This dissertation examines the material culture of the Sino-British furniture trade in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the British East India Company began importing a large quantity of furniture made in Canton (Guangzhou), China. As the trade between Britain and China became standardized around 1720, this furniture became a part of the private trade carried out by merchants associated with Company. Unlike other objects of the China trade that fed into the vogue of chinoiserie, export furniture crafted with hardwoods from the Indian Ocean was produced in European designs of the time and thus was often indistinguishable from its Western counterparts. What cultural and economic values did export furniture represent in the early modern maritime trade and how did it reify the trans-regional movement of knowledge and taste between China and Britain? Going beyond the conventional perspective on export Chinese objects oriented toward European reception, I connect production with consumption in order to follow the trajectory of export furniture from its origins in the intra-Asian timber trade to its requisition and manufacture in Canton to its reception and use in both Britain and China, highlighting how this process linked the disparate spheres of commerce, knowledge production and distribution, and cultural practices. In the course of exploring these multiple dimensions of the object’s material life, this dissertation underscores export furniture’s bicultural and transcultural characteristics. Utilizing diverse sets of visual, material, and textual sources, each chapter of the dissertation investigates different aspects of the movement of furniture as an assemblage. Chapter 1 reconstructs the itinerary of export furniture as a commodity from the EIC timber trade between India and China to the ordering and shipping of the furniture for the British market. I show how the character of export furniture was shaped by the constraints of space and the economic, environmental, and epistemic contingencies of long distance travel and communication. Chapter 2 examines the influence of imported Asian rosewood – an important cabinet timber from which most hardwood Chinese export furniture was made – on early modern British arboreal knowledge. If the knowledge of rosewood in the seventeenth century was grounded in classical texts that defined it as a subshrub growing in the eastern Mediterranean region, in the eighteenth century the term came to refer to a hardwood species imported from tropical Asia. I argue that this change allowed rosewood to obtain a new status as a universal category in the botanical taxonomy, which collected, pruned, and ordered heterogeneous cultural and natural information associated with it into a neatly classified “cabinet” of universal knowledge. Chapter 3 returns to Canton to investigate Cantonese cabinetmakers and the production of export furniture. By reading the joinery of extant export furniture pieces, I show how Chinese artisans recreated foreign forms by mobilizing their embodied knowledge of craft rather than by imitating European joinery constructions. The details of this material translation not only reflect the flexibility and resilience of traditional Chinese craft but also illuminate the tacit knowledge and craft patterns of early modern Chinese artisans. Chapters 4 and 5 turn to the domain of consumption in Britain and China, respectively. Chapter 4 explores how Chinese cabinets were experienced in early modern Britain. Comparing lacquered and hardwood display cabinets, I show that Chinese cabinets were not just exotic objects; they played an active role in the evolution of the cabinet as a type of furniture in the domestic material culture and created an affective space both within themselves and in their ambient space that invited the bodily experience and imagination of the user-beholder. The final chapter examines the movement and adaptation of European round tables in mid-Qing Chinese material culture. Introduced by European mariners to Canton, the round tables quickly found their niche in local everyday life and eventually spread beyond Guangdong. I show how they partook in the formation of a new social dining practice that conveyed a new political vision of equality. As a whole, my dissertation argues that export furniture was a Eurasian object that embodied cross-cultural knowledge of craft and nature, and engendered new ideas of utility and sociability.

Due to limited sources available, Chinese scholars so far are slightly behind the Western scholars in the study of Chinese export porcelain. It is sincerely hope that the current in-depth analysis of Kraak porcelain will contribute to portray a more comprehensive picture of Chinese export porcelain. / Kraak porcelain is a type of Chinese export porcelain with unique features which was produced in the second half of the sixteenth century for European market. It was the earliest type of export porcelain of some scale and had distinct characteristics. In this attempt to understand the rich cultural significance of Kraak porcelain, interdisciplinary research methodologies have been integrated. They include documentary and textual studies (history), calculations and statistics (economics), archaeological typology and stylistic analysis (art history and archaeology). / The aim of the thesis is to carry out a detailed study of Kraak porcelain, in particular specimen from datable contexts and archaeological material, so as to better understand the provenance of Kraak porcelain, its period of production and changes at different stages. Based on the results of the above examinations, a preliminary study of the sale and distribution of Kraak porcelain has been carried out---an area which has been neglected. Related issues such as order placing, different requirements of patrons and export routes are also discussed. / 范夢園. / Adviser: Harold Kar-Leung Mok. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-03, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 248-267). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Fan Mengyuan.

