid increase in intra-industry trade where differentiated products are traded within the same industries between China and ASEAN countries. Empirical analysis on determinants of the international specialization structure between China and ASEAN countries shows that the deepening structure of vertical international specialization between the two regions over the past 20 years has been directly influenced by variables representing national characteristics, such as distance (trading cost), common language, the size of the national economy and income gap as well as intra-regional foreign direct investment.
{"title":"Trade Patterns and Determinants of International Specialization Structure between ASEAN and China","authors":"J. Cheong, Hokyung Bang","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2500077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2500077","url":null,"abstract":"China and ASEAN are recognized as the most important markets in the world, hence they have emerged as global factories and parts production bases. And trade between China and ASEAN is rapidly expanding and ASEAN has taken position as one of China's three major trading partners. Over the last 20 years, there has been a rapid increase in intra-industry trade where differentiated products are traded within the same industries between China and ASEAN countries. Empirical analysis on determinants of the international specialization structure between China and ASEAN countries shows that the deepening structure of vertical international specialization between the two regions over the past 20 years has been directly influenced by variables representing national characteristics, such as distance (trading cost), common language, the size of the national economy and income gap as well as intra-regional foreign direct investment.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124133998","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}
The discipline of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) gained traction against the exponential growth in mobile phone connectivity. There has been a multitude of projects, services, applications and even policies that aim to leverage the mobile phone to contribute to the broader development of society. This has gone hand in hand with much academic interest in understanding the effects of mobile phone connectivity on development. However it is only of late that attention is being paid to posing development related questions to the basic data artifacts that are left behind by society when consuming mobile phone services. These artifacts come under the class of Transaction Generated Data (TGD) having been recorded by mobile phone operators when certain events (for e.g. when one makes a call) occur for the purposes of billing and network optimization. Given the volumes of TGD that is produced it also falls under the category of Big Data. Big data is an amorphous category that could, for instance, include data from an astronomical observatory or the full text of all the digitized books from the 20th century. Like many others, the 2011 McKinsey Global Institute report on Big Data focuses solely on the "big" in defining the term: "Big data refers to datasets whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage, and analyze" (Manyika et al., 2011). This definition is intentionally subjective and incorporates a moving definition of how big a dataset needs to be in order to be considered big data with the implicit assumption that as technology advances over time, the size of datasets that qualify as big data will also increase. Also note that the definition can vary by sector, depending on what kinds of software tools are commonly available and what sizes of datasets are common in a particular industry. With those caveats, big data in many sectors today will range from a few dozen terabytes to multiple petabytes (thousands of terabytes). Gartner (2011) introduced additional important definitional characteristics in addition to volume, namely velocity and variety. Velocity refers to the speed at which data is generated, assessed and analyzed. The term "Variety" encompasses the fact that data can exist as different media (text, audio, video) and come in different format (structured and unstructured). Value is a fourth definitional characteristic that acknowledges the potential high socio-economic value that may be generated by Big Data (Jones, 2012). Included within its scope is the category of transaction-generated data (TGD), also sometimes described as "data exhaust." This category was first discussed in 1991, though the term then used was transaction-generated information. The value of this subset of big data is that it is directly connected to human behavior and its accuracy is generally high because the data is generated for a purpose, such as the completion of telephone call or a c
