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Existing literature has explored how different firm behaviours and strategies in different institutional contexts result in variegation in network structures. Based on those studies, this paper first examines how networks have been shaped by China's institutional transition in general and the process of marketisation in particular. Furthermore, we stress that the rise of networks in China's film industry has in return boosted the development of private firms and subsequently pushed forward the process of marketisation in this industry. Empirical results show that private firms have benefitted more from the complementarity between direct knowledge spillovers via inter‐firm networks and indirect knowledge spillovers via inter‐city networks, while state‐owned enterprises are incapable of coping with the competition effects stemming from inter‐city networks and fail to benefit from trans‐local knowledge spillovers in networks. Our main contribution is thus to direct attention to the interaction between network dynamics and institutional transition, which remains underexplored in the current literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, by constructing a principal‐agent model, we analyze the intrinsic causes of collusion between the government and enterprises, particularly through the central and local governments and resource‐based enterprises. The analysis has been conducted by introducing the public as a third‐party monitoring body to explore the positive role of public participation in preventing collusion between the government and enterprises, and henceforth entailing model analysis and validation with certain examples. The green transformation of resource‐based enterprises is an effective way for their sustainable development, besides being an inevitable requirement for China's high‐quality economic development and ecological civilization construction in the new era. In this perspective, our study reveals that: (1) Government‐enterprise collusion is motivated by the central government's improper assessment and incentive mechanism, besides the information deficit between the central government and the colluding parties. (2) The conditions for government‐enterprise collusion in development remain on the resource‐based enterprises and local governments that face fewer expected penalties than expected benefits, thus resulting in lower collusion risks. (3) Public participation in monitoring can effectively combat the willingness of the local governments and resource‐based enterprises to collude and significantly increase the level of effort of both parties in the green transition. (4) Public monitoring increases the probability of collusion detection, and prompt detection improves the timeliness and effectiveness of punishment. The findings from this study can provide a scientific basis for improving the regulatory system, thus improving public participation and strengthening the penal system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization has introduced insecurities to individuals and businesses. Countries are pressed to respond to these insecurities with more inclusive visions of globalization. One policy response is social procurement—public purchasing geared to create social value. Canada is embracing this response but faces barriers of its own making. Through the institutional bricolage of procurement trade rules, Canada has constrained its capacity to use social procurement. This is acutely felt by Crown corporations, which are increasingly under the scope of trade treaties. This article details this phenomenon through textual analysis of Canadian procurement trade rules and state enterprise attempts at social procurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of the incumbent state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) on the births of new private‐owned enterprises (POEs) in China is a central concern for the government and society. In this paper, we apply agglomeration theories to distinguish the linkages between SOEs and POEs. Using China's 2008 economic census, the 2007 Input‐Output Table, and the 2005 population census, we measure the formation of new POEs at the city‐industry level, and the agglomeration forces of distance proximity to inputs, outputs, labor, and technology. More explicitly, we measure the extent to which local SOEs provide relevant inputs, consume outputs, employ similar workers, and use similar technology. Our findings indicate that overall, incumbent SOEs hinder the formation of new POEs. For manufacturing, the entry of new POEs is significantly lower in places where more upstream SOEs are concentrated. For services, the entry of new POEs is significantly lower in places where more upstream and downstream SOEs are concentrated. However, the agglomeration effects from the incumbent POEs are either insignificant or significantly positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key economic structure in China is the co‐existence of state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) being bank‐favored firms as well as policy tools, and more productive private firms who can borrow from SOEs through entrusted lending. We explore macroeconomic implications of such a structure in China. Our findings suggest SOEs dampen output volatility at the cost of productivity volatility. In contrast, the healthy development of entrusted lending dampens variations of both output and productivity by reallocating credits between firms. Focusing on the recent growth slowdown in China, we further show conducive effects of entrusted lending on economic growth by mitigating capital misallocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the role of state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) in the globalisation of China's infrastructure capital. Examining how accumulation strategies of Chinese SOEs are driven by a complex set of political and economic, state and private, interests, it foregrounds the inherently hybrid nature of China's state capitalism. We use Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) as a case study to analyse how state infrastructure capital traverses borders, and the specific ways that contradictions of accumulation in China are relocated through the improvised hybridity of SOEs. In Kenya, China Road and Bridge Corporation, the main SGR contractor, shifted and adapted its strategies as the pursuit of economic productivity gave way to political priorities in China, simultaneously responding to changing socio‐political circumstances in Kenya and across East Africa. Analysing these dynamics, we highlight the contingencies of, and limitations to, structural reorganisation of actually existing forms of state capitalism in China and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many documented cases of policy transfer in Asia involve small and medium enterprises as well as public enterprises but little is known about how and why these local private actors participate in transnational policy transfer networks. We propose a relational view of policy transfer to examine how agency is exercised in these kinds of transfer networks. We develop a typology of the engagement of these private actors—solutionist and entrepreneur—based on their relational position in the policy transfer process and illustrate its usefulness using two cases of policy transfer between: (1) Yokohama (Japan) and Cebu (Philippines) and (2) Singapore and New Clark City (Philippines). A common theme in these networks is the diffused nature of agency where local private actors are pulled in to provide epistemic resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthquake early warning (EEW) is becoming a popular tool for mitigating earthquake‐induced losses. However, the current literature separates EEW technical components and their operational and behavioural implications. This paper investigates how EEW can be integrated into business continuity practices, organisational resilience, and disaster risk reduction (DRR). A mixed methods approach is applied to analyse EEW perceptions in the case‐study context of Mexico City, Mexico, which is characterised by a high level of seismic hazard and social and physical exposure/vulnerability. The dataset includes evidence from 15 semi‐structured interviews with representatives of the public and private sectors, such as governments and enterprises, and 78 valid questionnaires compiled by local organisations, including civil protection and education institutions. The results reveal inconsistencies between technical EEW methodologies and their integration into three core domains of organisational practice: accountability, governance, and jurisdiction; standardisation of plans and procedures; training and education. Finally, open challenges for future research are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes key developments in the state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) sector in Canada and internationally. It argues that SOEs are important policy tools for states, especially in emerging markets, to develop and strengthen their national economies. It mentions central component of an overall expansion of state activities to shape markets to produce outcomes that meet the political goals of governments.

Using the annual data of Chinese manufacturing firms over the period of 1998–2007, this paper applies the Cox proportional hazards model and analyzes the impact of inter‐provincial market segmentation on the exit hazard of firms in China. This study shows that market segmentation increases the risk of enterprises exiting the market in China. Moving from the 10th percentile of the distribution of market segmentation (score of 0.0995) to the 90th percentile (score of 0.7084) would increase the exit probability of firms by 7.5 percentage points. An analysis of the mechanisms involved shows that market segmentation benefits are often outweighed by lower productivity and less incentive to innovate. Our study also demonstrates that inter‐provincial market segmentation facilitates the likelihood that state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) will survive, but not for non‐SOEs in China. A one unit increase in the degree of regional market segmentation will reduce the probability that SOEs withdraw from the market by 19.5% while increasing the probability that non‐SOEs will leave the market by 5.80%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the political economy of Australia's prison industrial complex and its severe impact on Indigenous communities. Taking a historical perspective, the paper moves between a broader analysis of the forced extraction of Indigenous labour by the state and private enterprise and the violence against Indigenous people which accompanies it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hitherto, the path‐dependent understanding of regional diversification in Evolutionary Economic Geography (EEG) has drawn largely on insights into industrialized countries. However, in the past few decades several regions in the Global South have undergone rapid structural transformations despite starting out with unfavourable regional asset bases. This raises the question as to whether the strong emphasis on endogenous capabilities in EEG also provides a sound theoretical framework for explaining these tremendous diversification dynamics. This paper therefore aims to re‐evaluate the wider validity of the path‐dependent conceptualization of regional diversification in the context of a lower‐middle income economy. To this end, we analyse the diversification of Vietnamese regions between 2006 and 2015. In order to take into account context‐specific conditions that characterize Vietnam's economy, we add the role of foreign‐owned firms and state‐owned enterprises to the conceptualization of regional diversification processes. While the role of relatedness holds true for Vietnam, the presence of foreign‐owned firms allowed Vietnamese regions to break away from path dependency and diversify to unrelated industries. The findings highlight that only by adapting the analysis to context‐specific conditions are we able to understand how regional diversification takes place across different settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developed economies experienced a rise and fall in labor share (LS) in the postwar period. We present a novel explanation of these trends – public enterprise employment. We document a link between it and both LS and wage compression