Since the fifteenth century the rise of capitalism and the expansion of global trade networks have ensured that a wide range of consumer goods has become available to people from all walks of life. Paralleling these developments, our attitudes and beliefs about consumer goods have also changed: goods that were once considered luxuries have become commonplace in domestic households. This study celebrates the diversity of this material culture and the variety of symbolic meanings people attach to it. The US – China trade, as a facet of the Spice Trade, is inextricably linked to the development of capitalism and long-distance shipping that ensured the movement of consumer goods to markets around the world. Inevitably, many of these ships sank and archaeologically their cargoes and the artifacts associated with their crew provide an opportunity to glimpse the development of our modern world. This thesis uses the shipwreck Frolic (1850) as a case study to discuss how those involved in, and those who were supplied through, this trade used a range of consumer goods to construct distinct identities for themselves and those around them. This study also draws on a wide variety of source material, including material culture (museum collections and archaeological assemblages), images and documentary sources (courtesy literature and newspapers) to paint a broader picture of the US – China trade and consumer society than any one source is capable of doing itself. This study ultimately argues that the range in consumer goods associated with the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century US – China trade is symptomatic of the increasing complexity of consumer markets able to facilitate the establishment and maintenance of a wide array of consumer identities, necessary under the many new social, economic and ideological relationships constructed under capitalism.

This PhD thesis focuses on current issues of commercial risk in international trade, particularly on the evaluation of commercial risk when exporting to China. This PhD thesis presents initial theoretical framework for solution of the problem and also presents statistical results of primary research conducted for Czech exporters necessary to meet the objectives of the dissertation. The aim of this PhD thesis is to construct the model for assessment of commercial risks of exporting to China. The constructed model is probabilistic model, while outcoming results of resulting commercial risk rating based on the averaging of the probable costs or losses caused by the effects of commercial risk which may arise in exporting business entity at unsecured contract, and may take considerable values. The constructed model allows both, to calculate with costs in their absolute probable values as well as to calculate with costs in their relative values as percentages of the contract value. The issue of trade with China is broad and encompasses several disciplines. This implies a large potential for further research which aims in particular to the modeling of knowledge, and by extension created the probabilistic model to the knowledge model.

This thesis aims to analyze the impacts on U.S. and global sorghum trade, and whether China will continue importing sorghum from the global sorghum market for feed use, if the Chinese government cancels its corn price support policy and corn temporary reserve program nationwide. This study uses the USDA-ERS China Model and the Country-Commodity Linked System (CCLS) to simulate the impacts on U.S. sorghum exports and the reduction of sorghum's global price, global production, and global trade volumes. The simulations are based on three scenarios: if China's sorghum import volume decreased by 50% from USDA-ERS's baseline projection, if China's sorghum import volume decreased by 35% each year from the previous year, and if China's sorghum import volume decreased by 70% from USDA-ERS's baseline projection in year one and by 90% from USDA-ERS's baseline projection in subsequent years. The modeling system is a large scale multi-country and multi-commodity partial equilibrium dynamic simulation model which solves for global prices and trade using individual country models. Policy instruments are applied to the China model and solved globally. The USDA-ERS China Model and the CCLS, used to project Chinese and global sorghum trends, includes the following policy instruments: tariffs, quotas, tariff rate quotas, export tax, direct payments, input subsidies, and procurement policies. This model simulates projections using price and income elasticities and assumed values for exogenous variables such as income and population growth. This model also incorporates behavior of state trading enterprises and WTO commitments into imported and exported equations for sorghum. / Master of Science

