<p>This paper will analyse critically the main sources, namely UNCAC, the African Union Convention on Prevention and Combating Corruption (AU Convention), the Southern African Development Community Protocol against Corruption (SADC Protocol) and the Council of Europe Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (CoE Convention). Furthermore, the paper will examine the corresponding explanatory notes and try to provide a picture of the most important aspects of the issue. As many countries are obliged to consider the criminalisation of trading in influence, drawing an overview of it may make a substantial contribution to its comprehension. Due to the limited space, the paper is unable to cover all provisions of trading in influence in countries where it exists. Accordingly, the discussion will be restricted to the situation in France, Spain and Belgium. By analysing the position in these countries, the different approaches to criminalisation can be highlighted.</p>

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the impact of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) agreement on the export from the Andean Community (AC) to the European Union (EU) between the years 1995 to 2000. The GSP agreement enables developing countries to face lower- or no tariffs when exporting to developed countries. According to Ricardian theory, Heckscher-Ohlin theory, and New Trade theory decreased trade barriers tend to have a positive effect on trade. When analyzing the trade flow between these countries using the gravity model the outcome is found to be consistent with the theories i.e the results show that the GSP agreement implemented in 1995 has had a positive impact on trade.

För att skydda den europeiska produktionen av bränsleetanol har EU satt upp höga tullar på importerad etanol. Vi har analyserat hur marknaderna för socker och etanol fungerar i Brasilien och EU, därefter försökt förutse vilka samhällsekonomiska effekter ett borttagande av importtullen i EU kan ha. Vi finner att etanolpriset i EU sjunker, därmed ökar efterfrågan. Bensinkonsumtionen ökar på kort sikt i både EU och Brasilien, då ett lägre etanolpris medför ett lägre pris på bensin via den inblandningskvot av etanol som finns i vanlig bensin. På längre sikt kan så kallade ”flex fuel”-bilar bli allt vanligare och bensinkonsumtionen kan avta. Både med och utan en importtull på etanol skapas potentiellt kostsamma inlåsningseffekter av fortsatta satsningar på etanol. / In order to protect the European production of fuel ethanol, high import tariffs have been introduced. We have analyzed how the sugar and ethanol markets function in Brazil and the EU, and then tried to forecast the economic effects that can result from removing the tariff. We find that the ethanol price in the EU decreases and as a result of that the demand increases. Gasoline consumption increases in the short run in both EU and Brazil, since a lower ethanol price causes lower gasoline price through the blend ratio of ethanol into gasoline. In the longer run gasoline consumption can decrease as “flex fuel”-vehicles increase in numbers. With or without the import tariff continued investments in fuel ethanol may result in severe lock-in effects.

Today it is well known that institutions have a significant impact on growth and development. Less research has been investigating how institutions and in-stitutional quality affect trade. This thesis will specifically examine the effect contract enforcement has on bilateral trade. Secure property rights and con-tract enforcement are important for a country’s productivity and growth. The empirical analysis is based on the gravity model of trade to examine what explains the trade flows and more importantly what impact contract enforce-ment has on the bilateral trade. Instead of using one of the many existing sub-jective measurements of contract enforcement, an objective measurement called Contract-Intensive Money (CIM) is used. The results show that contract enforcement of the exporting country has a greater impact on exports than that of the importing country. As expected the institutionally dependent sector of machinery and transport equipment requires a higher level of contract enforcement than the standardized food sector. It implies that the exporting country will have a comparative advantage in export-ing complex products and import simple products. The results also indicates that the effect on exports is higher when there is development of a country’s poor contract enforcement rather than improvement in already high-quality contract enforcement in the partner country.

This thesis consists of four individual essays and an introductory chapter. While independent from each other, these essays share some common properties. They are all empirical and focus on the interaction between inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) and host country characteristics. The primary focus of the thesis lies in how inflows of FDI affect developing and transition economies. Macro-level data are used in all essays. The first essay analyses the FDI inflows that the transition economies of Eastern Europe have attracted and tries to find determinants of these inflows. The following two essays compare the effect of FDI between developing and developed economies. The second essay studies the relationship between corruption in the host country and the volume of FDI inflows. The third essay explores the effect of FDI inflows on host country economic growth. The fourth and final essay analyses the relationship between FDI and trade, focusing on the link between FDI flows and host country exports in eight East Asian economies.