in 15 developed nations. We then build a model that shows how overstaffing public enterprises can increase LS and reduce wage inequality. Overstaffing directly increases public enterprise LS and indirectly increases private sector LS by reducing available labor. We examine several public enterprise reforms. Consistent with the model's predictions, reforms reduce public enterprise LS permanently and private sector LS temporarily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between trade liberalization and the probability of state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) being decentralized. We find that tariff cuts for inputs significantly lower the probability of a SOE being decentralized, whereas tariff cuts for outputs raise this probability. We also find that as the distance from a SOE to its overseeing government increases, the effects of input and output tariff cuts on the probability of SOEs decentralization become stronger. Our empirical results are consistent with a simple model in which local governments try to balance the costs of supervising SOEs against the profits extracted from SOEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to re‐interpret the development of state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) in Turkey from 1923 to 1980. The article shows that the dominant strong state tradition (SST) literature, which interpreted the development of SOEs as an independent project of the state to maintain its control over society, had been unable to fully explain the development processes of SOEs because it treated the state as an external entity distinct from (and even opposing to) the social classes. Employing an alternative Poulantzian framework, the article argues that the development of SOEs in Turkey was driven by class‐industry interest and appeared as a precondition of the development of capitalism in Turkey. As such, relations between SOEs and the social classes were internal and complementary, rather than external and antagonistic. The SOEs were providing the bulk of industrial inputs and investment capital to the bourgeoisie fractions within the constitutive context of domestic capital accumulation strategies at the time (e.g. capitalist consolidation in 1930s, capitalist expansion in 1950s, capitalist expansion with duty losses in 1960s and 1970s). The SOEs were also benefiting the laboring and popular classes in terms of employment opportunities and higher wages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With rising environmental regulations and trade disputes, Chinese industries are facing tremendous pressures to restructure and relocate, and pollution‐intensive industries (PIIs) are undergoing particularly significant location adjustment. Scholars have proposed various location theories and econometric models to explain the investment location dynamics of PIIs. However, there are still some deficiencies in the analysis of effective factors, such as macroeconomic changes, uneven development, and enterprise heterogeneity. This paper aims to explore the influencing factors of PIIs location choice from multiple dimensions by integrating multiple location factors and incorporating the variables of temporal, spatial, firm heterogeneity and their interaction items into an econometric model. Based on the capacity investment database for Chinese listed chemical companies, we find that: (a) the investment of chemical firms in the central and western regions has significant regional proximity, while the investment in the eastern region shows a significant north‐south difference. (b) The macroeconomic situation measured by the industry climate index has the greatest effect, magnifies the influence of environmental regulation (ER) and expands the differences of investment location preferences between non‐stated‐owned enterprises (non‐SOEs) and state‐owned enterprises (SOEs), due to SOEs' have undertaken more social responsibilities. (c) The agglomeration economy significantly increases the probability of investment in all regions, especially in the eastern region; non‐SOEs are more inclined to invest in the central and western regions than SOEs. We conclude that PIIs use a location strategy to adapt to the changing environment and that the effect of ER is mediated through ownership structure and local context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate elite studies have for long investigated networks of interlocking directorates to test and corroborate key theoretical expectations regarding the cohesive organization of such an elite and their ability and willingness to act on behalf of general business interests. These studies typically collect data on a list of 50, 100, 200 or 500 corporations ranked by economic size, sometimes stratified in sectors. The sampling approach often follows previous studies in order to increase comparability. These relatively arbitrary sampling practices are problematic because they impact the empirical results and our therefore the conclusions drawn from it. Using a sample of 3251 Canada‐based corporations, we establish that indeed different sampling criteria – that is sample size, proportion of financial firms, inclusion of state‐owned enterprises and so on – significantly impacts network properties of corporate elite networks. We establish rather disturbing differences, especially for smaller sample sizes (<100). Subsequently, we develop alternative demarcation criteria of the corporate elite based on a k‐core decomposition. We conclude by emphasizing that the sampling decisions in interlocking directorate studies should much more be carefully be thought through in future research on the topic, both in corporate elite studies and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the changing spatial distribution of electronic information manufacturing (EIM) industry in China by focusing on the location choice of new firms. A three‐pronged "global‐regional‐local" nexus framework was proposed to identify the factors that influence firm location choice. Tobit regression analysis was performed to evaluate the impacts of these factors. The study reveals the spatial concentration of the EIM industry and a trend of westward diffusion. The regression analyses stratified by time period and by region