信息和通信技术促进发展(ICT4D)学科在移动电话连接呈指数增长的情况下获得了牵引力。有大量的项目、服务、应用程序甚至政策旨在利用手机为社会的更广泛发展做出贡献。这与学术界对理解移动电话连接对发展的影响的兴趣密切相关。然而，直到最近，人们才开始注意到，在使用移动电话服务时，社会遗留下来的基本数据工件会带来与发展相关的问题。这些工件属于交易生成数据(Transaction Generated Data, TGD)一类，当某些事件(例如，当一个人打电话时)发生时，由移动电话运营商记录下来，用于计费和网络优化。考虑到产生的TGD的数量，它也属于大数据的范畴。大数据是一个无定形的类别，例如，它可以包括来自天文台的数据或20世纪以来所有数字化书籍的全文。与许多其他报告一样，2011年麦肯锡全球研究所关于大数据的报告在定义术语时只关注“大”:“大数据是指其规模超出典型数据库软件工具捕获、存储、管理和分析能力的数据集”(Manyika et al.， 2011)。这个定义是主观的，它包含了一个不断变化的定义，即数据集需要多大才能被认为是大数据，同时隐含的假设是，随着技术的进步，符合大数据标准的数据集的规模也会增加。还需要注意的是，定义可能因行业而异，这取决于什么类型的软件工具是常用的，以及特定行业中常见的数据集的大小。有了这些注意事项，今天许多领域的大数据将从几十太字节到几千太字节不等。Gartner(2011)介绍了除了数量之外的其他重要定义特征，即速度和多样性。速度是指数据生成、评估和分析的速度。“多样性”一词包含了这样一个事实，即数据可以作为不同的媒体(文本、音频、视频)存在，并以不同的格式(结构化和非结构化)出现。价值是第四个定义特征，它承认大数据可能产生的潜在的高社会经济价值(Jones, 2012)。它的范围包括事务生成数据(TGD)类别，有时也被描述为“数据耗尽”。这个类别最早是在1991年讨论的，不过当时使用的术语是事务生成的信息。这个大数据子集的价值在于它与人类行为直接相关，而且由于数据是为了某种目的而产生的，例如完成电话呼叫或商业交易，因此其准确性通常很高。TGD具有更广泛发展的巨大潜力，并已被用于预测流感趋势、预测失业、了解社会关系和整体社会经济福利等。然而，与发达国家不同，发展中国家唯一具有广泛社会经济覆盖的综合大数据流是电信网络产生的数据流，因为商业银行和超市等无法触及大多数人。正如国际电联在《2013年衡量信息社会》报告中所指出的那样，尽管互联网接入在发展中经济体增长迅速，但截至2013年底，发展中经济体的总体家庭互联网普及率预计仅为28%，而发达经济体则接近80%。然而，全球基本移动用户几乎达到96%的峰值(ITU, 2013年)。因此，在短期内，与互联网无关的移动网络大数据是社会经济覆盖范围最广的。不仅在发达经济体，而且在发展中经济体，这种数据已经被用于发展和监测。因此本文的重点主要是针对移动网络大数据进行开发。本政策文件旨在启发发展中经济体的政策制定者，从移动网络TGD中提取有关移动性、连接性和消费的一系列行为见解。重要的是，本文还讨论了如何在交通、卫生和经济发展等多个政策领域利用这些见解。
{"title":"Behavioral Insights for Development from Mobile Network Big Data: Enlightening Policy Makers on the State of the Art","authors":"Sriganesh Lokanathan, Roshanthi Lucas Gunaratne","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2522814","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2522814","url":null,"abstract":"The discipline of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) gained traction against the exponential growth in mobile phone connectivity. There has been a multitude of projects, services, applications and even policies that aim to leverage the mobile phone to contribute to the broader development of society. This has gone hand in hand with much academic interest in understanding the effects of mobile phone connectivity on development. However it is only of late that attention is being paid to posing development related questions to the basic data artifacts that are left behind by society when consuming mobile phone services. These artifacts come under the class of Transaction Generated Data (TGD) having been recorded by mobile phone operators when certain events (for e.g. when one makes a call) occur for the purposes of billing and network optimization. Given the volumes of TGD that is produced it also falls under the category of Big Data. Big data is an amorphous category that could, for instance, include data from an astronomical observatory or the full text of all the digitized books from the 20th century. Like many others, the 2011 McKinsey Global Institute report on Big Data focuses solely on the \"big\" in defining the term: \"Big data refers to datasets whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage, and analyze\" (Manyika et al., 2011). This definition is intentionally subjective and incorporates a moving definition of how big a dataset needs to be in order to be considered big data with the implicit assumption that as technology advances over time, the size of datasets that qualify as big data will also increase. Also note that the definition can vary by sector, depending on what kinds of software tools are commonly available and what sizes of datasets are common in a particular industry. With those caveats, big data in many sectors today will range from a few dozen terabytes to multiple petabytes (thousands of terabytes). Gartner (2011) introduced additional important definitional characteristics in addition to volume, namely velocity and variety. Velocity refers to the speed at which data is generated, assessed and analyzed. The term \"Variety\" encompasses the fact that data can exist as different media (text, audio, video) and come in different format (structured and unstructured). Value is a fourth definitional characteristic that acknowledges the potential high socio-economic value that may be generated by Big Data (Jones, 2012). Included within its scope is the category of transaction-generated data (TGD), also sometimes described as \"data exhaust.