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In recent years, the liberalization of energy markets (especially electricity) by many countries has led to much attention being paid to their modeling. The energy market modeling under the framework of probability theory is valuable when the distribution function is close enough to the actual frequency. However, due to the complexity and variability of the world, economic reasons and changing government policies, this assumption is not applicable in some cases. Under such circumstances, we propose an uncertain two-factor model based on uncertain differential equations to evaluate the electricity spot price dynamics. Then, several essential indicators of electricity are investigated and generalized moment estimation for unknown parameters is also provided. Two case studies by using electricity data from the Oslo and Stockholm regions illustrate our approach. We also compare the proposed model with one-factor uncertain model driven by Liu process and the electricity stochastic model. A detailed numerical study illustrates the efficiency of the proposed model to evaluate electricity spot prices.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, long-distance bus transport in Germany came to an almost complete standstill. Since its liberalisation in 2013, long-distance bus transport has not only provided low-cost mobility, it has also contributed to income and employment in Germany. This article estimates the value added and employment created by the sector for the pre-COVID-19 year 2018. Our analysis suggests that the sector will reach pre-crisis levels relatively quickly as it mainly serves private travellers, especially VFR (visiting friends and relatives) travellers whose behavioural changes are less likely than those of business travellers.

The analysis of the regulatory framework for competition in Uganda’s telecommunications sector is borne out of the need to determine whether or not the framework adopted by countries in Sub-Saharan Africa is insufficient for purposes of meeting the regulatory requirements in the liberalised telecommunications sector. In order to properly analyse the efficacy of the telecommunications regulatory framework, it is important, as a first step, to trace the origins of competition in Uganda’s telecommunications sector. Therefore, this chapter looks at the reasons behind the introduction of competition in the telecommunications sector which has traditionally been a monopoly. The first section briefly discusses the reasons that triggered the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector from a global perspective. The second section focuses on the key factors that brought about the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector in Uganda. This is followed by an overview of the evolution of the telecommunications policy in Uganda from monopoly to competition.

Liberalisation of the telecommunications sector has brought the issue of competitive conduct of operators to the forefront. This is evidenced by the increased number of investigations by competition authorities into anti-competitive behaviour in the telecommunications sector worldwide following the opening-up of the sector to competition. As already explained in Chap. 3 of this study, in Uganda, a phased approach to liberalisation of the telecommunications sector was adopted with the government opting to have limited competition for a prescribed period before embracing full competition. This phase, known as the duopoly period, was characterised as having moderate competition, with fairer pricing and improved quality of services. Nevertheless, there were still concerns of anti-competitive behaviour by vertically integrated telecommunications operators particularly in the value-added services market which had not been subject to limited competition. However, it is in the fully liberalised telecommunications sector that the issue of anti-competitive behaviour has gained more prominence particularly in the mobile telephony market which is undoubtedly the most competitive market segment in the sector.

The combination of public goals and fiscal interests collides with the need to harmonise and liberalise the gambling market. Although the trend of market liberalisation is omnipresent, liberalisation is not an imperative. Member States are, in principle, free to regulate these issues, provided that they comply with the principles of EU law, especially competition and State aid rules. The focus of this paper is on the possible application of State aid rules in the field of gambling. Though the debate on State aid in the area of gambling has gained momentum, it has not been followed by a proliferation of corresponding case law. So far, the Commission has adopted only a few decisions, some of which have been challenged before the General Court. These will be analysed in this article. Special attention is given to the controversal OPAP decision, which has been subject to a lot of discussion.

