A reform of the constitutional bases of the oil and gas industry in Mexico took place in 2013 (with sweeping changes to secondary legislation through 2014). Private and foreign production of hydrocarbons became legal after almost six decades of national monopoly --and 75 years after the revolutionary regime nationalized the assets of foreign producers. A wholesale market for electricity was also put in place. These legal reforms started to crystallize in 2018, as private producers started to have access to the networks carrying electricity and gas across the nation. This research presents a retrospective examination of 23 years of policy implementation in the natural gas industry of Mexico (1995-2018). The dissertation pays central attention to the patterns of state intervention that have characterized the national economy and that have contributed to shape the outcome of two policy packages pursuing liberalisation (one starting in 1995 and the other in 2013 and 2014). The research is based on a classical political economy approach, drawing on the literature on Varieties of Capitalism and Varieties of State Capitalism. The study centers on the relations between the players in the sector: their constraints and resources, against a backdrop of other economic policies affecting energy. Importantly, this study considers regulation as a mechanism of economic coordination. As a process-tracing case study, this thesis sets out to elucidate the distinctive factors that contributed to produce the current organization of the natural gas sector in Mexico --one where, ironically, liberalisation has been possible thanks to the deployment of a new state-owned enterprise. Three factors stand out as characteristic in the Mexican trajectory towards liberalisation: the strength of the national oil company as an obstacle of upstream liberalisation for almost two decades after 1995; the absence or weakness of constituencies supporting the restructuring of the sector (large industrial consumers, local distributors), and the sudden restructuring of supply and demand patterns, with the state-owned electricity enterprise emerging as a dominant trader. The new centrality of the electricity SOE and an Independent System Operator (also an SOE) underscores the limits of the new, more competitive, structure of the Mexican natural gas industry.

The People’s Republic of China (“China”) claims absolute immunity for itself but embraces a concept of state for immunity purposes that excludes state-owned enterprises (“SOEs”). This position has led to confusion and frustration in international litigation against China and Chinese SOEs, particularly when massive Chinese foreign investments are led by SOEs, including those made under China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Yet, the immunity status of Chinese SOEs is unclear. Against this backdrop, this thesis examines Chinese SOEs’ ability to claim sovereign immunity under the customary international law of restrictive immunity as expressed and built on in the 2004 United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property (“UNCSI”), the 1976 United States Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (“US FSIA”) and the 1978 United Kingdom State Immunity Act (“UK SIA”). In investigating the immunity status of the 97 SOEs in which the Chinese central government has direct and full/majority ownership, this thesis answers two questions: (1) under what circumstances would these 97 Chinese SOEs be treated as part of the state for immunity purposes under the UNCSI, the US FSIA and the UK SIA; and (2) under what circumstances would these 97 Chinese SOEs attract jurisdictional and execution immunities thereunder. A critical part of this analysis involves developing an understanding of Chinese SOEs’ dual identity as defined by the Chinese political economy. Chinese SOEs’ dual identity has two levels of meaning. First, it reflects the fact that some Chinese SOEs are categorized as commercial SOEs and others are categorized as public welfare SOEs in the current SOE reform. Secondly, commercial Chinese SOEs have a dual identity, i.e., a commercial and a sovereign aspect in their operations. While commercial SOEs’ primary goal is to pursue commercial interests, they also implement the state’s social, political, and economic policy goals. This sovereign aspect—primarily reflected as the sovereign purpose in their commercial transactions—adds complexity, but is necessary, to our assessment of Chinese SOEs’ “state” status and immunity under the customary international law of sovereign immunity. The three regimes studied in this thesis—the UNCSI, the US FSIA, and the UK SIA—not only take distinctive approaches toward the definition of the state, but also to the commercial exceptions to jurisdictional immunity and execution immunity. Their different analytical frameworks take us to different conclusions about