\" This category was first discussed in 1991, though the term then used was transaction-generated information. The value of this subset of big data is that it is directly connected to human behavior and its accuracy is generally high because the data is generated for a purpose, such as the completion of telephone call or a c","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127819548","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}
The income convergence literature suggests that poor countries can catch-up to rich ones conditional on sharing certain characteristics with rich countries. Good institutions such as strong property rights and rule-of-law are key amongst those characteristics. From a policy perspective this is disheartening because economists have little understanding of how to transplant those institutions to developing countries. Worse, good informal institutions seem to be a necessary condition for formal institutions to "stick". However, to the extent that good institutions can arise as a "spontaneous order" from individuals interacting with one another, allowing for an "open society" may be an effective development policy. To evaluate this proposition we explore whether or not increased globalization fosters income convergence. Based on a panel of up to 184 countries covering the years 1970 to 2009 we conclude that it does. In particular, the social dimension (as opposed to the economic or political dimensions) of globalization is robustly related to income convergence.
{"title":"Globalization and Income Convergence","authors":"Kaitlyn R. Harger, A. Young","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2376446","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2376446","url":null,"abstract":"The income convergence literature suggests that poor countries can catch-up to rich ones conditional on sharing certain characteristics with rich countries. Good institutions such as strong property rights and rule-of-law are key amongst those characteristics. From a policy perspective this is disheartening because economists have little understanding of how to transplant those institutions to developing countries. Worse, good informal institutions seem to be a necessary condition for formal institutions to \"stick\". However, to the extent that good institutions can arise as a \"spontaneous order\" from individuals interacting with one another, allowing for an \"open society\" may be an effective development policy. To evaluate this proposition we explore whether or not increased globalization fosters income convergence. Based on a panel of up to 184 countries covering the years 1970 to 2009 we conclude that it does. In particular, the social dimension (as opposed to the economic or political dimensions) of globalization is robustly related to income convergence.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133990115","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}
Paul Viefers, Ferdinand Fichtner, Simon Junker, Maximilian Podstawski
This paper presents a revised version of the DIW Economic Barometer, the business cycle index of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). As in earlier versions, we put forward a factor model on a monthly frequency to filter the latent state of the aggregate economy. In the new version, the resulting business cycle factor is based on more than 300 variables. The main methodological changes relate to (i) the estimation procedure, (ii) treatment of publication lags and missings, and (iii) the decomposition of the index into contributions from different sectors of the economy. Alongside several practical advantages, we also document a better historical nowcasting performance of the new index.
