Copper trade and production of copper,brass and bronze goods in the Oldenburg monarchy: copperworks and copper users in the eighteenth century

This paper explores trade connections – or the lack of such – between copperworks and copper processing plants in the Oldenburg Monarchy in the eighteenth century. Domestic customs areas, high tariffs on raw material export and import bans sought to encourage domestic copper and brass goods production of Norwegian copper raw material, however this was only realised halfway. The raw material from Norway was largely exported, and copper and brass materials used to produce copper-, brass and bronze goods were imported from all over the world. The copperworks and processing plants in the Monarchy never became strongly integrated due to several reasons. First, shareholders of copperworks acquired favourable credit deals abroad, and preferred to export the copper, and second, copper materials had different features and processing plants used all sorts of copper inputs in the making of goods, not only copper raw material. Norway produced mostly gar copper, so copper plants and coppersmiths had to turn elsewhere for other types of copper. Production of copper and brass goods increased, but did not meet the domestic demand partly due to a strong foreign competition. The optimal goal of ‘mercantilist theory’ regarding copper and brass import substitution was not reached.     

Rise of the gold market in China: liberalisation and market development

The Chinese gold market is rapidly rising to global prominence in the recent decades. The paper reviews the history of the gold market in China and its liberalisation process amid the country’s opening to the outside world. Details of the current market structure and its main business are presented. Global impacts of the rise of the Chinese gold market are discussed.     

Effects of aid for trade on extensive and intensive margins of greenfield FDI

Using a panel dataset of 105 developing countries for the period 2003–15, this paper assesses the effects of Aid for Trade (AfT) on greenfield FDI flows to the aid‐recipient countries. Particularly, this paper classifies the total dollar value of greenfield FDI flows to each recipient country in terms of four different layers: the extensive and intensive margins of projects as well as the extensive and intensive margins of source countries. Applying the system GMM estimator, this paper finds that AfT not only increases the dollar value of FDI flows to the recipient countries but also helps diversify the greenfield projects and source countries. In addition, this paper finds that AfT has a greater effect for greenfield FDI from donor (developed) countries than from non‐donor (developing) countries. Among the three components of AfT, aid for trade‐related infrastructure and aid for trade policy regulations are found to have positive links with greenfield FDI, irrespective of source‐country groups, yet their effects are larger for developed source countries. In contrast, aid for building productive capacity hinders greenfield FDI flows from non‐donor countries, while it promotes greenfield FDI from donor countries. We offer some explanations for this finding.     

跨境电商对华商网络贸易的效应分析

在就跨境电商对华商网络贸易所具有的替代效应与互补效应进行理论分析的基础上，利用古诺模型分析市场均衡的结果及贸易效应，采用面板数据实证检验跨境电商对华商网络贸易的影响，结果表明跨境电商对华商网络贸易的互补效应大于替代效应：一方面，由于华商网络对出口贸易的影响尤为显著，而跨境电商平台又以出口贸易为主，从而跨境电商对华商网络出口贸易的影响较大；另一方面，跨境电商平台偏向于差异化产品贸易，因而跨境电商对差异化产品的华商网络贸易有着较大影响。也就是说，跨境电商对华商网络贸易的互补效应在出口贸易与差异化产品贸易上表现得尤为显著。     

互联网平台下商业模式创新的路径、经验和启示

互联网经济快速发展,基于互联网平台的企业创新行为具有鲜明的特色。纵向研究了三家企业的创新过程,发现互联网环境下,企业商业模式创新有三个特点:以客户为中心的战略准则,价值创造由企业转向客户;企业打破边界,加强合作伙伴之间的协同和柔性,大幅提高创新效率;企业提高管理不确定的能力,领导者、企业文化、管理模式帮助企业应对不确定性。同时,提出当前创新模式存在核心技术缺乏、生产端缺乏创新的潜在风险,并提出创新发展的建议:加强生产端互联网的建设,提高创新质量;深化完善商业生态系统建设,提高商业系统整体的创新能力。     

