This dissertation consists of four essays with specific objectives. The overall objective is, however, to seek a further understanding of the issue of cross-border residential transaction markets. While the first two essays focus specifically on transaction processes and costs in a number of selected countries, the two subsequent essays shift their attention towards the EU’s Internal Market and the impact of differences between the countries, with relation to the transparency of transaction markets. The research is primary based on studies of written sources, subject-specific literature and legislation. The main message is that organization of the transaction process affects transaction costs in different ways. It can be argued that efficiency is associated with a lowering of transaction costs. The efficiency of different structures depends on our perspective. Transparency is associated with the organisation of transactions and their needs, though the term is somewhat unclear. Generally, the term may refer to the ability of transaction participants to observe information concerning the transacting process, thereby increasing their knowledge to make informed decisions. Thus it can be argued that a better basis for the decision-making process presupposes information disclosure, more standardized transaction practices, synchronized legal systems, and both legible and transparent regulations. This leads to the design of a transparency system, which is based on an understanding of the need for the system and its goal. Although reaching transparency will be both complex and time-consuming, this study draws attention to certain key aspect of the need to encourage transparency. The first two essays focus on how residential transactions are organized in selected countries and on the costs for carrying out these transactions. Essay II works with two hypotheses concerning the relation between the organizational structure and the transaction costs. The study shows that transaction processes and costs differ considerably between the countries and as a result it is difficult to arrange the countries in a clear way according to their rules. Moreover, there is no clear connection between a broker’s education level and how large a part in the process s/he plays. The total transaction costs excluding taxes vary from approximately 3 up to 8.5 percent. The costs are lower when the recording system is well arranged, when a broker has a bigger part in the process and when a conveyancer is impartial. In the countries where a broker has a higher education level and plays bigger part in the process, the broker’s commission is not any higher when compared to other countries in the study. The study shows also that transaction costs are lower in the countries where the broker has a more neutral role and where fewer parties are involved in the process. Thus in order to avoid high transaction costs, it is important to avoid situations where both buyer and seller have their own agents. Furthermore, the availability of standardized information about properties may increase the efficiency of the market even though it increases the short run transaction cost. Essay III provides a theoretical framework for an analysis of the concept of transparency in residential property transactions within the EU’s internal market and tries to identify the essential factors that need to be addressed with respect to transparency of procedural, regulative and economic features. Essay IV seeks a further understanding of the issue of transparency in the residential property transaction market and attempts to define the state of transparency on the basis of selected EU-countries, in accord with five specific dimensions. The essential points are that an increase in cross-border transactions increases demand for easy access to information in other countries, and that the studied literature focuses on the coordination of legal systems, which produces systems that are more uniform and legally secured, and on broadening the mortgage market. Some of the aspects analysed in the study are far from transparent while others may be considered relatively transparent. The degree of transparency in the EU’s internal market is determined by how transparency is defined, since something may be transparent based on a certain criteria but not on others, especially when the concept is a relative one and subject to changes. The study raises some key aspect as a basis for discussion about the encouragement of transparency. / QC 20111123

This thesis consists of three essays on the regulation of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and trade in open economies. The rst chapter investigates the di erences in Intellectual Property Rights between countries. The analysis of a cross-country panel reveals that the protection of IPRs is higher in countries that are (i) richer, (ii) more productive in R&D and (iii) more open to trade. It is then shown that the rst two facts can be explained in a model where innovations are a global public good and where demand for innovations is non-homothetic in income. The second chapter addresses the third observation. If trade is driven by large di erences in productivities across countries and sectors then having strong IPR protection can become more bene cial for the individual country, since a part of the associated costs are passed onto the trading partners. The third chapter aims to explain why and when countries link agreements on trade with agreements that regulate the provision of global public goods. It shows that a linkage is particularly attractive if countries are di erent in size.