{"title":"Filtering German Economic Conditions from a Large Dataset: The New DIW Economic Barometer","authors":"Paul Viefers, Ferdinand Fichtner, Simon Junker, Maximilian Podstawski","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2503892","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2503892","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents a revised version of the DIW Economic Barometer, the business cycle index of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). As in earlier versions, we put forward a factor model on a monthly frequency to filter the latent state of the aggregate economy. In the new version, the resulting business cycle factor is based on more than 300 variables. The main methodological changes relate to (i) the estimation procedure, (ii) treatment of publication lags and missings, and (iii) the decomposition of the index into contributions from different sectors of the economy. Alongside several practical advantages, we also document a better historical nowcasting performance of the new index.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"73 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122831028","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}
This paper analyzes how firms decide where to patent in a heterogeneous firm model of trade with endogenous rival entry. In the model, innovating firms compete with rival firms on price, where rivals force the innovating firm to reduce markups and lower the innovating firm's probability of obtaining monopolistic profits. Patenting allows the innovating firm to reduce the number of rival rms by increasing their fixed overhead costs, thereby providing higher expected profits and increased markups from reduced competition. Countries with higher states of technology, more competition and better patent protection have a greater proportion of entrants who patent. Industries tend to follow a U-shaped pattern of patenting where industries with high heterogeneity in production and low substitution, along with industries with low heterogeneity in production and high substitution patent more frequently. Using a generalized framework of the model, I estimate market-based measures of country-level patent protection, which when compared with other IP indices, suggests that not enough international patenting is taking place. Finally, I test the predictions of the model using a newly available technology-to-industry concordance on bilateral patent flows and show that firms are increasingly sensitive to foreign IP protection. Countries that choose to maximize their IP protection can increase the number of foreign patents by almost 10%.
{"title":"International Patenting Strategies with Heterogeneous Firms","authors":"Nikolas J. Zolas","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2523438","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2523438","url":null,"abstract":"This paper analyzes how firms decide where to patent in a heterogeneous firm model of trade with endogenous rival entry. In the model, innovating firms compete with rival firms on price, where rivals force the innovating firm to reduce markups and lower the innovating firm's probability of obtaining monopolistic profits. Patenting allows the innovating firm to reduce the number of rival rms by increasing their fixed overhead costs, thereby providing higher expected profits and increased markups from reduced competition. Countries with higher states of technology, more competition and better patent protection have a greater proportion of entrants who patent. Industries tend to follow a U-shaped pattern of patenting where industries with high heterogeneity in production and low substitution, along with industries with low heterogeneity in production and high substitution patent more frequently. Using a generalized framework of the model, I estimate market-based measures of country-level patent protection, which when compared with other IP indices, suggests that not enough international patenting is taking place. Finally, I test the predictions of the model using a newly available technology-to-industry concordance on bilateral patent flows and show that firms are increasingly sensitive to foreign IP protection. Countries that choose to maximize their IP protection can increase the number of foreign patents by almost 10%.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"63 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128779621","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}
In the field of corporate rebranding, which is an emerging area of research, the literature consists largely of descriptive case studies that are scattered across diverse contexts. These studies take divergent theoretical perspectives that often inform only aspects of rebranding, leaving researchers and managers without a comprehensive understanding of the corporate rebranding process. In adopting a holistic theory of corporate rebranding to organize a review of the literature, this study aims to present an integrated review of the major enablers and barriers to corporate rebranding, with special attention to contextual factors. Through an examination of 76 cases in 61 articles, the paper contributes a new general model of corporate rebranding. Unlike previous models of corporate rebranding, the new model incorporates both single- and multi-phase enablers and barriers. Critical to successful corporate rebranding are the identification and application of six major enablers, including strong rebranding leadership and coordination among multiple functions and stakeholder groups. The new model suggests directions for future research, and the paper discusses how managers can use the model to inform rebranding practice and improve corporate rebranding outcomes.