Chinese SOEs’ “state” status and immunity in some cases. Under the UNCSI and the UK SIA, in principle, Chinese SOEs are unlikely to acquire “state” status to claim immunity in their commercial capacity, and consequently, unable to attract jurisdictional immunity and execution immunity for their assets as separate entities. But public welfare SOEs and some commercial SOEs can potentially attract jurisdictional immunity and execution immunity for their assets because to the extent that the purposes of their conduct—which are often related to inherently sovereign functions like the military or the public welfare—are considered in the overall context, the nature of the commercial transaction could be converted into a sovereign one. Under the US FSIA, Chinese SOEs—either commercial or public welfare ones—are state agencies/instrumentalities for immunity purposes, thus, have “state” status. But, in contrast with the UNCSI and the UK SIA, Chinese SOEs are less likely to attract jurisdictional immunity for their commercial activities or execution immunity for their assets under the US FSIA because the US statute applies a broad commercial exception that only considers the nature of the conduct in characterizing whether a transaction is a commercial one. This thesis’s investigations and conclusions have commercial, sovereign, and policy implications for Chinese SOEs’ international business transactions, China’s sovereign immunity position, and litigation involving China and Chinese SOEs in jurisdictions where restrictive immunity is upheld. First, in commercial terms, the analysis in this thesis will better enable commercial parties and states that have commercial relations with Chinese SOEs to understand the dual identity of Chinese SOEs defined by the Chinese political economy and understand under what circumstances Chinese SOEs can potentially attract jurisdictional and execution immunities. Second, in sovereign terms, my research enables states to assess their diplomatic and economic relationships with China from a foreign relations law perspective as China asserts absolute immunity in foreign domestic courts. As this thesis suggests, litigation against China and its emanations and execution against their assets in states where restrictive immunity is applied could give rise to sensitive political clashes in light of China’s absolute immunity position. The ongoing pandemic litigation between the State of Missouri and China in the US court is an example. In line with its practice, China refused to appear in this and other similar cases. My thesis work could provide legal researchers and practitioners with a better informed legal perspective on these highly political disputes. Third, in policy terms, my Chapter on China’s sovereign immunity and my findings that some commercial and public welfare SOEs can potentially attract jurisdictional and execution immunities under the UNCSI and the UK SIA provide China some reasons to not only embrace restrictive immunity but to clarify the definition of the state for immunity purposes thereunder. Ratifying the UNCSI, in my view, would allow China’s position to conform to international law on the one hand; and allow China to contribute to the development of the law of sovereign immunity on the other hand.

This study aims to examine the attitudes of the Saudi undergraduate college students toward the anticipated effects of privatization on the employment system of the Saudi privatized SOEs. Using survey questionnaire data collected in May 2002 from 672 Saudi undergraduate college students, the study results reveal varied attitudes. On the one hand, large percentages of the respondents prefer working under close supervision of Saudi management, having a salary based on productivity, being promoted based upon performance (rather than seniority), and adhering to prescribed procedures in executing job tasks. On the other hand, high percentages of the study respondents tend to dislike the concepts of putting forth more effort to meet management's plans, of working on nights and weekend, and of compromising job security in return for a higher salary. In addition, while the majority of the study respondents believe that privatization of state-owned enterprises is best for the local economy, their support for privatization is qualified by their insistence or desire that it not negatively impact their own interests. The statistical significance and association analyses reveal that the effects of academic majors and province on respondents' attitudes toward promotion criteria, teaming, and management's nationality are indeed significant. In addition, gender, SES, living areas prior to college entry, and adherence to religion are significantly related to respondents' attitudes toward privatization in general and toward some of its potential effects on the employment system. Recommendations are provided. / Ph. D.