In late 1990s, the real significance of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) became effective. At that time, eight kinds of SEZs were focused on the implementation of economic reforms introduced during the next three decades after 1970s. Meanwhile, these zones have become the most attractive regions for foreign investments in Mainland China because importing and exporting goods are not as strictly regulated by customs and provides a tax heaven for firms who are involved in the Asia Pacific. Specifically, 15 bonded zones that aimed at driving regional development and optimizing soft environment of investment in China have been set up across the country. These SEZs share the characteristics of enjoying the most beneficial economic policies regime as well as the highest level of market liberalization, which are virtual factors of gaining acceptance from global trading partners of China. This model triggered the economic growth of China in the aftermath of the WTO accession, reflecting the procedure of China’s exploration to stimulate domestic economy, while stepping into the global trade. A key feature shown from the very beginning was the high engagement in trade and manufacture sectors. In fact, services carry with them the nonphysical feature; this has always resulted into a biased view that services were both non-storable and non-tradable, and finally constraining the entire system to an effective service development. In the attempt to address the difference underlying the types of SEZs, Economic and Technological Development Areas, Bonded Zones, and Free Trade Zones (FTZs) will be discussed.

The covert Russian war of intervention in Ukraine is inextricably linked to a civil war in the east of the country. It was preceded by military aggression on the part of Russia in order to annex Crimea. This in turn was triggered by the violent Maidan overthrow in Kiev, the organisers of which had hoped to see a signing of the Association Agreement with the EU and the liberalisation and democratisation of Ukraine. Such a move was regarded by Russia and by parts of Ukrainian society as potentially having a severely negative impact on their own interests in drawing Ukraine into the Eurasian Economic Union and the security structure associated with it. The military expansion of Russia in Ukraine has its roots in a crisis between the West and Russia, as well as in the political divisions in Ukrainian society. It marks the end of the integrative power of Russia with purely economic and political incentives and means of pressure.

The exchange rates and interest rates fluctuations are being aggravated by the floating exchange rates system and the interest rates liberalization, increasing corresponding risk that enterprise facing up to, which accelerates the enterprise’s need of using derivative financial instruments for risk management. According to the general study of western scholars, enterprises which use derivative financial tools can effectively improve the value of the company. Especially under the background of economic globalization, more and more Chinese enterprises began to use derivatives, in the process of trade, to evade the risk of exchange rates and interest rates fluctuations. Based on 46 China Shanghai a-share listed companies, empirical research finds that using derivatives have observably positive impact on the value of listed companies, but the effect was extremely limited, which is different with the analysis of the western scholars that companies using derivatives can significantly enhance the value of the company. The reason of cross light is that Chinese listed companies will be influenced by some disadvantages on the subjective and objective when they use derivative financial tools, affecting the effects of the value of company by using of derivative financial instruments, because of this, this paper puts forward the corresponding policy recommendations.

The volume is dedicated to comparing EU and WTO legal approaches to problems caused by liberalisation of cross-border trade. It comprises the results of the research project “WTO law and EU law: legal conflict and integration” steered from the law department of the Aarhus University, Denmark. Its 18 chapters attempt to explore the legal state of affairs in both EU and WTO law regarding a broad range of contemporary challenges to national autonomy by striving for harmonised rules in goods and services trade. The book not only deals with a broad range of specific trade topics and fundamental legal issues of international trade relations, but also addresses basic fundamental structures of trade regulation both in WTO and EU law, such as the concept and notion of non-discrimination or the compatibility of trade and non-trade concerns. The red thread throughout the book is a comparative perspective which contrasts approaches and solutions adopted under EU and WTO law. The book serves the ultimate aim of fostering “constructive coordination” of the EU and WTO systems (see the introductory first chapter “Comparing two trade liberalisation regimes” by Gaines/Olsen/Sorensen, p. 8).

The discussion in this book has highlighted the conflict between the protection of social norms, on one hand, and globalisation and trade liberalisation, on the other. Globalisation of the world economy has revealed its impact on workers’ rights, which in turn have brought to fore the linkage issue.

Innovative information and communication technologies (ICT) build the backbone of Smart Grids. A seamless and secure information exchange beginning with the consumer socket up to the control centers of the transmission system operators is the foundation for the reliable network integration of a growing share of renewable energy sources, for the further liberalization of the electricity markets and for the consumers' participation in this market. The growing role of international standards for communication, data management and information security is considered in detail. International efforts in the area of Smart Grid standards providing higher engineering efficiency and interoperability are presented.