{"title":"Corporate Rebranding: An Integrative Review of Major Enablers and Barriers to the Rebranding Process","authors":"Dale Miller, B. Merrilees, Raisa Yakimova","doi":"10.1111/ijmr.12020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12020","url":null,"abstract":"In the field of corporate rebranding, which is an emerging area of research, the literature consists largely of descriptive case studies that are scattered across diverse contexts. These studies take divergent theoretical perspectives that often inform only aspects of rebranding, leaving researchers and managers without a comprehensive understanding of the corporate rebranding process. In adopting a holistic theory of corporate rebranding to organize a review of the literature, this study aims to present an integrated review of the major enablers and barriers to corporate rebranding, with special attention to contextual factors. Through an examination of 76 cases in 61 articles, the paper contributes a new general model of corporate rebranding. Unlike previous models of corporate rebranding, the new model incorporates both single- and multi-phase enablers and barriers. Critical to successful corporate rebranding are the identification and application of six major enablers, including strong rebranding leadership and coordination among multiple functions and stakeholder groups. The new model suggests directions for future research, and the paper discusses how managers can use the model to inform rebranding practice and improve corporate rebranding outcomes.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115437466","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}
Much of the recent research on civil war treats explanations rooted in political and economic grievances with considerable suspicion and claims that there is little empirical evidence of any relationship between ethnicity or inequality and political violence. We argue that common indicators used in previous research, such as the ethno-linguistic fractionalization (ELF) and the Gini coefficient for income dispersion, fail to capture fundamental aspects of political exclusion and economic inequality that can motivate conflict. Drawing on insights from group-level research, we develop new country-level indices that directly reflect inequalities among ethnic groups, including political discrimination and wealth differentials along ethnic lines. Our analysis reveals that these theoretically informed country profiles are much better predictors of civil war onset than conventional inequality indicators, even when we control for a number of alternative factors potentially related to grievances or opportunities for conflict.
{"title":"Square Pegs in Round Holes: Inequalities, Grievances, and Civil War","authors":"Halvard Buhaug, L. Cederman, K. Gleditsch","doi":"10.1111/ISQU.12068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ISQU.12068","url":null,"abstract":"Much of the recent research on civil war treats explanations rooted in political and economic grievances with considerable suspicion and claims that there is little empirical evidence of any relationship between ethnicity or inequality and political violence. We argue that common indicators used in previous research, such as the ethno-linguistic fractionalization (ELF) and the Gini coefficient for income dispersion, fail to capture fundamental aspects of political exclusion and economic inequality that can motivate conflict. Drawing on insights from group-level research, we develop new country-level indices that directly reflect inequalities among ethnic groups, including political discrimination and wealth differentials along ethnic lines. Our analysis reveals that these theoretically informed country profiles are much better predictors of civil war onset than conventional inequality indicators, even when we control for a number of alternative factors potentially related to grievances or opportunities for conflict.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114230309","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}
Over the last few years, the European Commission adopted a number of important State aid decisions in the postal sector. One of these decisions concerned the compensation granted by the Belgian Government to bpost for the delivery of services of general economic interest (“SGEIs”) over 2013-2015. Among these SGEIs figure the early delivery of newspapers and the distribution of periodicals at reduced prices (the “Press Distribution SGEI”), which the Belgian Government considers as “particularly important to ensure a wide distribution of the written press throughout Belgium in order to enhance the level of information and diversity of opinion, and to foster public participation in the political debate.” As regards the Press Distribution SGEI, the Belgian authorities committed to organize a competitive, transparent and non-discriminatory tendering procedure with a view to award a service concession at national level by end of 2014 to the selected operator that will take over the provision of press distribution SGEI as of 1 January 2016. This paper addresses some of the key questions faced by the Belgian Governement with respect to the organisation of the tender for Press Distribution SGEI. Given the limited experience in tendering SGEIs in Europe, this is a challenging exercise, which the Commission will look at with a keen interest given its insistence that compensation for the provision of SGEIs be attributed through a tendering procedure. While the Altmark judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) suggested that tendering a SGEI may be one of the ways in which the compensation paid for the provision of this service could escape the State aid qualification, the Commission’s so-called “SGEI Package” makes it clear that the tendering of SGEIs is compulsory if the contracting authority wants to ensure that the compensation is not qualified as State aid. Against this background, this paper is divided in five sections. Section II briefly analyses the Altmark decision and the Commission’s SGEI package with a specific focus on the 2012 Communication of the Commission on the application of the European Union (“EU”) State aid rules to compensation granted for the provision of services of general economic interest (the “Communication”), which elaborates on the so-called Altmark conditions. Section III discusses some of the challenges suggested by international experience with respect to the organisation of tenders. As will be seen, tendering may be affected by the irrational behaviour of some tenderers (the so-called “winner’s curse”), as well as strategic behaviour (“moral hazard”) with the risk that the service is not provided at the right level of quality or is even discontinued. Section IV analyses these challenges in the context of the Belgian tender for the Press Distribution SGEI and suggests ways in which they can be addressed. Finally, Section V briefly concludes.