Pioneered by Bernard et al. (1995) and Melitz (2003), recent advances in the international economics literature emphasizing the role of firm-level productivity differences has shed new light on the dynamics of international trade. Despite gaining significant traction in the international economics literature, firm-level analysis in the agricultural economics literature is comparatively rare, particularly in an emerging, industrialized economy such as China. This dissertation consists of three essays that provide firm-level analysis on Chinese agricultural trade since China's accession to the world trade organization (WTO). In the first essay, I segment by ownership structure to examine the role of different firm types in Chinese agricultural trade and find that domestic, private firms dominate Chinese agricultural trade and contribute 60%, or $96 billion, of the agricultural trade growth over the 2000-2016 period. Furthermore, the results show that although the economic weight of the state sector is declining, the share of state-owned enterprises (SOE) in strategically important commodities, such as wheat, corn, and rice imports are consistently high. In the second essay, I develop an empirical strategy to break down China's agricultural import trade growth. The findings reveal that China's agricultural import growth is highly concentrated among a small group of firms, where the top 10% of Chinese agricultural importers account for nearly 90% of the country's agricultural imports. I also find evidence of significant agri-food product importer turnover as over 40% of new firms entering China's agricultural import market exited after just 1.7 years during our sample period. In the last essay, I evaluate the efficiency of a specific Chinese non-tariff measure (NTM), the tariff rate quota (TRQ), using Chinese firm-level data. Two key findings emerge from this analysis. First, unlike results from country-level analyses, I find that SOEs import quantities are more sensitive to price changes. Additionally, more SOEs import grains when the price differential between domestic and world markets increases. Second, I fail to find any causal difference in the SOE share of TRQ imports before and after the two previously mentioned policy events were implemented to promote the market orientation of Chinese grain imports / PHD

This study investigates an appropriate accrual-based model in detecting earnings management (EM) of Chinese firms undergoing initial public offering (IPO) process. The mainstream literatures show that state-owned enterprise (SOE) has involved with less earnings management (EM) than non-state-owned enterprise (NSOE) in pre-IPO market from 2003 to 2009. The reason is that SOE could borrow money from bank, compared to NSOE. However, SOE has been proven to conduct stronger EMs in pre-IPO market during 2011 to 2013 by manipulating with property plant and equipment (PPE), the flows of account receivable (AR) and long-term debt (LTD). Besides, I also suggest a new accrual-based model that could better fit into the unique features of Chinese firms in their process of IPO application.

公營事業民營化儼然已成為九○年代的世界風潮，在我國自民國七十八年起正式宣示民營化政策迄今亦達五年有餘，然推行進度與成效及對經營績效是否具有正面效果的疑慮仍深植於許多人的心中。本文試圖從文獻回顧及國內實際個案對此一問題進行研究，但由於國內已有的個案數目太少且不具代表性及推行民營化的時間過短，很難採用完整的個案分析，故僅以其中兩個案作為代表，並輔以國外符合本研究目的之個案對所提出的命題做進一步的說明，以幫助了解該命題之實際意義。 　　經由國內外文獻探討後，本研究首先得出公營體制績效不彰的主因，藉以了解是否有必要以放棄公營體制的手段提昇經營績效，結果發現市場結構、資本市場不具競爭性及公營事業本身受到管制以致無法企業化經營等三項因素才是績效不佳的主要原因，因此乃以這三個因素作為本研究的自變數，並將公營事業民營化的定義擴大法律的解釋方式（依我國法律的規定，民營化的方式僅限於所有權移轉一項），觀察公營事業民營化在這三個自變數上的變化對經營績效有何影響，同時經由代理理論、財產權方面等文獻上發現，管理者是否有追求利潤的誘因乃是這些自變數影響經營績效的中介變數，因此乃形成本研究的研究架構。 　　在命題發展及理論建構上，乃根據本研究所提出的研究架構做自變數與經營績效關係之推導，分別為市場結構與經營績效、所有權與經營權結構與經營績效及企業化管理程度與經營績效，同時亦提出本之間的關係。本研究最主要的貢獻在於對「公有民營」的民營化方式對經營績效的影響做進一步的肯定，這種方式特別適合於該公營事業與政府關係處於對抗階段，且財務資金來源仍需依賴政府，對於我國的情形尤為合適。最後建議政府在民營化目標公司的選擇上，應考慮建構競爭環境的可行性及與政府之關係週期，且推行方式應更加多樣化，這對於推行成效及經營績效的改善皆有相當的助益。對後續研究者則建議能以本研究所推導的命題為藍本，進行個案或實證分析，使本研究能得到更進一步的確認。

Die vorliegende Arbeit enthält eine statistische Analyse der Gesamtheit öffentlicher Unternehmen in Deutschland und ihrer wirtschaftlichen Lage. Für diese Untersuchung stand eine Datenbank für etwa 9000 öffentliche Unternehmen mit knapp 500 Merkmalen zur Verfügung, die im Wesentlichen den Posten der Jahresabschlüsse und verschiedenen Identifikationsmerkmalen (wie u. a. Unternehmenssitz, Wirtschaftszweig und Rechtsform) entsprechen. Die Analyse umfasst den Zeitraum von 1998 bis 2006. Die extrem umfangreiche Datengrundlage – Jahresabschlussstatistiken öffentlicher Unternehmen – ist für einen Statistiker eine große Versuchung. In der Arbeit wurden Methoden der beschreibenden Statistik und der Jahresabschlussanalyse mit Bilanzkennzahlen angewandt. Vor allem in den letzten zwanzig Jahren wurde die Entwicklung