demonstrate spatial and temporal variabilities in the influence of many factors, especially the regional advantage factors (e.g., labor cost, localization economies, and urbanization economies). Meanwhile, some factors, such as foreign direct investment, the presence of state‐owned enterprises, and local government policies, show stable effects over time and across regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy has long been central to SNP policy making and Scottish independence. During the 2014 referendum, green electricity generation was presented as a means for Scotland to achieve 'reindustrialisation'. Despite a world‐leading transition in electricity supply, the Scottish government has struggled to develop renewables manufacturing. Scotland's largest offshore engineering company, BiFab, entered administration in 2020. This article explains the faltering of Scotland's green industrial revolution. First, it assesses renewables' privileged place in SNP perspectives, underlining its deep roots in North Sea oil and criticisms of British governments' mismanagement of offshore opportunities. Second, the failure of market‐led policy making to provide the anticipated industrial benefits from offshore wind developments is explained through the domineering role of foreign state‐owned enterprises and global supply chains in the UK's renewables sector. The conclusion argues that older nationalist perspectives offer remedies, but these require a more active industrial policy that diverges from the current approach of the Scottish Government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, China's outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) has expanded rapidly. The country is now the world's second‐largest source of OFDI. China is often viewed as a monolithic investor, however, without sufficient attention to the differences between investments by state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) and private enterprises (PEs). To shed light on the internal complexity and heterogeneity of Chinese OFDI, we construct a panel dataset of investments in the U.S. across the 50 states and Washington, D.C. from 2005 to 2017, which we analyze using a spatial autoregressive model. We find clear evidence that the ownership structure of Chinese firms affects investment strategy and entry mode. Statistical analysis indicates that SOEs are more likely to pursue greenfield investment motivated by market‐seeking and resource‐seeking objectives, while PEs pursue mergers and acquisitions in order to obtain strategic assets. We also detect a positive and significant relationship between the presence of Chinese overseas communities and OFDI, with the strength of the correlation depending on ownership structure. Finally, we find that Chinese OFDI is spatially dependent, meaning that investments flow to states where they are already concentrated nearby. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is general acceptance that urban governance in China is entrepreneurial in nature, little has been written about the precise ways in which Chinese cities implement entrepreneurial policies. In this article we argue that the primary agents of urban entrepreneurialism in China are urban investment and development companies (UIDCs), known in Chinese as chengtou for short. We start by defining UIDCs as a category of state‐owned enterprise, but one that is wholly owned by local (often city) governments. We note that in the literature UIDCs are generally recognized for their involvement in raising funds for projects and piling up hidden debts, but their multiple roles in urban development tend to be neglected. We introduce here four UIDCs that have been largely responsible for the transformation of Shanghai into a modern city spearheading Chinese state entrepreneurialism, and in doing so we delineate the full range of the activities of these urban business empires. We argue in particular that they represent a corporate involvement by the state in urban development—the state presenting itself in the guise of a market player, a corporate entity able to raise funds and act as if it were a private company. UIDCs are the driving force behind China's urban entrepreneurialism and are without a clear parallel elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers Australia's approach to telecommunications infrastructure from the perspectives of the policy official and the public administration scholar. From the official's perspective, the approach has been successful in stimulating private sector investment in many markets. This has been achieved by promoting open competition and where necessary establishing a government business enterprise as a transitional measure to build and operate a next‐generation National Broadband Network (NBN) to provide high‐speed fixed‐line broadband to all Australian premises by 2020. From the academic perspective, however, the approach reveals the shifting balances between political objectives and market challenges. This paper consists of three main parts. The first is an introduction by a former senior public servant turned public administration scholar. The second is from a policy official and provides an overview of the Australian telecommunications market, starting with some historical context, the deregulation in the 1990s and the privatisation of the former government‐owned telecommunications incumbent, Telstra. The third is from a public administration scholar and provides a short complementary critique of Australia's communications policy. The paper discusses, from different perspectives, the policy settings that have been adopted to support infrastructure competition and investment in the Australian telecommunications market, including the development of the NBN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers a detailed analysis of an under‐researched social problem of in‐situ marginalisation and its causes by drawing on the concept of state entrepreneurialism. Our empirical data stem from the Lingang mega project in Shanghai and one of its neighbourhoods named Neighbourhood No.57 where we find that the residents have not been relocated but are instead suffering from declining public services and environmental quality from surrounding industrial