{"title":"The Belgian Governement's Tender for the Press Distribution SGEI – Issues for Discussion","authors":"D. Geradin","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2432877","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2432877","url":null,"abstract":"Over the last few years, the European Commission adopted a number of important State aid decisions in the postal sector. One of these decisions concerned the compensation granted by the Belgian Government to bpost for the delivery of services of general economic interest (“SGEIs”) over 2013-2015. Among these SGEIs figure the early delivery of newspapers and the distribution of periodicals at reduced prices (the “Press Distribution SGEI”), which the Belgian Government considers as “particularly important to ensure a wide distribution of the written press throughout Belgium in order to enhance the level of information and diversity of opinion, and to foster public participation in the political debate.” As regards the Press Distribution SGEI, the Belgian authorities committed to organize a competitive, transparent and non-discriminatory tendering procedure with a view to award a service concession at national level by end of 2014 to the selected operator that will take over the provision of press distribution SGEI as of 1 January 2016. This paper addresses some of the key questions faced by the Belgian Governement with respect to the organisation of the tender for Press Distribution SGEI. Given the limited experience in tendering SGEIs in Europe, this is a challenging exercise, which the Commission will look at with a keen interest given its insistence that compensation for the provision of SGEIs be attributed through a tendering procedure. While the Altmark judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) suggested that tendering a SGEI may be one of the ways in which the compensation paid for the provision of this service could escape the State aid qualification, the Commission’s so-called “SGEI Package” makes it clear that the tendering of SGEIs is compulsory if the contracting authority wants to ensure that the compensation is not qualified as State aid. Against this background, this paper is divided in five sections. Section II briefly analyses the Altmark decision and the Commission’s SGEI package with a specific focus on the 2012 Communication of the Commission on the application of the European Union (“EU”) State aid rules to compensation granted for the provision of services of general economic interest (the “Communication”), which elaborates on the so-called Altmark conditions. Section III discusses some of the challenges suggested by international experience with respect to the organisation of tenders. As will be seen, tendering may be affected by the irrational behaviour of some tenderers (the so-called “winner’s curse”), as well as strategic behaviour (“moral hazard”) with the risk that the service is not provided at the right level of quality or is even discontinued. Section IV analyses these challenges in the context of the Belgian tender for the Press Distribution SGEI and suggests ways in which they can be addressed. Finally, Section V briefly concludes.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132056403","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}
This paper investigates the labor market effect of international migration on child work in countries of origin. We use an original cross-country survey dataset, which combines information on international migration with detailed individual-level data on child labor at age 5-14 in a wide range of developing countries. By exploiting both within- and cross-country variation and controlling for country fixed effects, we find a strong empirical regularity about the role of international mobility of workers in reducing child labor in disadvantaged households through changes in the local labor market.
