Companies within Artificial Intelligence are receiving increased international attention in many industries and the technology is affecting the everyday life of many people, with or without their knowledge. Simultaneous to this development, the BRIC countries have gained a spot in the global sitting room due to their rapid growth and industrialisation, which in its turn has made way for vast business opportunities. The purpose of this thesis has therefore been to explore how Artificial Intelligence companies utilise these opportunities and internationalise to the BRIC countries. This has been done through a qualitative study where four cases have been interviewed to explore whether traditional or new internationalisation processes are applicable in this context. Additionally, the drivers and barriers of this market expansion have been researched to broaden the view of the process. The findings reveal that Artificial Intelligence business is global and that networks are significant in the success of internationalising to the BRIC countries. It is also found that there are great drivers and challenging barriers that affect the decision to enter the BRIC countries and the success in these markets. Lastly, several topics for future research are presented in the hope of encouraging more contributions to the field.

Today there is a great interest in the strategic markets or priority markets in the world. The list includes such countries as Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, USA, Vietnam. World find them priority because they hide a great potential and dispose of large amount of wealth, important for the future prosperous development of the whole world. It is clear that other economies that are not in the list, try to establish business relations with these countries and strengthen their positions on their markets. All BRIC countries are currently considered as the priority markets. In my work I tried to describe the current situation in the development of bilateral trade relations between the Czech republic and the BRIC countries. BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) - a young forum of strengthening dialogue and cooperation with major countries among the dynamically developing countries, whose role in the global economy and politics is constantly increasing. During the last decade the BRIC countries became the "locomotive" of economic development in the world. Approximately 50% of world GDP growth in 2010, including the period after the crisis, was produced by BRIC countries. The Czech Republic is a relatively small economy, for which penetration to international trade plays an important role, and therefore for Czech exporters should BRIC markets become in the near term the main object of concentration.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether economic growth in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) can be explained by changes in the oil price, with a focus on selected macroeconomic variables. We will also investigate if there are any differences in oil price effects on economic growth between the BRIC countries and the western world (G7). The model used is a Koyck transformation model developed by Leendert Marinus Koyck in 1954, which converts a distributed lag model into an autoregressive model. The data used in this thesis covers 11 countries and their quarterly data for the variables: real interest rate, oil price, US dollar exchange rates and current account (exports-imports), which are all economically and theoretical linked to the dependent variable, real GDP. Our distributed lag model will include past values of real GDP as well as oil price. These explanatory variables will be lagged up to 4 periods, where one period is equal to one quarter of a year.   The findings showed a relationship between oil price changes and economic growth. However there are no consistent results for how the oil price affects GDP, neither for the BRIC countries nor the western countries. Furthermore, in the case of the BRIC countries, the cluster generated divided results: A possible reason for these differences were oil exports/imports. For the western world, oil price changes and economic growth is positively correlated and the reason is probably the already existing oil-dependency. In our model both positive and negative results were found, but also an unknown variable affecting some of the countries. Whether it is consistent in each case needs to be analyzed further. From the findings and previous research one can conclude that there are no certain results of how oil price changes affect economic growth.

The aim of this study is to examine how European companies’ stock price is affected by an announcement about foreign direct investment in one of the BRIC countries. Another aim for the study is to examine if the market reacts differently to the three modes of entry methods in a given BRIC country and to examine if the market reacts differently to different European countries. The study also set out to answer if there were any effects of the three modes of entry that was visible a short time after the announcement.  To answer and examine this, the authors used the event study approach. The study was conducted with a sample of 47 companies from France, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Germany. The time period in which the study was conducted within was between the years 2001-2011. The three modes of entry that was examined were Joint Venture, Acquisition and organic expansion. The three modes of entry were submitted to conduct a hypothesis test to determine whether or not an abnormal return was created during the event window in which the announcement took place. A hypothesis test was also conducted during the post event window to determine if the announcement effect is visible a short time period after the announcement. The event window was 11 days, five days before the announcement and five days after the announcement. The post event window was 30 days after the event window. Companies with the same mode of entry in the same BRIC country were submitted to examine whether or not the announcement effect was different for the three modes of entry. Companies from the same European country were joined together after which BRIC country the announcements were about. The result of the study was that significant positive abnormal return was created during both the event and post event window. There were also modes of entry in which the announcement effect was visible a short time after the announcement.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences / Department of Government and Public Administration