developments. The root cause of this problem is the municipal government's prioritisation of its strategic objectives of economic development over the livelihood of local residents. The strategic vision of the municipality has led to mass relocation in its early phases of development but in its later stages leaves many residents waiting for relocation whilst being gradually surrounded by industrial developments. Despite continued residential complaints and petitions, in‐situ marginalisation is not resolved due to the institutional arrangement of Lingang, which has centralised planning and financing powers to newly created project‐oriented state organisation. Social responsibilities have been relegated to lower‐tiered governments in Lingang which have neither planning power nor the financial resources to resolve the problems of residents. By examining the case of Lingang, this paper provides a different analytical framework for explaining the social problems emerging from China's mega urban developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the symbolic dimension of the transformation process in a post‐socialist large‐scale housing estate in Berlin after reunification. This reflection is based on the concept of 'territorial stigmatization' and I use a photographic method to analyse the representational strategies employed by residents to manage territorial stigma: identifying with depoliticized images of the past, exiting the estate and questioning the very principle of representation. The first two strategies seem to be different ways of internalizing dominant representations of place. The latter differs from the first two in its use of iconic means to challenge the current spatial order and its opening up of possibilities for emancipation. The article thus also shows how photography as a research method can reflect on existing power relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses political and economic issues concerning Queensland from July to December 2018. Topics explored include the economic outlook for the region with regard to government spending, credit rating, and unemployment, the business performance of government-owned energy and water companies, and the disaster recovery funding allotted by state and federal governments to address damages brought by natural disasters.

Through an online national survey in China, the study empirically examines the serial mediation effects of active communication behaviour and post‐crisis corporate associations in the relationships between initial crisis perceptions of problem, constraint, and involvement recognitions and government associations. The study suggested that higher problem and involvement recognitions were positively associated with more active communication behaviour in crisis, and such active communication behaviour was in turn positively associated with more favourable post‐crisis corporate associations. The findings also revealed connections between post‐crisis corporate associations and government associations, suggesting publics' psychological associations of the company in crisis were extended to government associations in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across two experiments, this study examines the relative effectiveness of refutational messages employing different rhetorical modes in mitigating the reputational damage from an activist's accusation of which validity can be contentious. Experiment 1 reveals that an appeal to logic generates more positive evaluations than an appeal to indignation in the message evaluations of transparency and reliability. Experiment 2 shows that an appeal to logic yields more positive attitude, higher perceptions of credibility and trust in the organization than an appeal to indignation when crisis involvement is high. The results of this study support the theoretical proposition of a dual‐process model of persuasion—individuals' processing of crisis discourse is greatly affected by their level of involvement with the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, joint ventures (JVs) between foreign investors and Chinese local firms were the most popular form of foreign affiliates before 2001. Over time, with policy space to operate as foreign wholly owned (WOs), many foreign investors in JVs chose to consolidate ownership and turned JVs into their WOs. Here, we examine how institution quality affects foreign investors' JV‐to‐WO ownership consolidation odds. For each province‐year, we construct an institution quality index from the business and judicial quality indicators, and further compute a relative quality index to highlight provincial variations. Using more than 43,000 JVs operating in China's 30 provinces over 1998–2007, we find that increases in institution quality decrease the odds of foreign investors to divorce their Chinese local partners. The odds for foreign investors in JVs to consolidate ownerships are significantly higher if they operate in provinces with relatively weaker institution quality. The odds of foreign investors' JV‐to‐WO decision vary with JVs' local firms being state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) and non‐SOEs, with foreign investors' origins from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan (HMT) and other regions (Foreign), and with foreign investors' initial equity positions. Our results are not driven by foreign direct investment policy shocks, and are robust to alternative measures of institution quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Internationally, interest in and research on state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) have increased significantly, particularly in the developing world, where they play a vital role in national economies. The evolution of Canadian SOEs is, for the most part, largely absent from this literature. This article analyzes and evaluates the performance of three SOEs in the financial sector owned and operated by the federal government: Export Development Canada (EDC), the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) and Farm Credit Canada (FCC). The article seeks to evaluate the performance of these commercially oriented hybrid entities which are policy (and politically) sensitive to the needs of their single shareholder. There is