{"title":"International Labour Mobility and Child Work in Developing Countries","authors":"Anna S. De Paoli, M. Mendola","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2427785","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2427785","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates the labor market effect of international migration on child work in countries of origin. We use an original cross-country survey dataset, which combines information on international migration with detailed individual-level data on child labor at age 5-14 in a wide range of developing countries. By exploiting both within- and cross-country variation and controlling for country fixed effects, we find a strong empirical regularity about the role of international mobility of workers in reducing child labor in disadvantaged households through changes in the local labor market.","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125947766","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}
German Abstract: Vor kurzem wurde Deutschland vom US Finanzminister Lew wegen seiner hohen Leistungsbilanzuberschusse kritisiert. Diese seien eine der Quellen fur die weiterhin andauernden strukturellen Ungleichgewichte der Weltwirtschaft. Die Europaische Kommission hat ebenfalls vor kurzem eine grundliche Analyse zu diesem Thema veroffentlicht. Im Unterschied hierzu verwendet dieser Beitrag einen Demand Growth Accounting Ansatz, um die jeweiligen Beitrage der Binnennachfrage sowie des Ausenbeitrags zum Wirtschaftswachstum des Bruttoinlandsprodukts fur die zuruckliegenden zweieinhalb Jahrzehnte, d.h. von 1992 bis 2013 plus der Prognosen fur dieses und das kommende Jahr basierend auf der aktuellsten Prognose der Gemeinschaftsdiagnose der fuhrenden Wirtschaftsforschungsinstitute dafur heranzuziehen. Damit soll etwas Licht in das Dunkel gebracht werden, inwieweit die Handelsbilanzuberschusse in der Tat der wesentliche Faktor fur das Wirtschaftswachstum Deutschlands anzusehen sind. Die Ergebnisse sind einigermasen uberraschend, wenn man die oben genannten Vorwurfe zur Grundlage nimmt. In den 1990er Jahren war das Wirtschaftswachstum ausschlieslich durch die Binnennachfrage bestimmt. Dies anderte sich dann in der Periode 2001 bis 2008 deutlich, als die gemeinsame Wahrung mit den andren Mitgliedslandern der Eurozone eingefuhrt worden ist. In dieser Periode war der Ausenbeitrag der Hauptfaktor fur das Wirtschaftswachstum in Deutschland. Nach 2008 jedoch kehrte die deutsche Wirtschaft wieder auf einen vorrangig durch die Binnennachfrage bestimmten Wachstumskurs zuruck. Legt man die aktuellen Prognosen fur dieses und das kommende Jahr zugrunde, dann wird derzeit der Ausenbeitrag keinen nennenswerten Beitrag zum deutschen Wirtschaftswachstum leisten. Eine wesentliche Ursache liegt darin, dass die Aus- und Einfuhrentwicklung hochgradig miteinander korreliert sind. Eine wesentliche Ursache hierfur liegt vermutlich in der dramatischen Restrukturierung der deutschen Wirtschaft insbesondere der exportorientierten Industrien in der Vergangenheit. Durch globales Sourcing und insbesondere neuer regionaler Wertschopfungsketten zwischen Deutschland und den osteuropaischen Landern konnte die deutsche Industrie ihre internationale Wettbewerbsfahigkeit zuruckgewinnen. Durch den intensiven Einsatz von Outsourcing und Offshore Outsourcing wurden diejenigen Teile der Wertschopfungskette ins Ausland verlagert wo niedrigere Lohnkosten masgeblich zu niedrigeren Gesamtkosten der deutschen Unternehmen beitrugen. Dieser Vorgang spielte eine wesentlich bedeutendere Rolle als die inlandischen Arbeitsmarktreformen der Agenda 2010. Deutschland profitiert seither von dem deutlich hoheren globalen Wirtschaftswachstum im Welthandel im Vergleich zum Binnenmarkt und seiner Spezialisierung seiner Industrie insbesondere auf Investitionsguter und Automobile der Premiumklasse. Der jetzt wieder deutlich mehr von der Binnennachfrage getriebene Wachstumsprozess ist im Wesentlichen auf jetzt wi
