Acordos bilaterais de promoção e protecção de investimentos : práticas do Brasil e da China

Os acordos bilaterais de promoção e protecção de investimentos (doravante BITs) têm proliferado, particularmente nos últimos dez anos. Dos grandes países emergentes membros do BRICs, o Brasil e a China são o maior país emergente na América Latina e na Ásia, respectivamente. Ambos os países se tornaram pólos de grande atractividade para o investimento externo. No entanto, o Brasil e a China estão a adoptar estratégias completamente diferentes quanto aos tratados bilaterais de investimento. O presente estudo tem como objectivo fazer uma abordagem comparativa das práticas do Brasil e da China nos tratados bilaterais de investimento e procurar algumas considerações relevantes, tais como o porquê das duas grandes economias emergentes tomarem posições tão diferentes quanto aos BITs. O afastamento ou a aproximação do direito internacional depende exclusivamente dos factores económicos e políticos? Quais são as vantagens e desvantagens dos BITs? As práticas do Brasil e da China revelam os problemas ou os efeitos positivos dos BITs existentes

Two essays on international corporate finance

textThe increasing globalization in recent years means that issues related to cross- border transactions have greater impact on firm value. In this paper I examine two aspects of them: asymmetric information and foreign exchange risk. In the first essay, I empirically examine the impact of information asymmetry on characteristics of cross-border mergers. The role of asymmetric information regarding the acquirerís quality is motivated in the context of an entry decision model where there exists a fixed entry cost associated with direct entry and asymmetric information in the merger process. I find that acquisitions will more likely be foreign firmsí mode of entry for those industries that are less competitive or have higher entry costs. Further, I show that acquirers (targets) in cross-border deals experience smaller (larger) wealth gains than do acquir- ers (targets) in domestic cross-industry deals. These differences in takeover premiums are mainly driven by entries into those industries with small fixed entry cost or high level of competition. Finally, I find that target and bidder takeover premiums vary systematically across different industries and bidders from different countries according to the degree of information asymmetry involved. The empirical results imply that asymmetric information affects foreign firmsí mode of foreign direct investment and causes the market to react differently to domestic cross-industry and cross-border mergers in the U.S. In the second essay, I investigate another problem that widely affects all firms in- volved in foreign businesses. That is, I try to explain how much a firmís stock price should be affected the currency risk. Using a sample of U.S. manufactur- ing firms, I find that firms with higher expected costs of financial distress, as proxied by lower liquidity, higher level of short-term leverage, smaller size and greater growth opportunity, are more likely to exhibit significant exchange rate exposures. At the industry level, the relation between exchange rate exposure and expected cost of financial distress appears to be even stronger. Finally, using an event study methodology, I provide evidence that firms with higher expected costs of financial distress show larger reactions to large, unexpected exchange rate shocks.Financ

Performance Analysis of a Low-Interference N-Continuous OFDM Scheme

This paper investigates two issues of power spectrum density (PSD) and bit error rate (BER) of an N-continuous orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (NC-OFDM) aided low-interference time-domain scheme, when the smooth signal is designed by the linear combination of basis signals truncated by a window. Based on the relationship between the continuity and sidelobe decaying, the PSD performance is first analyzed and compared, in terms of the highest derivative order (HDO) N and the length of the smooth signal L. Since the high-order derivative of the truncation window has the finite continuity, the N-continuous signal has two finite continuities, which may have different continuous derivative orders. In this case, we develop a close PSD expression by introducing another smooth signal, which is also linearly combined by other basis signals, to explain the sidelobe decaying related to N and L. Then, in the context of BER, considering the multipath Rayleigh fading channel, based on the effect of the delayed tail of the smooth signal to the received signal, we provide a procedure for calculating the BER expressed in the form of an asymptotic summation.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure