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In 1951, Friedrich Torberg (1908–1979) returned to Vienna from an eleven-year exile in the United States, working closely with the US Occupation government as writer and commentator for the US-sponsored radio station Sender Rot-Weiβ-Rot and the daily newspaper Kurier. His experience in the United States and renewed presence in the Austrian media landscape were instrumental in his appointment, in January 1954, as editor of Forum, the CCF monthly journal of political opinion and culture for the Austrian- and German-speaking Central European market. Forum became a publication whose influence arguably exceeded its modest print run, yet was plagued from the outset by financial difficulties, which gave the CCF leadership in Paris much cause for concern.

Excitement, speculations and rumours swirled around the world of the East India trade in the early 1730s. The supercargoes of the Ostend Company worked their last season in Canton in 1730, although the closure of the trade route between Asia and the southern parts of the Low Countries had been on the agenda since 1727. This was not due to its unprofitability, but rather the opposite: together with the English the Ostenders had managed to capture eighty per cent of the growing European market in tea.1 Trading mainly with China the Ostenders were able to run a low-budget operation; in contrast to the Dutch and the English they did not need to fund an extensive system of factories and forts across Asia. Moreover, the Ostend Company focused on tea at a time when the European craving for caffeinated drinks seemed to have no limits. The game changer was diplomatic pressure: the Dutch and the British demanded that Charles VI, the Habsburg emperor who since the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 had ruled the southern Low Countries, close down the General India Company as it was formally known. In return they agreed to recognize his daughter, Maria Theresa, as the legal heir to his throne.2

Does education fall under European Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on services in the internal market? Does this count as an umpteenth expression of the dominating economic interpretation of the European Union, at least in the minds of the competent authority? Is the directive in line with the OECD/UNESCO directive concerning cross-border education?

Television in Europe has become a complex and entangled net of regional, national, transnational, Pan-European, and global elements. Thus it provides a significant case for studying the interplay and even the collision, between regions, nations and transnational entities. Since the 1980s, television broadcasting has been increasingly liberalized within the European Union (EU), thereby challenging not only the borders of national television broadcasting but also the dominance of the Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) model in Europe. The economically, even ideologically, driven opening-up of the television ecology is something that can be seen clearly in mid-decade in the UK in ongoing threats not only to the broadcaster most associated with the PSB model, the BBC, but also to a late twentieth-century PSB variant, Channel 4. In any event, this factor has had the creative effect of forcing Europe’s national PSB broadcasters to reorganize their output according to the demands of the developing European market. International co-productions and co-operations at a European level have become a crucial element of producing and programming television. This has had its effect on docudrama, which, as we argue in this book, is an even more focused case for study.

In this final empirical chapter, I will analyze the role of import-competitors and import-dependent firms during the EU anti-dumping cases against bicycle imports from China and Vietnam. Both cases took place in the 2004–2005 period. Due to the rapidly increasing influx of Chinese and Vietnamese bicycles into the European market between 2001 and 2004, import-competing firms suspected that companies from both countries were dumping their products on the European market. The association representing the import-competing bicycle firms in the EU, the European Bicycle Manufacturing Association (EBMA), sent two requests to the European Commission in 2004: one for an interim review of the antidumping measures on imports from Chinese bicycles and one for investigation into imports from Vietnamese bicycles. In the case of Chinese bicycle imports, this was already the fourth time the EBMA had filed an anti-dumping complaint (the first one was in 1993), while it was the first ever complaint against Vietnam. As a result of these two anti-dumping proceedings, firms depending on bicycle imports from these two countries — that is, bicycle distributors/retailers, sporting goods retailers, and supermarkets — were confronted with a (potential) loss in income and had to choose between political mobilization and adjustment.

The empirical European market evidence shows how the project bonds, as an alternative financing solution in certain infrastructure projects, can play an important role.