evidence that these firms take on higher‐risk investments than their private sector counterparts, in addition to performing other politically significant policy roles. There is also evidence that, as publicly owned entities, they enjoy some significant advantages over other actors in the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Under the government of President Joko Widodo, Indonesia's state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) have become the driver of the national development strategy. The current administration is actively using SOEs to conduct development projects based on the belief that SOEs are able to fix market failures and support the fiscally constrained government. In order to strengthen the role of SOEs, the Indonesian government is pursuing a medium‐term plan of creating sector‐based holding companies. The government expects that these state‐owned holding companies (SOHCs) will enable SOEs to expand investment and benefit from synergies. However, considering political hurdles in implementing this policy, the process of establishing SOHCs is expected to advance gradually. The government also continues to face challenges clarifying and communicating the rationale behind creating SOHCs. This paper examines the current political economic context of SOE ownership reorganisation in Indonesia and diverse views on the expected consequences of forming SOHCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Designed to break with state-centric approaches to understanding economic development, global commodity chain, global value chain (GVC), and global production network (GPN) analyses have deepened our understanding of the corporate governance of global lead firms and associated development outcomes in an era of globalisation. Although this research field is recognised to have provided considerable insight into private governance, a rapidly emerging body of research has given greater attention to the role of the state in GVCs and GPN. Although the state playing a role as facilitator towards firms participating in GPNs has often been an emphasis, this article argues that a variety of other roles are of increasing prominence, including as regulator, producer (state-owned enterprises), and buyer (public procurement). A major challenge for both policymakers and researchers is to understand how a range of state initiatives not just shape but also are shaped by their positioning in GVCs and GPNs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid expansion of self-employment has accompanied the rise of a market economy in urban China. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the state-owned enterprises' share of the country's gross domestic product has declined from over 90 percent in 1978 to below 50 percent in 2005. Urban entrepreneurship and self-employment is an emerging force that is shaping the economic and physical form of Chinese cities but is understudied in the academic literature. Using the 2007 Chinese Household Income Project ( CHIP) data, we investigate the rate and scale of urban entrepreneurship across Chinese cities, as well as the characteristics and earnings associated with self-employment as compared to wage employment. We pay particular attention to the financial capital, human capital, and social capital factors underlying entrepreneurial entry and distinguish between 'necessity entrepreneurs' and 'opportunity entrepreneurs' and their respective socioeconomic characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Those who resigned were the minister of state for mines and steel ( B Uche Ogar b ); the minister of state for petroleum resources ( B Timipre Sylva b ), the Niger Delta affairs minister (Godswill Akpabio), the minister of science and technology ( B Ogbonna Onu b ) and the minister of state for education (Emeka Nwajiuba). Caught up in the order were at least 10 ministers and junior ministers running for the presidency or state governorships. I (Africa Confidential 14/5) i I Sahara Reporters (13/5) i noted that several ministers had resigned after Buhari ordered political appointees seeking elective posts to quit. [Extracted from the article]

China's social assistance programme ( dibao 低保) was introduced in Shanghai in 1993 and gradually extended to cover all urban areas by 1998. Due to massive economic restructuring, starting in the early 1990s, many urban dibao recipients were laid-off, that is, state-owned enterprise ( SOE) employees. Shanghai was the epicentre of SOE reform, and the dibao system was primarily introduced to provide a safety net for laid-off workers. In 2010, approximately 3 per cent of urban, permanent residents were on dibao, and 72 per cent of its recipients were working-age adults. We conducted longitudinal qualitative interviews five times over 2 years with 40 dibao families that contained adults of working age in a Shanghai district. The current study demonstrates how they managed their employment, income and the dibao system. Findings suggested that, for various reasons, there was insufficient motivation for recipients to gain reemployment and leave dibao. Furthermore, local cadres, which were responsible for assessing and recommending dibao applicants to the district government, likely just assumed the incomes of adults with working capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper grapples with the state's response to contemporary urban movements. In light of recent debates on the changing nature of urban movements, it presents an overview of the responses of states in different modes of regulation, ranging from a Keynesian regime to sequential stages of neoliberalisation. Examples of authoritarianism and the entrepreneurial roles of the state are drawn from the Turkish experience to show how economic liberalism can be combined with increasing social control, restrictions, penalisation and exclusion. Reviewing Turkish urban policies and practice, the urban mobilisations against them, and the varying positions of the state will shed light not only on what is happening in Turkey but also on the transformative nature of neoliberalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the process of transforming employment relations in Vietnam and Indonesia using case studies of two state-owned