En France comme en Suisse, les collectivités territoriales s'imposent comme des acteurs majeurs de la transition énergétique, une transition dont la mise en œuvre nécessite un important renouvellement des instruments d'intervention publics. Ce sont les enjeux et les conditions d'un tel renouvellement que le présent travail se donne pour objectif d'examiner, à partir des expériences de planification énergétique territoriale menées sur l'agglomération franco-valdo-genevoise. Conçues comme des démarches de relocalisation des filières énergétiques – filières dont nombre de composantes étaient, avec les énergies fossiles, externes aux territoires consommateurs –, ces démarches de planification énergétique sont ici examinées à partir d'une grille de lecture d'inspiration institutionnaliste et pragmatiste.Consistant à appréhender ces démarches comme autant d'enquêtes ayant vocation, à travers un travail collectif de (ré)équipement cognitif du champ d'intervention territorial FVG, à initier et accompagner la reconstruction des modes de coordination des hommes au sujet de leur territoire – territoire entendu dans sa triple dimension matérielle, organisationnelle et politique – , cette grille ouvre vers une double lecture des expériences de planification énergétique. La première se concentre sur la dimension organisationnelle de ces enquêtes en devenir, c'est-à-dire sur les cultures d'action en présence et les modalités d'interaction entre elles, tandis que la seconde porte sur la substance cognitive qui sert de support à ces interactions, c'est-à-dire sur les logiques de réflexion qui président à la mobilisation et à la production des représentations territoriales liées à ces démarches.Cette double lecture permet de tirer des enseignements à différents niveaux. Le premier concerne le champ (cognitif) d'intervention territorial que ces démarches de planification énergétique contribuent à dessiner. Un champ qui, bien que de mieux en mieux appréhendé dans ses dimensions techniques, reste à la fois limité et « déformé » de telle sorte qu'il valorise davantage les filières fossiles, dont on souhaiterait s'affranchir, que les filières renouvelables que l'on souhaiterait leur substituer. Le second niveau d'enseignement porte sur les processus de production de connaissances territoriales (PPCT) qui président à la délimitation et à « l'équipement » de ce champ d'intervention. Appréhendés à travers les normes institutionnelles qui les encadrent, et les cultures d'action dont les interactions peuvent initier des processus de déstabilisation-reconstruction de ces normes, ces PPCT s'avèrent donner naissance à des « zones-frontières » sociocognitives, zones favorables à de telles reconfigurations, mais nécessitant, dans le cas FVG, un travail préalable « d'aménagement ».C'est sur les facteurs les plus déterminants pour la qualité de cet « aménagement » – un aménagement qui n'est plus seulement cognitif mais qui renvoie, plus globalement, aux conditions de mise en œuvre d'enquêtes dont la finalité ultime demeure bien l'action collective territoriale – que se concentre la troisième catégorie d'enseignements. Ouvrant sur les défis comme sur les pistes de renouvellement ouvertes, au niveau des modes d'action publics, par ces démarches de planification énergétique, ces éléments permettent aussi de porter un nouveau regard sur le projet d'agglomération en construction sur ce territoire transfrontalier. / In France as in Switzerland, local authorities stand out as leading players of energy transition, a transition that requires an important renewal of public intervention instruments. It is the stakes and the conditions of such a renewal that the present work aims to examine, based on the experiments of territorial energy planning led on the franco-valdo-genevan cross-border territory. Conceived as initiatives of relocation of the energy supply system, these energy planning initiatives are examined through an institutionalist and pragmatic « reading template ».This « reading template » consists of seeing these energy planning initiatives as pragmatist inquiries aiming, through a collective work of cognitive equipment of the territorial franco-valdo-genevan field of intervention, at the reconstruction of the means of coordination between people about their material, organizational and political territory. It opens towards a double reading of the energy planning initiatives. The first one concentrates on the organizational dimension of these inquiries - i.e. on the cultures of action which they gather and the modalities of interaction between them - whereas the second focuses on the cognitive substance which represents the medium of the interactions.This double reading provides insights at various levels. The first one concerns the (cognitive) territorial field of intervention that these energy-planning experiments contribute to draw. A field which, although better and better characterized in its technical dimensions, remains at the same time limited and " deformed " so that it values more the fossil energy systems, from which we want to release ourselves, than the renewable ones, which we would like to replace them with.The second level of teaching concerns the processes of production of territorial knowledge (PPTK) which presides over the demarcation and « equipment » of the territorial field of intervention. Examined through the institutional norms and the culture of action at stake in them, this PPTK turns out to create a sociocognitive "cross-border" area, the kind of area that could shelter the desired reconfigurations…on the condition that they are beforehand correctly “equipped”, in cognitive and also in organizational terms.The determining factor for the quality of this equipment is concentrated in the third category of teaching. Starting with the opportunities created by these energy planning experiments concerning the renewal of public intervention instruments, these elements also allow us to take a new look at the urban area project under construction in this cross-border territory, a project that shows itself closely linked to the energy experiments through a common challenge of territorialisation.

