Chinese investments in the EU

China’s investments in the European Union are much lower than what you may expect given the economic size of both entities. These relatively low investments in Europe are a combination of priority and obstacles. The priority for investments is clearly in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This regional pattern is heavily influenced by the need to solve the resource shortage in the medium and long term. The investments in Europe and the United States are mostly market seeking investments. Research specifically focused on Chinese M&A abroad comes to the same conclusion. The success rate of Chinese M&A abroad is much lower than what we see with respect to American or European investments abroad. In this paper, we examine why Chinese firms are facing more difficulties in the European Union than in other regions. The paper focuses on Chinese M&A as proxy for total foreign direct investments abroad. By looking at the factors that have been documented as influencing the level of M&A abroad, it becomes clear that Chinese firms in Europe are hindered by many factors. For example, the trade between China and the EU is relatively low, the institutional quality is lower compared to the United States, there is less experience with respect to Europe and relatively many deals relate to State Owned Enterprises (SOE) which makes the deal sensitive. So it is logical that Chinese investments are not very high in Europe. However, the research makes clear that the obstacles for Chinese investments in Europe are disappearing step by step. In that sense, we expect a strong increase of Chinese investments in Europe in the future.FDI, mergers & aquisitions, China, EU

Sustainable Energy Crop Production: A Case Study for Sugarcane and Cassava Production in Yunnan, China

The possibility of using biomass as a source of energy in reducing the greenhouse-effect imposed by carbon dioxide emission and relieving energy crisis is a matter of great interest, such as bioethanol production. Nevertheless, the cultivation of dedicated energy crops dose meet with some criticisms (conflict with food security and environmental degradation, for example). Nowadays sugarcane and cassava are regarded as the potential energy crops for bioethanol production. Endowed with natural resources and favorable weather condition, Yunnan province, China, is the major sugarcane and cassava production area in China. This paper presents production structures of these two crops in Yunnan and compares the sustainable production between the usages of sugarcane and cassava as bioethanol feedstock. Firstly, we estimated the technical efficiency for sugarcane and cassava production by adopting the production function and stochastic frontier production function. Field surveys from 61 sugarcane farmers and 50 cassava farmers were collected in June and September, 2008. Secondly, the sustainability of each crop production was evaluated. Since there is no generally accepted definition of sustainable production, a set of criteria was defined including 2 concerns (employment and food supply) from socio-economic area and 3 concerns (conversion rate to ethanol, water requirement, and fertilizer pollution) from environmental area. Empirical results demonstrated that the average production function was located below the frontier production function, 5% for sugarcane production and 7% for cassava production. These findings reflect the existence of technical inefficiency not only in the sugarcane production but also in the cassava production as well. But after considering sustainable production, cassava, which requires low agro-chemical, should be recommended as a prior energy crop in Yunnan with higher rates in ethanol conversion and dry matter.International Development, Production Economics, Energy crop, stochastic frontier production, Sustainable production, Yunnan province, Bioethanol,