This thesis consists of three chapters. The first two are regarding the political economy of international trade, the third is about empirical banking.Chapter 1 is titled "Suspiciously Timed Trade Disputes" and it is the result a joint work with Paola Conconi, David DeRemer, Georg Kirchsteiger, and Maurzio Zanardi. This Chapter is already published in the Volume 105 of the Journal of International Economics and it shows that electoral incentives crucially affect the initiation of trade disputes. Focusing on WTO disputes filed by the United States during the 1995-2014 period, we find that U.S. presidents are more likely to initiate a dispute in the year preceding their re-election. Moreover, U.S. trade disputes are more likely to involve industries that are important in swing states. To explain these regularities, we develop a theoretical model in which re-election motives can lead an incumbent politician to file trade disputes to appeal to voters motivated by reciprocity. The second chapter, titled "Trade Policy and the China Syndrome", analyzes how trade policy can be used to smooth the effects of trade liberalizations. The recent backlash against free trade is partially motivated by the decline in manufacturing employment due to rising import competition from China. Politicians in high-income countries have extensively used antidumping (AD) measures and other temporary trade barriers to protect their economies from rising Chinese imports. To estimate the causal effect of trade protection on industry outcomes, I construct a new instrument for AD measures based on the importance of an industry in swing states and the industry's experience at filing AD petitions. In this paper, I first show that trade policy contained the rise of Chinese imports in protected sectors, decreasing the annual growth rate of US imports from China in a range between 3% and 14% compared to the non-protected sectors. Second, I show that these protectionist measures have contained the "China Syndrome". In manufacturing sectors protected by AD measures, the annual growth rate of employment was between 2% and 24% higher compared to non-protected sectors. I find that previous studies that neglect the moderating impact of AD have underestimated the negative effects of Chinese import competition on US manufacturing employment by between 5% and 15%.The third chapter, titled "Bank Lending Standards and Credit to Firms during the Great Recession", is a joint work with Lorenzo Ricci and Giovanni Soggia. This chapter investigates the impact of unforeseen shifts in lending standards on firm credit in Italy on the onset of the Great Recession, using data from the Regional Bank Lending Survey to disentangle the effects of loan supply and demand.We combine our measure of change in bank supply with bank-firm loans retrieved from the credit register. Our proposed empirical strategy presents several benefits: it allows us to (i) estimate the impact of credit supply in the absence of an exogenous shock to banks, (ii) analyze credit policy throughout the sample period, and (iii) disentangle the effect of geographical heterogeneity within Italy using the rich information from our survey data. The effect of supply shocks differs across types of loans. A firm with a revocable credit line from a bank that tightens its lending standards suffers a reduction in credit growth more than if it had borrowed from a bank with unchanged lending standard. On the extensive margin, a supply shock decreases the acceptance probability of a new loan with a pronounced effect for term loans. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The thesis aims to assess the relations between China and ASEAN and their influence on regional stability and prosperity of ASEAN. The main focus of this thesis is the dynamics of trade relations, including the countries involvement in global value chains. The thesis covers trade in goods, services, cooperation in strategic areas and foreign direct investment.

The first chapter is a broad review of the recent history of Chinese porcelain from the Ming period to the present day. It includes remarks on the ceramics town of Jingdezhen and on aspects of materials, construction techniques, glazing and enamelling as well as a brief summary of the types of wares. The second chapter is divided into two parts. The first part introduces the formation of the Tatham Art Gallery and the Whitwell Collection. The second part focuses, firstly, on the blue and white porcelain, secondly, on the enamelled porcelain. The pieces are individually physically examined and catalogued under these headings: General description, rim, foot ring, construction, iconography and motifs, glazes, marks and date. The last chapter compares the blue and white pieces, the enamelled pieces and both pieces. This chapter suggests the qualities and special attributes of the wares such as brush marks. / Thesis (M.A.F.A)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2002.

Submitted by Eliene Soares da Silva (eliene.silva@fgv.br) on 2013-04-17T16:22:29Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO ZHEN ZHANG.pdf: 1129033 bytes, checksum: 709ff2e366ed9724f354a04a3f3835cc (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Eliene Soares da Silva (eliene.silva@fgv.br) on 2013-04-17T16:22:51Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO ZHEN ZHANG.pdf: 1129033 bytes, checksum: 709ff2e366ed9724f354a04a3f3835cc (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-04-17T16:29:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO ZHEN ZHANG.pdf: 1129033 bytes, checksum: 709ff2e366ed9724f354a04a3f3835cc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-02-27 / Brasil e a República Popular da China iniciaram a sua relação diplomática em 1974, na época, o comércio entre Brasil e China foi de apenas 17,42 milhões de dólares, 5 anos depois, em 1979, a escala deste comércio bilateral aumentou 12 pastas. Hoje em dia, o comércio bilateral entre a China e o Brasil já contava mais de 57,000 milhões de dólares USD. China tornou-se já o primeiro parceiro comercial do Brasil, e do Brasil em troca torna-se o primeiro parceiro comercial na América Latina. Esta dissertação teve como objetivo compreender os obstáculos para as PME brasileiras e chinesas no comércio entre os dois países e dar recomendações às autoridades públicas e empresas privadas sobre como superá-los. Com uma análise qualitativa, baseada em entrevistas com as empresas chinesas e brasileiras para identificar quais são os obstáculos mais graves para as empresas brasileiras e chinesas para beneficiar mais o comércio bilateral. O estudo feito pela OCDE-APEC em barreiras de internacionalização das PME é usado como um quadro para melhor identificar quais são os obstáculos mais graves no caso das PME brasileiras e chinesas.

Diploma thesis "Comparison of the EU economic relations with India and the PRC from the nineties to the year 2006" is seeks to compare approach of the European Union to the two most populated countries of the World. It observes development of these two relations - their parallel points and differences - by the analysis of documents published by the EU and economic indicators. At the same time it tries to answer the question, why these relations are different, eventually why they are in some areas similar. The author also seeks to find out whether the mutual economic relations have been derived just from the economic level of India and the PRC or whether and how the economic relations with the EU have been influenced by their political organization. This work is concerned with these relations only on a level of the EU and monitored countries and its aim is not to watch policies of individual member states of the EU and their disputes about this topic. The author also seeks to predict possible development in the future from the recognized facts.