{"title":"Wächst Deutschland auf Kosten der übrigen Welt? (Does Germany Grow at the Expense of the Rest of the World?)","authors":"G. Erber","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2410137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2410137","url":null,"abstract":"German Abstract: Vor kurzem wurde Deutschland vom US Finanzminister Lew wegen seiner hohen Leistungsbilanzuberschusse kritisiert. Diese seien eine der Quellen fur die weiterhin andauernden strukturellen Ungleichgewichte der Weltwirtschaft. Die Europaische Kommission hat ebenfalls vor kurzem eine grundliche Analyse zu diesem Thema veroffentlicht. Im Unterschied hierzu verwendet dieser Beitrag einen Demand Growth Accounting Ansatz, um die jeweiligen Beitrage der Binnennachfrage sowie des Ausenbeitrags zum Wirtschaftswachstum des Bruttoinlandsprodukts fur die zuruckliegenden zweieinhalb Jahrzehnte, d.h. von 1992 bis 2013 plus der Prognosen fur dieses und das kommende Jahr basierend auf der aktuellsten Prognose der Gemeinschaftsdiagnose der fuhrenden Wirtschaftsforschungsinstitute dafur heranzuziehen. Damit soll etwas Licht in das Dunkel gebracht werden, inwieweit die Handelsbilanzuberschusse in der Tat der wesentliche Faktor fur das Wirtschaftswachstum Deutschlands anzusehen sind. Die Ergebnisse sind einigermasen uberraschend, wenn man die oben genannten Vorwurfe zur Grundlage nimmt. In den 1990er Jahren war das Wirtschaftswachstum ausschlieslich durch die Binnennachfrage bestimmt. Dies anderte sich dann in der Periode 2001 bis 2008 deutlich, als die gemeinsame Wahrung mit den andren Mitgliedslandern der Eurozone eingefuhrt worden ist. In dieser Periode war der Ausenbeitrag der Hauptfaktor fur das Wirtschaftswachstum in Deutschland. Nach 2008 jedoch kehrte die deutsche Wirtschaft wieder auf einen vorrangig durch die Binnennachfrage bestimmten Wachstumskurs zuruck. Legt man die aktuellen Prognosen fur dieses und das kommende Jahr zugrunde, dann wird derzeit der Ausenbeitrag keinen nennenswerten Beitrag zum deutschen Wirtschaftswachstum leisten. Eine wesentliche Ursache liegt darin, dass die Aus- und Einfuhrentwicklung hochgradig miteinander korreliert sind. Eine wesentliche Ursache hierfur liegt vermutlich in der dramatischen Restrukturierung der deutschen Wirtschaft insbesondere der exportorientierten Industrien in der Vergangenheit. Durch globales Sourcing und insbesondere neuer regionaler Wertschopfungsketten zwischen Deutschland und den osteuropaischen Landern konnte die deutsche Industrie ihre internationale Wettbewerbsfahigkeit zuruckgewinnen. Durch den intensiven Einsatz von Outsourcing und Offshore Outsourcing wurden diejenigen Teile der Wertschopfungskette ins Ausland verlagert wo niedrigere Lohnkosten masgeblich zu niedrigeren Gesamtkosten der deutschen Unternehmen beitrugen. Dieser Vorgang spielte eine wesentlich bedeutendere Rolle als die inlandischen Arbeitsmarktreformen der Agenda 2010. Deutschland profitiert seither von dem deutlich hoheren globalen Wirtschaftswachstum im Welthandel im Vergleich zum Binnenmarkt und seiner Spezialisierung seiner Industrie insbesondere auf Investitionsguter und Automobile der Premiumklasse. Der jetzt wieder deutlich mehr von der Binnennachfrage getriebene Wachstumsprozess ist im Wesentlichen auf jetzt wi","PeriodicalId":114907,"journal":{"name":"Global Business Issues eJournal","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133348616","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}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：