The 1988 Melbourne World Administrative Telegraph and Telephone Conference (WATTC) was greatly influenced by the increasingly strong trend towards privatization, liberalization and convergence of services.

The aim of this study is to investigate the potential for Turkey to play a role as a natural gas hub in view of its location adjacent to the most important gas producer and energy consuming countries. In spite of the importance of the location of Turkey for the energy security of the EU, the current gas stream to Turkey and infrastructure are inadequate due to technical, political and economic factors affecting the Southeastern European energy corridor. During the last 15 years, Turkey has achieved considerable reforms in energy markets and complied with all directives of the European Union. However, Turkey still needs to adopt a more transparent framework regarding liberalization of its internal energy market. Our study shows that Turkey should not only improve her market structure, but also continue to develop new projects that will improve her position in the competitive world energy environment. Turkey is in a key location in this international game: in addition to the current BTE pipeline, TANAP is the most promising pipeline passing through Turkey in the east–west energy corridor. A SWOT analysis reveals many factors that favor Turkey as the major European natural gas transit hub. However, many obstacles that may hinder the achievement of its full potential remain.

This paper reviews the main rice policy reforms in China, Thailand and Vietnam during past five decades, summarize the policy targets and impacts these policies have had on its production, consumption and trade. The policies contents and instruments vary among these three countries, but the common objects of these rice policies are the benefit of consumer and producer as well as the foreign exchange earnings. Government intervention played a central role in early days due to the insufficient food supply, low consumer income and foreign exchange earnings. It was found that rice export taxation and consumption subsidy policies were implemented in the low income and production period and export subsidy and production input subsidy were provided in the high income and production period. But along with the economic development and the participation of FTA or WTO, the government policies move toward to marketing liberalization, rice export subsidy or taxation and rice consumption subsidy were abolished.

The value of vote hypothesis states that the value of differential voting rights reflects the value of private benefits of control enjoyed by controlling shareholders with superior voting rights at the expense of minority shareholders with lower voting rights. Although the extant evidence is generally consistent with this hypothesis, it is inconclusive, and based mainly on studies in developed economies. We first synthesize the evidence on this issue in the emerging economies. Next, we provide new insight on this subject with description and analysis of a proposed regulatory change for removal of the 10 % voting cap in the banking sector in India in 2005. We hypothesize that removal of the voting cap would increase the probability of a takeover and induce positive value gain for banks that the proposal relates to. Consistent with our prediction, we observe significant abnormal returns of 7.8 % for private Indian banks over the 2-day interval surrounding the announcement. Cross-sectional analyses further reveal that the valuation gain is inversely proportional to the bank’s foreign and insider ownership. This study makes important contributions to the growing literature on the valuation impact and efficiency gains of liberalization of foreign ownership restrictions in emerging markets.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reflects a socio-political shift toward private self-regulation based on voluntarism and market-based pressures of enforcement. CSR initiatives have been linked to political demands for market liberalization and the absence of regulation, and legitimated increasingly in terms of a “business case” or positive-sum relationship between social responsibility and good business performance. The institutionalization of CSR as voluntary realm suggests several paradoxes observed in empirical evidence: between CSR as a complement or substitute of regulation, between responsible and irresponsible corporate actions, and between the diffusion and implementation of CSR. Empirical evidence suggests that CSR adoption is driven by substitution for formal regulation associated and business activities falling into regulatory voids. Moreover, its adoption is highly correlated with corporate irresponsibility. However, efforts to improve implementation through legal regulation or multi-stakeholder initiatives may threaten to undermine the business case that legitimated its initial adoption.

As the effects of liberalization and the shift away from the traditional accounting rate system became visible, certain developing countries started to call for a revision of the ITRs, with a view towards reversing those trends.