In this thesis I study the investment climate in the four rapidly growing emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). The first study, Chapter 2, uses a bivariate EGARCH methodology with time varying conditional correlation to study the global and regional integration of the BRICs and to identify the existence of diversification opportunities for international investors. The second study, Chapter 3, employs a restricted version of the model to explore the relationship between equity market returns and volatility of equity returns in the BRIC countries and global oil prices. Chapter 4 is an extension of Chapter 3, and focuses on the sustainability of Russia???s economic growth in view of its large dependence on oil income. A qualitative analysis of the oil industry in Russia, including an overview of the operations of the largest oil producing companies, government regulations, oil production and proven oil reserves, is conducted for the purpose of this study. The last study, Chapter 5, uses a panel data methodology to explore the determinants of changes in sovereign bond spreads for the BRICs as an asset class and for each of the BRIC countries individually. I conclude that the regional and global level of integration of the BRICs is relatively low, and portfolio investors can enjoy sound diversification benefits particularly by taking investment positions in the Indian and Chinese equity markets. Despite the aggressive economic growth of the BRICs and their increased oil consumption, the volatility of stock returns from the BRICs does not have a significant impact on global oil prices; however, oil prices do impact the volatility of equity returns in India and China, and particularly the level of returns and volatility of equity returns in Russia. Based on this and the qualitative analysis in Chapter 4, it is concluded that in the short to medium term Russia???s continued economic growth will depend on increased reinvestment in the oil industry and in the longer term the government should diversify its revenue sources and focus on development of other sectors within the economy. Lastly, it is concluded that sovereign risk in the BRICs is driven by different global and country-specific factors, hence risk should be observed on an individual country basis and not for the BRICs as an asset class.

The debate about the influence of financial market development on economic growth has been ongoing for more than a century. Since Schumpeter (1912) wrote about the happenings on Lombard Street, right up to the economists of today, there is growing interest into how financial market development affects economic activity and hence economic growth. With economic growth gaining prominence in respect of development discourse, inquiry into the finance-growth nexus has grown rapidly. The latest advances of the finance-growth nexus show a positive relationship between financial market development and economic growth. In this regard, little research has been done globally pertaining to most recent economic developments, especially concerning the BRICS economies. This research investigates the influence of financial market development on emerging economies, BRICS and non-BRICS and to determine whether the openness of financial markets in BRICS economies contributed to higher growth trajectories compared to their non-BRICS counterparts. The research utilises the Generalised Method of Moments and an extended endogenous growth model to estimate the influence of a set of financial market indicators. The study found that higher levels of credit to the private sector and financial depth in the BRICS economies contributed to the higher levels of economic growth experienced in the BRICS compared to non-BRICs emerging economies.

This thesis goes through basic principles of industrial policy in developing countries and analyses examples of recent industrial policies in BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) in the last two decades. The analysis shows the coexistence of unsuccessful and fruitful stories of industrial policy implementation. In the text, I focus especially on the last two decades. I recognize that industrial policy can have a positive impact on economy in some cases, but on the other hand, government failures are frequent and they can result in deep distortions of economic systems and waste of resources. Since 90s', pro-active approach positively contributed to the growth primarily in China and India -- although the progress of these two countries differs substantially. These two countries were (and still are) relatively poorer than Russia and Brazil. Typically, industrial policy in BRIC countries broadly overrides problems of corporate governance, corrupt practices and bureaucratic burdens.

This study examines the fundamental determinants of bilateral trade flows between South Africa and BRIC countries. This is done by exploring the magnitude of exports among these countries. The Gravity model approach is used as the preferred theoretical framework in explaining and evaluating successfully the bilateral trade flows between South Africa and BRIC countries The empirical part of this study uses panel data methodology covering the time period 2000-2012 and incorporates the five BRICS economies in the sample. The results of the regressions are subject to panel diagnostic test procedures. The study reveals that, on the one hand, there are positive and significant relationships between South African export flows with the BRICs and distance, language dummy, the BRICs’ GDP, the BRICs’ openness and population in South Africa. On the other hand, GDP in South Africa, real exchange rate and time dummy are found to be negatively related to export flows. / Economics / M. Com. (Economics)

This study examines the fundamental determinants of bilateral trade flows between South Africa and BRIC countries. This is done by exploring the magnitude of exports among these countries. The Gravity model approach is used as the preferred theoretical framework in explaining and evaluating successfully the bilateral trade flows between South Africa and BRIC countries The empirical part of this study uses panel data methodology covering the time period 2000-2012 and incorporates the five BRICS economies in the sample. The results of the regressions are subject to panel diagnostic test procedures. The study reveals that, on the one hand, there are positive and significant relationships between South African export flows with the BRICs and distance, language dummy, the BRICs’ GDP, the BRICs’ openness and population in South Africa. On the other hand, GDP in South Africa, real exchange rate and time dummy are found to be negatively related to export flows. / Economics / M. Com. (Economics)