der Gesamtheit öffentlicher Unternehmen durch Wandelprozesse geprägt und von Diskussionen über ihre Leistungsfähigkeit begleitet. Die Dynamik der Gesamtheit öffentlicher Unternehmen zeigt sich v. a. an der Vielfalt ihrer Aufgabenbereiche und Organisationsformen. Daher wurde in dieser Arbeit versucht, zunächst eine Bestandsaufnahme des öffentlichen Unternehmensbereichs durchzuführen. Ein weiteres Ziel war die Beschreibung der Wirtschaftslage öffentlicher Unternehmen im letzten Jahrzehnt, wobei ihre Leistungsfähigkeit in den Vordergrund gestellt wird. Die Leistungsfähigkeit öffentlicher Unternehmen nur über die betriebswirtschaftliche Effizienz zu messen, ist gewiss einseitig und nicht ausreichend. Diese ließ sich aber im Vergleich zur volkswirtschaftlichen oder sozialen Effizienz leichter operationalisieren: Die betriebswirtschaftlichen Effizienzkriterien können gut aus den Jahresabschlüssen abgeleitet werden. Dadurch wird auch ein Vergleich mit privaten Unternehmen in gewissen Grenzen möglich. Die Beschreibung der Wirtschaftslage öffentlicher Unternehmen wurde als Analyse ihrer einzelnen Teillagen (Vermögens-, Finanz- und Ertragslage) strukturiert. Insgesamt unterstreicht die Analyse der Teillagen die enge Verflechtung zwischen öffentlichen Unternehmen und öffentlichen Haushalten. Die vorliegende Untersuchung soll die Forschung auf dem Gebiet der datengetriebenen Statistik, die im Universitätsbereich in letzten Jahren im Vergleich zur modellgetriebenen Statistik oft vernachlässigt wurde, ausweiten. / This monograph deals with state-owned companies in Germany. The study focuses on a statistical analysis of all state-owned companies in Germany and their economic situation. Approximately 9,000 state-owned companies, with nearly 500 characteristical items surveyed for every company, comprise the database for this statistical analysis. The elements examined are firstly the entries of the annual balance sheets. In addition, there are the identifying characteristics, such as the type of industry, the legal form, or the operating location, in the databank. The analysis covers the period from 1998 to 2007. It’s very tantalizing for a statistician to work with the statistics of the annual balance sheets of the state-owned companies in Germany because of the large volumes of data. Both the methods of the descriptive statistics and the financial statement analysis with the balance sheet ratios were applied in this study. Especially over the last twenty years, the changes in the economic sector have led to discussions about the potential performance of the companies. The population dynamics of the state-owned enterprises are seen in the variety of the types of their activities and services and new legal forms. Therefore, the first goal of this analysis was to take an inventory of the German state-owned companies. The second goal of this work was to describe the economic situation of the state-owned companies in the last decade, with the emphasis on their performance. To measure the performance of the state-owned companies using only the economic efficiency as criterion is insufficient. However, the economic efficiency is easy to operationalise compared to, for example, social efficiency, because the ratios of the economic efficiency can be easily derived from the annual balance sheets of the companies. Besides that, using the ratios of the economic efficiency makes the comparison between the state-owned companies and the private ones easier. The description of the economic situation of the state-owned companies is based on the analysis of their assets, as well as their financial and earning positions. Altogether, the analysis of different positions emphasized the interdependence between the state-owned companies and their owners (regional authorities). From the methodological point of view, this study tried to extend research in the field of the data-driven statistics, which has been a neglected topic at universities in the last years when compared to model-driven statistics.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-09-25T12:18:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 FranciscoEvangelistaPorto.pdf: 1165259 bytes, checksum: 74ec4fee1981b53022e6af1e2985a25b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-10-02 / The development of a city has a direct connection to its origin, localization and economic vocation, but the acceleration or the delay of its development depends the state-owned politics applieds in the city. The city of Campina Grande origin comes from a village localized in a junction of four importants highways in Paraíba state, so its economic vocation since its foudantion was commerce. The research tries to identify the state-owned politics applieds