The European defence industry is a highly concentrated market. The European Union has recently introduced a new Directive that is supposed to ensure free trade in defence material and make the European defence industries more efficient and competitive. This chapter makes use of a SKIN model to analyze how this on-going process of EU liberalization is likely to affect industry concentration in the defence industries of large and small European countries. The simulation analysis points out two main results: (1) There is a clear connection between market liberalization and a reduction in industry concentration. (2) The effect of the liberalization reform on industry concentration is clear for both large and small EU economies, but it is stronger for larger countries. On the whole, these results emphasize the importance of introducing market liberalization in such a highly concentrated and protected market as the defence industry.

As a result of liberalisation, the global market place has evolved towards a complex system of border-crossing structures. Production, manufacturing and marketing processes within the same value chain are subject to different regulatory frameworks that vary in stringency depending on the location where these processes take place, often to the detriment of social welfare and the environment.

Having reviewed the theoretical background to gambling and also the history and development of Macao’s casino industry, in the subsequent chapters attention will shift to addressing the socio-economic-political impact of gambling after the implementation of the liberalization policy in 2002. In the past, objective indicators were overwhelmingly used to illustrate socio-economic-political developments. However, in the last decades, both academics and policy-makers have come to believe that social progress instead of economic growth should be the ultimate policy concern; that information concerning the state of affairs and social needs plays a vital role in societal monitoring, social accounting, and social planning; that official information and statistics need to be checked and enriched by information from alternative sources; and that the complexity of a society needs to be understood through a systematic and longitudinal examination of the inter-relationships among social phenomena. Various types of subjective data have been gathered and have proven to be of use in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of public policy, by identifying unintended policy impacts, measuring social costs, and discovering how these costs are distributed. Such research-based information also helps to enhance social consensus on the difficult trade-offs to be made under resource constraints and multiple demands, and assists policy-makers in establishing development priorities. Therefore, in order to obtain a comprehensive view of recent developments in gambling, both objective and subjective indicators will be cited for reference in the subsequent four chapters.

After the handover, Macao is no longer a Portuguese colony but an SAR of China. Unlike Hong Kong, “the selection of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage” and “the election of all the members of the Legislative Council by universal suffrage”, dubbed “double universal suffrage”, are not stipulated as being “ultimate aims” in the Basic Law of Macao. Nonetheless, Macao can enjoy a “high degree of autonomy” and the special privilege of “Macao people governing Macao” under the framework of “one country, two systems”. Because of this historical change, Macao’s political system was restructured and the public’s desire for more direct political participation rose. The liberalization of the gambling industry, which triggered dramatic economic growth and social transformation, further galvanized calls to speed up democracy and to alter the “balance of representation” in the legislature. Such demands have come not only from those who have not benefitted much from the buoyant economy (New Macau Association 2009), but also from the privileged sectors. For example, the casino operators are lobbying for a gambling industry seat in the Legislative Assembly (Macau Post Daily 27 March 2012) so as to guarantee their representation in the law-making body.

Trade liberalisation in Thailand raised two wider questions regarding the labour market–one with regards to the link with labour productivity and the other the link with skilled workers. This outcome provides a link between (1) trade liberalisation and labour productivity growth, and, (2) skilled employment and labour productivity growth. Trade liberalisation is also correlated with skilled employment. This type of evidence matches conventional explanations for the beneficial allocation of trade liberalisation and demanding skills training for potential future industrial growth.

In a world of increasing globalisation and liberalisation, production and value chains become global with inputs sourced from all over the world and production processes being scattered across countries. This tendency renders more difficult the definition of origin of a good. However, being trade liberalisation still far from non-discriminatory, the concept of origin becomes cardinal for the granting of benefits, as well as for sanctioning unfair trade practices. Globalisation has therefore brought forward a multiplication of varieties of domestic contents regulations imposed by States or groups of States (in bilateral or regional regimes) in order to discriminate between the goods receiving benefits and those whose exports are subject to trade remedies. We are going to consider here two regimes that involve, inter alia, the use of domestic content rules, preferential trade regimes and their preferential rules of origin regimes, and anti-dumping circumvention rules. Very few authors (if none) have treated jointly the question of WTO regulation of preferential rules of origin and anti-circumvention rules. However, both regulations, albeit being different and occurring in different contexts, have similarities in their objectives and in the challenges they create to the WTO legal system. Through the analysis of preferential rules of origin and anti-dumping circumvention measures, the article’s main objective is also to have a broader reflection on the concept of circumvention at large and its discipline within the WTO system.