In the 1990s the chaotic market transition in Russia and underinvestment in new gas projects prevented Gazprom from benefiting from the growth of gas demand in western Europe. Competitors of Gazprom captured new European market niches, while Gazprom lost significant market share. In response, in the 2000s Gazprom developed an “energy empire” strategy whose core idea was to regain its former position and improve it through investment in downstream assets in Europe. This proved to be futile, so Gazprom came up with a new strategy: to compensate for the earlier missed opportunities and mistakes by making huge investments in large-scale transportation and production projects. Crucial to this strategy are the new export routes, the Nord Stream and South Stream pipelines, which are being constructed by Gazprom. Bypassing the transit states of Ukraine and Belarus, these pipelines eliminate transit costs and transit risk. They are also a strategic response to the new challenges of the European gas market. Gazprom’s main challenge is not only to prevent further decline of its European market share but to achieve a 33% target for this share, a dream cherished by Gazprom’s top managers since the early 2000s.

The British film industry may frequently look like an outpost of Hollywood, with film producers always having at least one eye on the American market. But it is also, by definition, a European cinema, while some of its films receive European funding, and many more are distributed in other European territories besides the UK itself. What then does British cinema look like in the context of Europe? How involved in European production developments are British filmmakers, and indeed policy-makers? How important is it for UK-based filmmakers to address their films to and exploit them in European markets? How extensive is UK/European co-production activity? How widely do British films circulate in the rest of Europe, and which types of films tend to travel best?

More than 1,100 tons of tea were put up for sale in Gothenburg in August 1754. It was the largest quantity sold at a Swedish East India Company (SEIC) auction before the Seven Years’ War. The tea cargo was packed in 14,499 chests of various sizes, 380 tubs and more than 5,000 canisters; tea was by far the bulkiest of goods shipped to Gothenburg from Canton. All but a fifth of the tea in the 1754 shipment was the cheap black type called Bohea. The logistics of this trade involved moving these large quantities of Bohea tea from the Wuyi Mountain area in southeastern China where it was produced, to Canton, across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, and to the Northwestern fringe of Europe. This would be daunting enough, but the journey did not end in Gothenburg — the headquarters of the SEIC, on the West Coast of Sweden. After the auction, the chests were loaded onto smaller ships destined for places including Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Ostend.

The US market is the larger and older market for Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) that defines the guidelines for the worldwide development of this instrument. Many countries have instituted a similar real estate structure to facilitate the development of their domestic real estate industries and — except for the Netherlands, which started in 1969 — REITs have been issued in some European countries since the 1990s (Brounen and De Koning, 2012) (see Table 2.1).

The audiovisual industry, in particular the European market, lies behind in terms of evolution of financial dynamics, as well as organization and management of the firms operating in the business. National and EU institutions are currently engaged in an effort to reform the whole audiovisual industry focusing their attention mainly on market dynamics, although they are also seeking to develop a regulatory framework for public measures to support the industry. Financial markets can play a significant role in fostering the audiovisual industry. The chapter proposes a financial platform specifically dedicated to the audiovisual industry, able to combine the needs of the operators and financial intermediaries alike; the chapter describes goals, players, financial instruments and services to be provided by the financial platform.

Family minivans became a hot category in the 1980s following the successful launch of the Chrysler Voyager and Renault Espace in the European market. Many of the continent’s car markers were left scrambling for the appropriate reaction to what appeared to be a product innovation with huge potential. Experts’ forecasts suggested that the demand for the minivan might exceed one million units at the turn of the century, and all players in Europe wanted to have a share of that pie.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have been analysed extensively by a large number of studies, from both the theoretical and the empirical points of view, during the last 30 years. At the beginning, most studies were focused on the American market, because of the number and volume of operations in that area. Later on, researchers gradually extended their analyses to the European market, with a special focus on the period following the introduction of the euro. The results vary greatly, since they depend on not only the historical period and the market analysed, but also the methodological approach (event study vs operating performance), the objectives (cost efficiencies, profit efficiencies, value creation, and so on) and the specific type operation considered (domestic or cross-border, national or international cross-sector M&As). Therefore, it still seems difficult to define a clear, stable taxonomy about the results of banking consolidation operations. Nevertheless, a complete review of the literature is considered worthwhile, on the one hand to identify any common findings and, on the other, to establish a large bibliographical basis for the development of further research on the topic.

For the Central European Countries (CECs), which have integrated with the European Union in 2004,1 the catching-up question is of central importance. In order to accelerate the convergence process, these countries have opened their doors to foreign capital. The Multinational Corporations (MNCs) have been playing a leading role in the reorganisation of the industrial structure of the CECs. The productivity upgrading of the countries as well as their successful integration in the European market is essentially due to the important presence of foreign firms. Concurrently with attracting foreign firms, the CECs have greatly reformed their economies: they have built new institutions, introduced market mechanisms and privileged growth-enhancing macroeconomic policies.