in the city of Campina Grande and measure the contribution of these politics to the urban expansion. The more significative state-owned politics applied in the development of the city in all its history was mapped, while was being a temporal cartography of the urban evolution. There are identified five periods relationed to the urban expansion where the state-owned politics has accelereted or delayed the increase of the city. The first one is relationed to a federal railway transportation state-owned politic. The second period is about a municipal politic of urbanization. Third involves a municipal politic of industrial development. The fourth treats the state-owned politics applieds during the military government, and the last period relates the redemocratization period of the country. The cartographic reconstitution of the city illustrates the state-owned politics relation to the urban increase. This reconstitution made by historic documentation resulted in a city chart of the final of each period. The conclusion points that the state-owned politics contributed more to delay than to accelerate the increase of Campina Grande city. / O crescimento de uma cidade está diretamente ligado a sua origem, localização e vocação econômica, mas seu crescimento pode ser acelerado ou retardado dependendo das políticas públicas nela desenvolvidas. A Cidade de Campina Grande teve sua origem em uma aldeia localizada em um entroncamento de quatro importantes rodovias do estado da Paraíba, assim sua vocação econômica desde a fundação foi o comércio. A pesquisa em foco teve por objetivo identificar as políticas públicas implementadas na Cidade de Campina Grande e mensurar sua contribuição para expansão urbana. Para tanto, foi feito um mapeamento das políticas públicas mais significativas voltadas para o desenvolvimento da cidade ao longo de sua história, e, ao mesmo tempo, foi feita uma cartografia temporal da evolução urbana. Assim foi possível mapear cinco períodos onde houve ações de políticas públicas que aceleraram ou que retardaram o crescimento da cidade e que estão relacionadas com a expansão urbana. O primeiro período está relacionado com uma política pública federal de transporte ferroviário, o segundo trata de uma política municipal de urbanização, terceiro envolve uma política municipal de desenvolvimento industrial, o quarto refere-se a políticas federais durante o governo militar e, o ultimo está relacionado com o período de redemocratização do país. A reconstituição cartografia da cidade ilustra as relações dessas políticas com o crescimento urbano. Essa reconstituição foi feita a partir de documentação histórica, resultando em uma carta da cidade referente ao final de cada período. Este trabalho aponta para uma conclusão de que as políticas públicas implementadas contribuíram mais para retardar do que acelerar o crescimento da Cidade de Campina Grande.

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Over the last three decades of the Chinese economic reform with a focus on the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) restructuring, one striking phenomenon is the rise of the mixed ownership enterprises (MOEs) in China. The objective of this thesis is to analyse the factors that can explain the emergence and the rise of the MOEs, to explore the corporate governance of the MOEs, and to assess the performance of the MOEs. The research finds that the unique experiments and practices of China’s SOEs reform in the past 30 years have formed the China Model of SOEs reform, China’s mixed ownership has its roots in the China Model. One major explanation to the rise of the MOEs is the synergy effect gained from the combination of the different advantages of both the private enterprises and the state enterprises. The private enterprises have better operational mechanisms and the state enterprises have better access to business resources and political support. The thesis has looked at 5 issues of the institutional arrangements of MOE’s corporate governance, named as the SCORE. It is found that the largest shareholder in most of the MOEs is still the state, but the control structure is not always corresponding to the shareholding structure, and the governmental intervention in the business of the MOEs has been reduced although the reduction is limited. The thesis shows that there is no noted relationship between corporate performance and mixed ownership, but the transfer of corporate controlling powers is very important for the ownership-transformed companies from whole ownership to mixed ownership to improve the performance. On this basis, the thesis argues that China needs to push forward the further commercialization of the corporate governance of the MOEs in the future