This chapter reminds the key regulation principles of the telecom market and the challenges posed in this area by the new business context. The evolution of objectives and tools guiding regulatory action are presented in parallel with the transformations of the sector, from the initial steps of liberalization in the nineties to the 2009 framework review and the questions triggered by its application. The chapter more specifically examines the consequences on regulation of the convergence phenomenon --- including how public policies' scope and aim are modified by the new, complex models of relationship between players of the wider ecosystem, and what type of innovative regulatory approaches may hence be required, as illustrated by the recent works on the net neutrality topic.

In recent years, the perennial debate on the state of autonomies has taken special significance on the problem of market unity fragmentation because of the proliferation of regional regulations that segment markets, raising transaction costs and hindering the mobility of economic operators. This regulatory fragmentation may have devastating effects on Spanish economic competitiveness as shown in the results leading to the work “Economic Freedom in Spain, 2011,” which explores two aspects of public intervention in the area of Autonomous Communities: the regulation of economic activities and the dimension of regional governments, their role in providing public and merit goods and their financing. Without going into a detailed analysis of the study, the most relevant issue is that the criteria used to measure economic freedom are ascribed to an economic model aligned within the parameters of the “Market State” to the detriment of those of the Social State. So, regional economic freedom identifies with the requirements of an economic policy linked to the demands for greater market liberalization and a reduction of the role of the public sector in the economy. Only a policy of this magnitude can safeguard the principle of economic unity where the unitary market is subsumed. This observation may have important consequences on the questions of distribution of power and determination of its contents. Firstly, because it speaks in terms of minimum regulation, very different from those developed by the social State through its intervention in the redistributive process. Secondly, because competitive spaces are introduced in the field of public policy intervention among regional authorities that converge in a relationship where social policies end up being subordinated by market forces. Finally, even though the autonomous social dimension has internalized contents traceable to social protection related to hedging techniques that are not directly linked to the market, it is equally true that the cross-sectioned nature of the approach ends up affecting these contents being also functionalized to achieve the model described.

Although protectionist practices are less prevalent today, they often remain in the statute books and are still an impediment to world trade; and new instances continue to arise from time to time. At a time of economic downturn and uncertainty such as the world is experiencing today, the danger and fear of a resurgence of protectionism remains very real, as local economies try to gain or maintain an involvement in commerce and create or safeguard local employment.

The aim of this article is to identify the main ideas, concepts and tensions, underlying the relationship between trade liberalisation and the protection of health and environment, as they emerge from WTO case law, in order to illustrate the originality and the effectiveness of the approach followed by the Organisation in dealing with health and environment disputes.

Almost two decades after the WTO’s creation, the state of the organization can be assessed very differently. On the one hand, political gridlock and lack of legislative progress have become almost all-encompassing and a key characteristic of multilateral trade governance. On the other hand, the WTO still exists and even continues to attract new members. The persistence of these two opposing trends can be explained with the WTO’s ever-increasing membership, the complexity of trade issues under negotiation, and the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism: where the first two factors make it increasingly difficult and maybe even impossible to reach political agreement on further liberalization, the latter serves a function in international trade governance that is appreciated by all trading nations. The WTO’s continued attraction thus stems in large parts from the services provided by its system for the settlement of disputes between member states. As part of this system, the WTO’s standing judicial organ—the Appellate Body—has become an increasingly strong international court; its decisions have become authoritative and determinative not only for the solution of individual disputes but also for changes in the WTO’s overall legal and institutional setup. Increasing “relative judicial power”—i.e., the potency of the judicial branch in relation to that of the political branch—means that governance in the WTO has become increasingly judicialized.