European politicians and scientists are concerned about the presence of Japanese companies in the European market, where push and pull factors in all countries are shaping the local investment and management style. The dominant trends outlined in the literature address restriction-driven motivates for entering Europe in general, and political and cultural reasons for the high share of Japanese affiliates in the UK (Ishikawa, 1990, 1991; Kamei, 1992; Tsukuda et al., 1992). However these studies provide surprisingly few insights into how Japanese manufacturers adjust their production methods at the regional or spatial level (Schlunze, 1992, 1997).

In 1998 Europe became the world’s top recipient of Japanese FDI, outperforming North America for the first time since the 1970s. That Europe has remained at the top of the list since then can be seen as evidence that the importance of Europe for Japan has increased, and that Europe has strengthened its position in the world economy.

Caught up in the apparent backlash against e-business and — in many cases — with declining revenues from e-business related consultancy, many consulting firms have turned to geographic expansion as a more promising source of growth. Thus, US-based firms, who were the first to feel the effects of shrinking demand, looked to the European market, where the enthusiasm for e-business seemed initially undented. As the cold wind of change moved on, UK-based firms looked to southern Europe for the same reasons, and European firms looked to the Far East.

Notwithstanding the many questions and remarks raised in Chapter 1 on the popular internationalization motives and impulses, there are several good reasons to internationalize, and various ways you can take advantage of it. We do not aim to promote undue scepticism about internationalization, or to scare you with examples of unqualified failures or internationalization horror stories. The vast majority of the companies we ran into in our research did manage to profit from their internationalization one way or the other, although often not to the extent or in the way expected. The aim of this chapter is to understand in what way(s) one can expect to realize real benefits.

At both the corporate and political level there has been a widespread recognition that the fragmented nature of the European market, resulting from differing national rules and regulations, was impeding the ability of Europe’s leading companies to achieve economies that would improve the competitiveness of their operations and thereby assist in the global corporate battle with their non-European competitors (Dekker, 1985).

From the 1870s, Jiangnan raw silk, which was exported from Shanghai, was losing its popularity in the European market due to its low quality. The main cause of the low quality of Jiangnan raw silk was the lack of technology for killing the silkworm pupae. Since the late Ming period, Jiangnan peasant farmers and their wives had used light reeling machines to produce raw silk that they could sell to pay their rents, land tax and debts to the silk dealers in cash. Due to the small scale of this household industry and their low capital investment, they could not afford to buy large amounts of cocoons and store them for a long time. They had no choice but to reel the silk from the whole fresh cocoons as quickly as possible because the moth would break through the cocoon within about ten days. As a result, Chinese raw silk had a bad reputation due to its unevenness and coarseness.

Sharp’s 1978 decision to produce colour televisions (CTVs) in Memphis, Tennessee, and its 1984 decision to produce video cassette recorders (VCRs) in Wrexham, North Wales were the company’s pioneering manufacturing investments within advanced country markets overseas and were both undertaken in response to specific protectionist barriers. Since then, however, these facilities have expanded employment, capital investment and product range, and deepened their activities to include product design and research. Both have come to constitute important elements in the company’s globalization strategy.

Preface - Notes on Contributors - PART 1: INTRODUCTION - Economic Perspectives on Cultural Heritage: An Introduction M.Hutter - PART 2: THE CONSTRUCTION OF HERITAGE: THEORETICAL DIMENSIONS - Seven Questions in the Economics of Cultural Heritage D.Throsby - The Evaluation of Cultural Heritage: Some Critical Issues B.S.Frey - Optimizing the Use of Cultural Heritage C.Koboldt - The Value of Cultural Heritage A.Klamer - PART 3: HERITAGE REGULATION: REGIMES, CASES AND EFFECTS - The Political Economy of Rehabilitation: the Case of the Benedettini Monastery G.Pignataro & I.Rizzo - Cultural Heritage and Preservation Policies: Notes on the History of the Italian Case G.Guerzoni - The Development of British Policy on Built Heritage Preservation S.Creigh-Tyte - Features and Recent Developments of Cultural Heritage Policy in Japan Y.Kurabayashi - Tax Policies and Cultural Heritage D.Netzer - PART 4: HERITAGE POLICY: EXPERIMENTS AND PROPOSALS - Privatization Policies in Venice G.Mossetto - Conserving Historic Monuments in France: a Critique of Official Policies F.Benhamou - Towards a European Market for Arts and Culture Goods: Some Proposals F.Forte - Towards a Workable Heritage Policy A.Peacock - Conference Participants - Index