Many of the insightful writings on clusters identify the role of entrepreneurs as key agents in the formation of firms and clusters. This thesis argues instead that local entrepreneurship is not ceased once firms and clusters are established; local entrepreneurship is about the continuous (re)creation of both businesses and clusters in global spaces. Global spaces for local entrepreneurship emphasises how firms collectively become an agent of continuous renewal. Firms enact an organising context materialising in networks that stretch relations and collaborations according to the issues being dealt with. These networks are localised but are extended beyond the geographical boundaries of clusters. One important example of this, which is in focus in this doctoral thesis, is that firms operating in clusters often interact with actors whom they have met at international trade fairs (ITFs). ITFs are those attractive events that individuals, firms and institutions attend temporarily to exhibit and trade products in foreign and national markets. This thesis is based on the work contained in a cover and five papers. Each paper contributes to the research objective and questions brought forward in the thesis cover. The empirical evidence has been mostly drawn from several case studies conducted in the Lammhult cluster in Sweden. The findings show that firms build their organising contexts in order to stretch the reach and accessibility to local and non-local actors; they jointly co-create potential opportunities. The organising contexts are mapped in networks using three proximity orders. The empirical findings report three types of situations in which there is a potential opportunity for continuous renewal. By emphasising the opportunities that can be originated when a business is not realised or when a new or improved product or process has not been generated yet, this thesis aims to stimulate a theoretical reappraisal of global spaces for local entrepreneurship. With the conceptual development of global spaces for local entrepreneurship, we put forward the idea that such spaces enhance an ability to renew firms and clusters. The underlying reason is that local entrepreneurship is centered on the social interaction between individuals, firms and/or institutions; it materialises in intended and unintended dialogical situations when there is a commitment to the continuous renewal of firms and clusters. Such dialogical situations carry with them an opportunity for co-creating new businesses, new products and new processes.

Ht 2007

Markets have an important role to play in advancing an improved understanding of international trading relationships. Two most important economic issues, which contribute to improved national welfare and ensure long-run competitive market equilibrium in international markets, are market integration and market efficiency. To provide softwood lumber markets related information to the policy makers, economic analyses relating market integration and market efficiency of the combined markets of Canada and the US have been conducted. The economic analyses include: (i) testing cointegration of prices among North American softwood lumber markets; (ii) identifying price leading markets in long-run price structure of these cointegrated markets; (iii) examining the degree of market integration among these markets; and (iv) testing the efficiency of spatial arbitrage among these markets. First, the price linkages in the North American softwood lumber markets have been explored over different trade regimes. The results indicate that market integration is affected by product aggregation of data. Further investigations of market integration are, therefore, limited to homogeneous softwood lumber product markets. Second, oligopsonistic pricing behavior of traders is identified as the possible reason for imperfect competition among Douglas Fir product markets, while imperfect competition among the markets of Spruce-Pine-Fir and Hem Fir products can not be explained by this behavior. Third, a comprehensive picture of the adherence to price parity is formulated by evaluating the magnitude and persistence of deviations from equilibrium relation of prices. It is found that large volumes of trade, product substitutability, lower prices, and certainty of trade are the factors which contribute to higher degree of market integration among North American softwood lumber product markets. Finally, the inter-temporal shifts in regime probabilities of competitive market equilibrium are assessed over different trade regimes. It is found that lower transaction costs, large volumes of trade, short distances between markets, and certainty of trade contribute to high market efficiency among softwood lumber product markets of North America.

This thesis comprises three essays on immigration, innovation, and trade. The first essay utilizes an enhanced gravity model to estimate the effect of lagged immigration waves on Canadian imports and exports, by province. Empirically, this model was tested using Canadian data on import and export flows to the top 40 countries of origin for immigrants to Canada based upon the composition of the most recent wave of immigrants. The results are consistent with previous studies, where immigrants increased both import and export trade flows. By adding the provincial immigrant wave variable, it was also found that new immigrants affect imports almost immediately, whereas for exports, the immigrant effect is not significant for at least 5 years and may take as long as 20 years to reach full impact.<p>The second essay utilizes an enhanced gravity model to estimate the effect of innovative capability on Canadian provincial exports to Canadas top 60 importing countries. Empirically, this model was tested using Canadian data on export flows to Canadas top 60 importing countries. The results are supportive of a provinces innovative capability leading to increased exports, where innovative capacity is measured by international patents, scientific journal articles, and R&D expenditures. For example, in terms of innovative capacity as measured by international (U.S.) patents, provinces with higher levels of international patents had higher levels of total exports, where this effect was greater for exports to developing versus developed countries. Furthermore, provincial R&D expenditures as well as the number of provincial scientific publications (in addition to provincial international patents) were found to be significant drivers in increasing the amount of provincial hi-tech exports to developed countries.<p>The third essay utilizes an augmented national ideas production function to examine skilled immigrants impact on Canadian innovation at the provincial level. Empirically, this model was tested using Canadian data by province on innovation flow over an 11 year time period, where innovation flow is defined in terms of international (U.S.) patents. It was found that skilled immigrants, who are proficient in either English or French, have a significant and positive impact on innovation flow in their home province. Further, in examining skilled immigrants by source region, it was found that skilled immigrants from developed countries have the greatest impact on their home provinces innovation flow. This is true of North American/European skilled immigrants for all skill-level categories including language proficiency, education, and immigrant class. For immigrants from developing countries, only highly educated Eastern Europeans and Low Income Asians classified as Independent Workers are both significant and positively related to their home provinces innovation flow.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Economics