The research examines what drives Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As) using a theoretical and empirical approach. The theoretical part uses flexible optimal policies which adjust to changes in the market structure following a merger. The empirical part tests the major theoretical predictions to identify determinants of M&As in advanced economies. Chapters 1 and 2 consider M&As among firms in a pollution-intensive sector. Chapter 1 shows that identical polluting firms engage in M&As only if environmental policies are flexible. Chapter 2 shows that the flexibility of environmental policy increases the incentive to merge among heterogeneous firms. In addition, with flexible policy highly polluting firms have the highest incentive to merge than less polluting firms in a given sector. The empirical evidence suggests that the decision of manufacturing firms to engage in M&As is affected by environmental policy and firms may engage in merger deals in anticipation of a change in policy. Chapter 3 shows that with a flexible consumption tax firms in a bigger, more efficient country takeover firms in a smaller, less efficient country. The incentive to merge increases with the efficiency and market size of the host country. The empirical result obtained from 7 OECD countries shows that market size and firm efficiency play a major role in triggering international mergers.

This thesis is a study on solutions for cross-border insolvency of multinational corporate groups, with particular reference to the EU Regulation on insolvency proceedings recast 2015 (EIR Recast). Multinational corporate groups are important players in the modern business world; how to treat them in cross-border insolvency context has been hotly debated. The main issue is how to preserve the value of the group under circumstances where member companies in the same group are in more than one country and subject to more than one set of insolvency law. The existing solutions include substantive consolidation, procedural consolidation proposed by cross-border insolvency law scholars, market/hybrid legal solutions aiming to avoid group-wide insolvency, and the EIR recast which unprecedentedly provides 'group coordination proceedings' to respond to this issue as a procedural cooperation framework. All these solutions will be examined in this thesis in the light of insolvency law/cross-border insolvency law theories and multinational enterprises theories. The aim of this thesis is to examine the existing solutions for cross-border insolvency of multinational corporate groups on the basis of a combination of insolvency law/cross-border insolvency law theories and multinational enterprises theories. The thesis starts from theoretical grounds of corporate rescue and argues that preservation of going concern value and respecting entity law are the goals of corporate rescue law. It further considers theories regarding multinational enterprises and its implications on developing cross-border insolvency solutions for multinational corporate groups. With an understanding of relevant theories, the thesis examines the procedural consolidation solution which focuses on insolvency jurisdictional rules. The result is that procedural consolidation may not be in line with the reality of how the groups are operated and may not provide certainty to the creditors and market. The thesis moves on to examine the market/hybrid legal solutions which purport to be able to avoid group-wide cross-border insolvency. It shows certain merits of these solutions and also reveals the limitations and uncertainty of them. Finally, it argues that a general insolvency cooperation framework- the new group coordination proceedings- is desirable to work as an alternative to the above-mentioned solutions with improved certainty. The thesis tries to improve the utility of the proceedings by providing a recommendation to one of their main weaknesses-the opt-out mechanism.