This paper will describe and explain the pattern of Japanese manufacturing investment in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden). In particular, it seeks to investigate whether the limited market size of these countries in Northern Europe gives rise to a different type of Japanese FDI from that establishing itself in other parts of Western Europe. Special attention will be paid to the issue of direct, as opposed to indirect, economic relations between Japan and the Nordic countries, in trade as well as in investment. It is assumed that the Nordic countries, when seen from the Japanese perspective, are not a priority area in the process of developing direct trade and investment relations within a single internal European market. Accordingly, indirect trade via larger countries in Western Europe is expected to grow at the expense of direct bilateral trade. On the other hand, the Japanese view of Europe as a single economic unit may also give rise to investment in the Nordic countries within special production niches, serving the entire European Union. Another objective of this paper will therefore be to establish the difference between trade and investment serving solely domestic Nordic markets, and those investments aiming at production for export to other European countries as well as to Japan.

The 1990s show the danger of emerging protectionism all around the world. The most important trading nations are imposing new trade barriers or at least threatening to do so. The US Government has already reimposed Super 301 of the 1988 Omnibus Trade Act. Even the completion of the Uruguay Round on December 15, 1993 was not judged unequivocally. Whereas some observers talk about the most successful round ever completed, others are unsatisfied because the results are not stated very precisely and several goals have been missed.

The pharmaceuticals sector ranks among the very few segments of Japanese industry that has yet to make a major mark on the international scene. Competitive advantages which other industries in Japan, such as cars and consumer electronics, have successfully exploited — namely incremental advances in development and production technology, productivity, low-cost manufacturing — are rather less relevant to the development of the pharmaceutical industry. The very structure of the industry mitigates against such competitive advantages: producer firms supply customers but are paid by a third party (the government), creating an insensitivity to price in the demand for drugs which, in turn, all but eliminates corporate considerations of cost and productivity.

Recent studies on oligopolies have emphasized that competition should be viewed as a complex process in which rival companies confront one another using a wide range of strategic maneuvers so as to maximize profits and, at the same time, influence the behavior of competitors (1).

Since the mid-1970s the Volkswagen Corporation, the largest motor vehicle manufacturer in the FRG and fifth largest in the world, has clearly been relocating stages of production to its foreign subsidiaries. Especially in the 1970s, the production and assembly of vehicles, aggregates and motor vehicle components abroad were significantly increased and integrated into an interlocking intra-company combine. As late as 1970, when the three largest US car manufacturers had already decentralized their production worldwide, VW’s foreign subsidiaries still played only a minor role. Their share of the total output amounted to only a fraction of what, year in, year out, was rolling off the assembly lines in the FRG and being exported to all parts of the world. Volkswagen, especially the best-selling ‘Beetle’, was the national symbol of the West German post-war economy: ‘Made in Germany’. Eighty-five per cent of VW’s production took place in the FRG, roughly 62 per cent of which was exported abroad.

The relations between Latin America (LA) and the EEC are a typical example of trade relations between a developed area and a developing one. Whereas from the EEC viewpoint trade with LA has always been of little importance, from a Latin American side this trade has always been considered to be substantial. Moreover, throughout the Seventies it gave signs of becoming more important not only for the EEC, but also and above all for LA.

Mikhail Gorbachev’s arrival has given a new impetus to East-West economic relations. The Soviet Union and the entire Eastern bloc have developed a new attitude towards international economic organizations and in particular towards the European Community (EC). The EC, on the other hand, has elaborated a unified European market which will necessarily affect the nature of the economic and political exchange within Europe. How will the European unified market affect the relationship between the countries of the EC and the rest of Europe? This question preoccupies the countries of the Eastern bloc. They are asking: what does the Single European Act imply; what are the economic realities of the CMEA and the EC; and what are the prospects for intensifying the relations between the CMEA and the EC in order to help overcome the division of the European continent?