After the fall of communism in 1989, Bulgaria introduced political pluralism and set up new democratic institutions. These structural transformations had a profound impact on the media situation in the country (Tabakova 2010). A phase of market liberalization was followed by an expansion of private ownership in electronic media which gave ground for the starting up of private print media offerings. Naturally, as this environment intensified competition for audiences, the problem of organizing viable business models for financing media became one of the leading issues of concern for both policymakers and publishers alike.

The Agricultural Knowledge and Information System (AKIS) in Vietnam has undergone massive changes over the last decades. Initially triggered by an economic reform process (Doi Moi) initiated in 1986, the system was formalized by the first decree on agricultural extension in 1993 (GSRV (Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam) (1993) Nghị Định 13/CP Về Cong Tac Khuyến Nong (Decree 13/CP (2 March 1993) on the establishment and function the national agricultural extension system). Hanoi) and gradually liberalized over the following years. Along with this liberalization, new spaces opened that allowed a growing plurification of knowledge system actors. However, the traditional orientation towards technology transfer was maintained. In the era of rapid growth since that time, an unprecedented experimentation with different approaches to extension has been set-up, with the government’s willingness to allow a more diverse AKIS particularly reflected in the second and, more recently, the third decree on extension. Topics such as food security, income and poverty alleviation have come more into focus, as the move towards a full liberalization of the extension system has continued. The general aims of this chapter are to (a) provide an overview of the historical development of rural advisory and knowledge provision in Vietnam, and how legal frameworks have changed over time, (b) demonstrate how more client-centered extension approaches can be translated and utilized at the field level, and (c) focus on examples of novel approaches to knowledge generation and diffusion, those currently evolving due to initiatives driven by state, private and NGO actors, or developed within the framework of the Uplands Program. The final section provides an outlook on where the extension system stands at this point and what still needs to be done, drawing a differentiated but basically positive conclusion about the willingness to reform and the pace of the reform process in Vietnam.

The present dissertation stands in the middle of two megatrends of our time: globalisation and technological progress. The anxieties and hopes concerning both of these trends are observable all over the world: in developed countries as well as in developing countries, for people being rich or poor. However, these two phenomena are not new at all. Living in the time of the Napoleonic wars where in old England already the proponents and the antagonists of trade openness were debating pro and contra the ‘Corn Laws’, David Ricardo delivered the most well-known model of international trade that showed the unambiguous positive effects of trade and trade liberalisation. Furthermore, Ricardo was also concerned with the effects of technological progress. In Chapter 31 of his ‘Principles of Political Economy and Taxation’ (1817), he also tried to take up the cudgels on behalf of the introduction of the mechanical weaving loom, i.e. on behalf of technological process. Since this time economist all over the world tried to shed light in the interdependencies of international openness, technological progress and the wealth of nations.

The controversy about the relation between trade and economic growth that roots deeply in questions of efficient allocation, specialisation and knowledge flows is presumably one of the oldest issues in the economics discipline and during the centuries almost every outstanding and all common economists have expressed their opinion on the topic. The trade and growth nexus was, is and will be of utmost relevance as it concerns both developed countries as well as developing countries, and as people around the world are directly affected by the influences of trade policy on individual income and on income distribution. In Chaps. 2 and 3 it is elaborated that most of this discussion is concerned with the short- and medium-run effects and that only with the emergence of New Growth Theory a persuasive intellectual support for possible long-run growth implications was delivered. In recent years economic theory has enhanced these approaches by accounting for firm-heterogeneity and strategic interaction between firms. While with these improvements the actual channels and mechanisms of how trade (liberalisation) may influence economic growth and technological change are better understood, the main conclusion that can be drawn is that there are long-run growth and welfare effects of trade, but the sign of these effects is ambiguous. It depends for example on the technology gap between leader and follower country, on an individual firm’s distance to the industry frontier, on the share of frontier firms within an industry or on the share of frontier industries within a country. It might as well depend on the degree of prevailing product market competition before liberalisation or it depends on the degree of possible inter-temporal and international knowledge spillovers. In sum, the ball is once again passed to the empirical study of actual growth experiences in face of trade liberalisation.