Previous literature has stated that few mergers are successful and many fail to meet the set expectations. This study aims to compare cross-border mergers, between corporations from Sweden and from the United States of America, with in-border mergers between Swedish corporations to explore possible differences in synergy gains. The synergy gains are proxied by abnormal returns 80 trading-days post the merger completion date. The results in this study are not statistically significant, however it indicates that cross-border mergers have a negative average cumulative abnormal return while in-border mergers have a positive average cumulative abnormal return. Therefore, this study argues that the result could be a consequence of greater cultural differences for cross-border mergers than in-border mergers and imply that in-border mergers could be the better alternative for Swedish corporations in comparison to cross-border mergers. Additionally, cultural differences should be investigated before a merger decision is taken. Future research should investigate how cultural differences affect synergy gains with a larger sample and include corporations from more nations.

A pesquisa procura analisar as reformas políticas e económicas que caracterizaram as décadas de 80 e 90 em Moçambique e que contribuíram para o surgimento do comércio informal. A incapacidade do Estado para a promoção de emprego formal aos cidadãos e a própria dinâmica da economia de mercado levou as pessoas a lutarem para a sua sobrevivência. As mulheres tendo um nível de escolaridade baixo na sua maioria com nível secundário incompleto, não viram outra alternativa senão dedicar-se ao comércio informal transfronteiriço - mukhero, que tem características próprias como menos burocracia, horários flexíveis e a não exigência de nível académico para a realização do trabalho. A maior participação da mulher nesta atividade deve-se ao seu diferencial competitivo neste negócio. Elas são mais pacientes, possuem maior capacidade de negociação com os agentes governamentais e também consentem facilmente abusos e humilhações por parte dos agentes aduaneiros. O consentimento dos abusos e humilhações fazem parte da estratégia para contornar elevadas taxas aduaneiras e daí, garantir uma margem significativa do lucro. Todas as estratégias deste tipo de comércio só podem ser compreendidas á luz do ethos fronteiriço. Hoje o comércio informal transfronteiriço está a crescer ao nível da zona sul Moçambique visto que consegue garantir a sobrevivência das famílias e contribui para o empoderamento socioeconómico da mulher. O Estado moçambicano de forma tímida já se preocupa com este setor no sentido de melhor organizá-la para permitir maior captação de receitas tributárias. / The research analyzes the political and economic reforms that characterized the decades of 80 and 90 in Mozambique and contributed to the emergence of informal trade. The state's inability to promote formal employment to citizens and the dynamics of the market economy led people to fight for their survival. Women with a low education level mostly with incomplete secondary level, they saw no alternative but to devote the informal cross-border trade - mukhero, which has its own characteristics such as less paperwork, flexible hours and no academic requirement for carrying out the work. The increased participation of women in this activity is due to its competitive advantage in this business. They are more patient, have greater bargaining power with government officials and also easily consent abuses and humiliations by customs agents. The consent of abuse and humiliation are part of the strategy to circumvent high tariffs and hence, ensure a significant margin of profit. All strategies of this type of trade can only be understood in the light of the frontier ethos. Today cross-border informal trade is growing at zone level south as Mozambique can ensure the survival of families and contribute to the socio-economic empowerment of women. The Mozambican state timidly already concerned with this sector in order to better organize it to allow more funding from tax revenues.

Tesis (Magister en derecho con mención en derecho tributario) / A diferencia de lo que ocurre en otras jurisprudencias, en Chile la ley no regula las reorganizaciones que implican la fusión de una entidad chilena con una extranjera, o a su vez, una fusión en el extranjero de sociedades propietarias de entidades chilenas. Cabe entonces preguntarse si jurídicamente es posible efectuar este tipo de reorganizaciones y si producen algún efecto tributario en nuestro país. En términos generales, el derecho común chileno, esto es, el Código Civil preceptúa que es posible que un contrato otorgado en el exterior produzca efectos en Chile, siempre y cuando tales efectos se adecúen a las normas nacionales. 6 Por lo tanto, podría ser posible que una sociedad extranjera y una sociedad chilena acuerden su fusión, observando cada una las formalidades propias de sus respectivos países. En términos generales, jurídicamente se producirá la fusión si se trata de un proceso de fusión en los términos señalados por el artículo 99 de la Ley de Sociedades Anónimas. En cuanto a los efectos tributarios de un proceso de fusión internacional, la ley interna no lo regula. Sin embargo, el Servicio de Impuestos Internos en diverso pronunciamientos ha sostenido que estas operaciones producen efectos tributarios en Chile.