Access to Finance,Financial Development and Firm Ability to Export: Experience from Asia–Pacific Countries

With particular reference to Asia–Pacific countries, the present study examines how access to finance and financial development affects firms’ ability to enter export markets. Using firm‐level data from the World Bank Enterprises Survey, we found that access to finance plays a significant role in improving firms’ ability to export. In addition, development of the financial sector fosters export market entry. Among the financial development indicators, reach of the banking sector variable is most prominent. The present study suggests that improvements in access to finance and financial development (increases in the reach of the banking sector) enable firms operating away from capital or major cities to enter export markets easily. The present study supports policy intervention to strengthen access to the financial sector, which would encourage firms to export, and to facilitate export market entry for remotely located firms.     

Does the US EXIM Bank really promote US exports?

This paper investigates the impact of US Export‐Import Bank (EXIM ) on US exports particularly in the wake of international competition from foreign national export credit agencies (ECA s). We employ a gravity framework on a country‐industry‐year‐level panel data set that matches EXIM authorisations with US bilateral exports. Our results depict the general ineffectiveness of the Bank in promoting exports within and across industries. Some heterogeneities behind the general finding are also uncovered: industries other than aerospace parts and products are more likely to benefit from EXIM authorisations, and EXIM authorisations to larger businesses seem to be more effective in encouraging exports. Furthermore, we find no evidence that EXIM encourages US exports by offsetting foreign ECA competition. These results are neither affected by competing countries’ membership to the OECD Arrangement nor by the size of American firms that received EXIM support. Our results cast doubt on the ubiquitously positive claims made by the Bank and its supporters, yet also provide policy lessons for countries that are either in the inception stages of establishing their own ECA s or are now placing greater importance on ECA financing in encouraging exports.     

Talent management of skilled migrants: propositions and an agenda for future research

This paper unpacks the dominant conceptualizations of talent management (TM) in contemporary academic publications, and considers these in relation to the increasingly important workforce population of skilled international migrants. It postulates that TM approaches are generally built from a relatively narrow human capital-based perspective wherein organizations focus on readily accessible and immediate skills, ignoring the longer term strategic potential of the international workforce of skilled migrants, particularly for multinational enterprises and other international organizations. Through a series of propositions, the paper highlights how organizations, in strategically using a more comprehensive TM lens rather than a human capital lens in approaching the TM of skilled migrants, could benefit from improved HRM performance over time. It also proposes a research agenda, by which future studies might test, explore, and further develop understanding on a more strategic utilization of skilled migrants in organizations.     

Concentration behavior of the penalized least squares estimator

Consider the standard nonparametric regression model and take as estimator the penalized least squares function. In this article, we study the trade‐off between closeness to the true function and complexity penalization of the estimator, where complexity is described by a seminorm on a class of functions. First, we present an exponential concentration inequality revealing the concentration behavior of the trade‐off of the penalized least squares estimator around a nonrandom quantity, where such quantity depends on the problem under consideration. Then, under some conditions and for the proper choice of the tuning parameter, we obtain bounds for this nonrandom quantity. We illustrate our results with some examples that include the smoothing splines estimator.     

Factor Heterogeneity,Factor Market Imperfection and Trade

This paper develops a tractable model of examining how factor heterogeneity and imperfect factor market interact for determining a pattern of trade. Institution plays a crucial role for the interaction. In my work, firm productivity is defined as a composition of factor productivity and technology. Thus, input selection should affect the pattern of Melitz’s intra-industry allocation due to the incurring transaction cost. For a simple model, I assume two factors (labor and capital) and two sectors, which are relatively less institution-dependent and relatively more institution-dependent. When the economy is open, effect of the transaction cost on income distribution is more drastic for an institutionally underdeveloped country. Depending on institutional quality, the economic openness reallocates resource across countries through job creation or job destruction. The job turnovers redistribute income between heterogeneous labors within countries. The income redistribution is catalyzed by international mobility of capital. As a result, income disparity is widened between the institutionally developed country and the institutionally underdeveloped country. This paper can contribute to the literature of institution and international trade.