Control of Electronic Coupling and Optical Properties in Quantum Dot Solids

In this thesis, we investigate the electronic coupling in quantum dot (QD) solids, optical anisotropies of nanowires (NWs) with diameters comparable to the wavelength of light, and the propagation of light in nanoribbon waveguides. In particular, we demonstrate a new mechanism to control the electronic coupling in QD solids thermomechanically, and how size controls the optical anisotropies in NWs. We firstly demonstrate that the electronic coupling in QD solids can be controlled by a new thermomechanical mechanism. This mechanism is realized by controlling the expansion and shrinkage of the interstitial material in the QD solids, which in turn controls the distance and distance-dependent electronic coupling between semiconductor nanocrystals (SNCs). Photoluminescence (PL) and TEM investigation demonstrate the tuning of the band gap emission in individual polycrystalline NWs and densely packed SNCs via this mechanism. At low temperature, temperature-induced blueshift in densely packed SNC film and redshift in polycrystalline NWs were realized. This is qualitatively different from bulk CdTe and isolated CdTe SNCs. The electronic coupling between the nearest SNCs for sub-nm distances agrees well with semiempirical calculations. Size dependence of optical anisotropies in NWs is demonstrated in this work. We found optical anisotropies in NWs with diameters comparable to the wavelength of light in the NW, i.e., beyond the electrostatic limit, are much lower than those of NWs in electrostatic limit. Finite-difference time domain calculations, with realistic parameters for the CdTe NWs, for excitation and PL anisotropy were carried out. It was found that the optical anisotropies of NWs display a strong size dependence when the NW is beyond the electrostatic limit. Changing the diameter allows tuning the polarization anisotropy from its maximum, predicted by the electrostatic limit, to zero. The optical anisotropies of a NW are determined by the diameter-wavelength ratio, the material dispersion, as well as the local refractive index of the surrounding. In addition, the optical anisotropies can be transferred into macroscopically aligned NW arrays, and the anisotropies of the NW arrays are determined by the optical anisotropies of isolated NWs, the disorder of the NWs in the film, the local environment and multiple scattering in the thick film. Furthermore, we show that self-assembled nanoribbons can serve as single-mode waveguides for the propagation of PL light. Calculations show that the minimum width needed for single-mode operation is approximately 150 nm, which agrees well with SEM measurements. The loss in the nanoribbon waveguides was quantitatively determined. Re-absorption was demonstrated in the nanoribbon waveguides to be a major contribution in the loss mechanism. Losses in the nanoribbon waveguide are on the same order of magnitude as for plasmon waveguides

A fifty-year journey of China towards the world economy : an empirical study on the determinants of China´s bilateral trade relations

Tot 1978 was de communistische volksrepubliek China een geïsoleerd land. De buitenlandse handel was een staatsmonopolie; de omvang was beperkt en het betrof voornamelijk transacties met naaste buren. Nu is China een van de belangrijkste handelsnaties in de wereld. Het aantal handelspartners – ook over grote afstand – is groot en groeiende, de samenstelling van de handelsstromen is divers en de buitenlandse investeringen in dit communistische land zijn de laatste decennia sterk gestegen. Promovendus Jianhong Zhang deed onderzoek naar de bilaterale handelsrelaties van China, vanaf de oprichting van de socialistische staat in 1949 tot nu. Daarbij bestudeerde zij de invloed van economische, politieke, geografische en culturele factoren op deze handelsrelaties. Ook onderzocht Zhang of China’s handelsrelaties kunnen worden verklaard met behulp van handelstheorieën die in beginsel zijn ontwikkeld voor westerse economieën. Voordat China zijn economie begon te liberaliseren, speelden politieke en institutionele factoren de belangrijkste rol in de bilaterale handelsrelaties, stelt Zhang. Toen China in 1978 zijn deuren opende naar de internationale wereld, kreeg het marktmechanisme echter vat op deze handelsrelaties. Aanvankelijk weinig, maar later steeds meer. Dit leidde ertoe dat de invloed van politieke factoren in de jaren negentig naar de achtergrond werd gedrukt en werd overgenomen door factoren die traditioneel thuishoren in handelsmodellen, namelijk economische, culturele en geografische factoren. Multinationals die zich in China vestigen spelen hierbij een doorslaggevende rol.

Multinational enterprises, foreign direct investment and trade in China : A cointegration and Granger-causality approach

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) play a dominant role in the international business (IB) literature. Traditionally, by far the majority of IB studies deal with issues at the micro level of the individual MNE, or at the meso level of a sample of individual MNEs. This paper focuses on a macro-level issue: the impact of MNE behavior through foreign direct investment (FDI) on international trade, and vice versa. In so doing, this study responds to a recent plea for more macro-level studies in IB into the effect of MNE behavior on the macroeconomic performance of countries as a whole, particularly developing and emerging economies. In this way, IB research would inform the heated debate about the pros and cons of globalization, where antiglobalization rhetoric emphasizes the negative consequences of the increased dominance of MNEs for the world at large and the Third World in particular. In the current study, we focus on the largest developing or emerging economy of all: China. Applying sophisticated econometric techniques, we unravel the causality and direction of FDI ? trade linkages for the Chinese economy in the 1980 ? 2003 period.