Following the necessity for spatial planning to focus on ‘what works’ in terms of implementation and policy delivery, during the last decade, the notion ‘soft’ spaces of cooperation have been in the spotlight of many academics working on territorial cooperation units. ‘Soft’ spaces of cooperation have been introduced mainly to explain what was happening for real through the continuous attempts to promote new policy scales, initially through the device of fuzzy boundaries. However, despite the necessity to address interests beyond existing rigid administrative boundaries, still issues related to financial power, infrastructure coordination and investment, ecological and environmental concerns, etc., all are situated within hierarchical structures of government and governance. Challenges arise and affect the interaction of actors in these areas, given the different institutional and cultural settings. This research investigates ways in which governmental institutions influence the coordination between non-governmental actors, points of interests that can foster the cooperation between governmental institutions and, more specifically the main challenges that non-governmental actors face while trying to cooperate due to cultural differences and institutional set-up in a ‘soft’ territorial cooperation. The research has been carried out in the Dutch-German border area, focusing on a common natural linkage and asset such as the Rhine river. While coordination between different sectoral policies exists in both sides of the border, different social context, planning mode and different legal and political conditions make the implementation of common projects a challenge.

Master Thesis in Business Administration Title:           Due Diligence in Cross-border M&As - Top management team´s human capital affecting speed of due diligence process Authors:       Jürgen Sabernik and Matti Salakka Tutor:          Tommaso Minola, Ph.D. Date:           2018-05-21 Key Terms:   Mergers & Acquisitions, Due Diligence, Speed, Cross-border, Human Capital, Top Management Team   Abstract Problem:       Globalization and market saturation are a constant influence for all the participating businesses in the markets. Therefore, companies of all various sizes are considering mergers & acquisitions to either consolidate the market, use it as a market growth opportunity or entry strategy into a new market or even country. Due to these multidimensional processes, many of the attempted M&As fail. Practitioners tend to focus only on financial or legal characteristics when considering to acquire and afterwards merge the target company, which results into failed M&A process. Accordingly, multifaceted phenomena such as M&As should not be only assessed on two dimensions, they should rather be evaluated as a whole with a dynamic due diligence process along the M&A. Purpose:     The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the speed of dynamic due diligence process in cross-border mergers and acquisitions and what effect the human capital of an organization’s top management has on it. Method:     For this thesis, we utilize a qualitative research based on a multiple case study approach. Therefore, we investigated four case companies within different industries in the Finnish context. The primary empirical data was collected through semi-structured interviews with guidance from a topic guide, in addition we also used company information such as annual reports or the company websites as secondary data. The derived statements are based on the findings, which were categorized and afterwards adopted as a basis for the analysis. Findings:       The findings of this thesis are that the human capital factors affect the speed of the due diligence process in cross-border mergers and acquisitions via four themes; (1) business environment, (2) market knowledge, (3) inter-organizational leadership and (4) individual skills. The themes can affect the speed directly, but more importantly through the interplay of different themes.  Conclusion:    In conjunction with various authors mentioned in this thesis, we also come to the conclusion that a dynamic due diligence process is contributional in order to grasp the multidimensionality of mergers & acquisitions. Additionally, the context where the individual M&A is happening is playing a major role within the evaluation process. Hence, top management team’s human capital has an impact on the speed of dynamic DD process in cross-border M&As via the four above mentioned themes.