Transnational Architectural and Engineering (A/E) firms have increasingly been getting involved in international markets because of liberalization of markets, proliferation in the demand for complex projects, generalized demands due to globalization and the firms’ own interests to venture abroad et cetera. However, there may be discontinuities at national and geographical boundaries, or there may be graduated differences that may sap the firm’s access to home-based resources and erode the competitive advantages of firms which attempt to venture overseas. Therefore, it has been suggested that domestic A/E firms have substantial or unique advantages over foreign A/E firms because they have better reach and knowledge of resources, channels, networks and markets in their home-market. Hence, according to many internationalization models, international firms often make use of their geographical and cultural proximities to venture into potential countries or cities near to their home market because these foreign markets are operationally more similar to their home market. On the other hand, the mosaic of the world is such that a disproportionate amount of economic activities are agglomerated in a few key cities on the globe. Transnational firms tend to venture into these core locations in search for markets. The size of the overseas subsidiary, both in terms of investment and staff-size, would normally be subjected to the perceived market potential. Likewise, the formulated business strategies should fit with the characteristics of the host environment. This chapter seeks to identify the strategic interplay between flight-distance, gravitational distance, agglomeration, core and peripheries of cities, internationalization, strategy and organization design.

The number of foreign workers has increased in both Korea and Germany as part of globalization, and there has been a liberalization of the concept of citizenship. Korea and Germany have maintained the tradition of nation-states based upon ethnic and racial homogeneity. With respect to citizenship, these two countries are comparable and have cross-case validity in that both of them have accepted immigrant workers on short-term contracts. Both countries actively provide incentives to attract foreign professionals, while the “return home” policy towards unskilled workers is closer to exploitation. Korea gives priority to the employment of Koreans, and Germany does so to citizens of the European Union. In this respect they are similar, with each country importing a minimum number of foreign workers based on the principle of complementarity in the labor market. There are also several important differences between the two countries. This paper seeks to analyze migrant worker policy and institutions and the characteristics of foreign workers’ civic status in Korea and Germany. Chapters 2 and 3 analyze the history and current status of foreign workers in Korea and Germany, respectively. Chapter 4 conducts a comparative analysis of foreign workers and citizenship in Korea and Germany. Chapter 5 draws lessons from the example of Germany that may benefit Korean immigration policy.

The study reported in this chapter builds on previous studies of the extent of decoupling of oil and gas markets and thus the degree of deregulation of the gas sector in each country. It examines both UK and US oil and gas spot and futures market data. Spot gas and gas futures data from the respective domestic markets represent domestic factors and oil prices from global datasets represent global factors. Cointegration and exogeneity tests indicate that US markets have achieved a greater degree of decoupling with domestic gas price factors dominating global oil price factors in the determination of the future spot gas price. Therefore, it can be concluded that whilst progress in liberalization has been made in both markets, US deregulation policies have been more effective than those in the UK.

In the past, energy networks (grids) were nationally organized. The grids were linked by interconnectors. The capacities of the interconnectors were limited and only used to counter an imbalance in one of the grids. Governments fixed the prices and there was no energy price risk. Liberalization of the market introduced prices that fluctuate every moment; with the liberalization, energy price risk was introduced. The more volatile the energy prices, the larger the risk for market participants. Market coupling links the former nationally organized markets, which may cause a reduction in the volatility of the energy prices. At first the TSOs (Transmission System Operators) sold connector capacity by so called explicit auction, separate from the electricity auction. With the mechanism of explicit auction it was relatively easy to realize a market based allocation of scarce limited interconnector capacity on adjacent borders. Explicit auctions however do not realize the optimal result. In due time, they are replaced by so-called implicit auctions where the interconnectors’ capacities are automatically allocated in such a way that electricity price differences between countries are minimized. This implicit mechanism is also referred to as market coupling. In this chapter the effect of market coupling on market prices is investigated in the observed period, 1 January 2005–31 March 2011, for Scandinavia (South), The Netherlands, Belgium and France. It is found that due to market coupling the price differences between the markets diminish.

For a long time, there have been attempts to introduce rules on international competition law in the multilateral trade system. However, in 2003, these attempts were stalled although the Doha declaration of 2001 had been favourable towards these attempts. It has become evident that there is a large disagreement as to the definition of international competition law and its actual function. Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) are assuming an important subsidiary role in order to make up for the deficiencies of the multilateral trade system and they provide continuous impulses for the multilateral system to improve. In this contribution, it shall be examined up to what extent this holds true for the provisions on competition. More and more RTAs now contain rules on this subject. It shall be shown that these rules are not suited for a direct transfer to the multilateral level. Nonetheless, the regional level offers an important field for further research on the role competition law assumes in worldwide liberalisation attempts. These insights are highly important for any further endeavour to create a multilateral framework of rules in this field.

This important book deals with the relationship between world trade law and climate change policy. It takes a different perspective than the majority of publications in the field. While the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), to the extent that they support continuing liberalisation and generally unrestricted international trade, have come to be seen as a central part of the problem, Epps and Green argue that the objectives of mitigating climate change on the one hand and deterring protectionism on the other do not necessarily conflict with each other. On the contrary, their hypothesis is that synergies exist between these goals, and, through the manner where they reinforce each other, that they have potential to increase social welfare. The authors thus assess the potential of international trade law as a tool for addressing the challenges of climate change. In light of this, the WTO is not considered as the “bad guy” in international relations, whose regime prevents States from implementing trade-related measures in order to be able to achieve the ultimate aim of safeguarding that the increase in global temperature should be below 2 degrees Celsius, but rather as a key actor with regard to the fulfillment of that target. While “WTO Members have very different perceptions of what the trading system ought to do on climate change” (Pascal Lamy), the approach followed in this book may ultimately have a stronger impact on the attitude of States concerning the relationship between WTO law and the climate change regime than the somewhat fruitless repeated pleas for “greening” the WTO.

The concept of sustainability, or sustainable development, was one of the key ideas motivating the evolution of thinking during the 1990s about the possibilities for a new international instrument in the area of culture. Interest in sustainability was especially relevant to developing countries. It was becoming increasingly clear that the pre-eminence of industrialized countries in determining the way the global economy works and their domination of markets for cultural goods and services was exacerbating the economic and cultural disadvantage suffered by poorer countries. These problems were clearly related to trade and globalization issues; the impacts both of liberalization of trade in cultural goods and of globalization processes more generally were being felt in the developing world with particular severity. Cultural exports from developing countries were being swallowed up in the global market place, while at the same time these countries had few resources to protect their own cultural diversity from the penetration of cultural influences originating beyond their borders. These concerns were exacerbated in low-income countries by the generally slow pace of economic development and by the failure of development strategies to come to grips with the underlying problems that were holding back economic, social and cultural growth. In these circumstances it was thought that some form of international agreement on culture and development could be one way of identifying the specific needs of these countries and of proposing remedies.

The trend of financial globalization and liberalization has changed the competitive situation of the financial industry significantly. In this paper, we use the SWOT analysis to analyze the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats of China’s commercial banks, and give some suggestions on the strategic choices for them to develop healthily and steadily.

Today the railway timetabling process and the track allocation is one of the most challenging problems to solve by a railway company. Especially due to the deregulation of the transport market in the recent years several suppliers of railway traffic have entered the market in Europe. This leads to more potential conflicts between trains caused by an increasing demand of train paths. Planning and operating railway transportation systems is extremely hard due to the combinatorial complexity of the underlying discrete optimization problems, the technical intricacies, and the immense size of the problem instances. In order to make best use of the infrastructure and to ensure economic operation, efficient planning of the railway operation is indispensable. Mathematical optimization models and algorithms can help to automatize and tackle these challenges. Our contribution in this paper is to present a renewed planning process due to the liberalization in Europe and an associated concept for track allocation, which consists of three important parts, simulation, aggregation, and optimization. Furthermore, we present results of our general framework for real world data.