enterprises in each country. Three factors are identified as important in the transformation process, although their impacts were different in each country: the role of the state; the influence of management and unions; and the impact of international bodies such as the International Labour Organization, the International Monetary Fund and multinational enterprises. While the role of the central government is stronger in Vietnam, particularly since the end of the Soeharto regime in Indonesia, both countries are increasingly subject to global influences and pressures. The paper utilises 'new institutionalist' theory to emphasise the important emergence of new institutions and their interaction with organisational changes in each country. The transformation of employment relations is likely to be an ongoing process in each country although the pace and direction of change will continue to differ, particularly given the stronger roles played by the state and unions in Vietnam compared with Indonesia [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China faces the challenge of balancing unprecedented economic growth and environmental sustainability. Rather than a homogenous country that can be analyzed at the national level, China is a vast country with significant regional differences in physical geography, regional economy, demographics, industry structure, and household consumption patterns. There are pronounced differences between the much-developed Eastern-Coastal economic zone and the less developed Central and Western economic zones in China. Such variations lead to large regional discrepancies in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Using the 28 regional input-output tables of China for 2002 and 2007 and structural decomposition analysis (SDA), we analyze how changes in population, technology, economic structure, urbanization, and household consumption patterns drive regional CO2 emissions. The results show a significant gap between the three economic zones in terms of CO2 emission intensity, as the Eastern-Coastal zone possesses more advanced production technologies compared to the Central and Western zones. The most polluting sectors and largest companies are state-owned enterprises and thus are potentially able to speed up knowledge transfer between companies and regions. The 'greening' of the more developed areas is not only a result of superior technology, but also of externalizing production and pollution to the poorer regions in China. The results also show that urbanization and associated income and lifestyle changes were important driving forces for the growth of CO2 emissions in most regions in China. Therefore, focusing on technology and efficiency alone is not sufficient to curb regional CO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the process of making Bangalore, India into a ‘world city’ by focusing on specific world-city projects, the parastatal government agencies managing them, the explosive IT industry as the putative engine behind this world-city making, and the inter-urban dynamics across world cities such as Dubai and Singapore. Most of these activities are linked to the highly remunerative challenge of transforming rural economies into urban real estate. Land speculation and active dispossession of those working and living in the rural periphery, on land upon which the new world-city projects are being built, is the main business of government today in Bangalore. This article suggests that this temporary ‘state of exception’, with both its attendant suspensions of civil and human rights as well as their institutionalization into government practices, reflects a shift into new forms of ‘speculative’ government, economy, urbanism and citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An article is presented that reports on foreign relations between China and Angola in 2011and the presence of Chinese corporations in Africa. The article discusses government-funded businesses in Luanda, Angola and the implications of China's economic and political presence there while referencing ties to imperialism. The article describes infrastructure and reconstruction in Angola related to Chinese-built roads, hospitals, and schools, also noting China's interest in Angolan oil resources. Information is also provided on Chinese workers, bilateral and financial agreements, and President José Eduardo dos Santos.

Devolvement of functions to quangos and Departmental Agencies has been a marked feature of reform in government since 1970, accelerated by the 'Next Steps' initiative (1987-90). Its effects in terms of performance, costs and disengagement from related government activity are discussed by reference to experiences in the management of two large quangos created after 1970, the Manpower Services and Health and Safety Commissions and their Executives. Some general lessons are drawn for present application, and the discussion seeks also to expose realities and difficulties in the management of public bodies that are often overlooked in theoretical argument. It acknowledges the advantages of devolvement, but points to serious limitations in the 'owner-agency' model when applied to public business, arising from powerful centralising forces, rapid changes in political aims, the cardinal requirement for economy, and shifting needs for lateral co-operation across the government sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transformation of Argentina's state-owned oil company into a transnational joint-stock corporation and a series of worker-owned subcontracting microenterprises in northwestern Patagonia provides an example of an actually existing neoliberal project. In this article, I illustrate how this project was as much a process of sustaining affective relationality as it was a process of fostering calculative rationality. The privatization process generated corporate subjects attached through familial associations of property, company, and family. Kinship sentiment was also the crucial force that incorporated former state oil workers into the inequitable circuits of the global petroleum industry. I argue that this neoliberal process was effective inasmuch as it worked affectively. [ neoliberal, kinship, property, affect, corporations, structural adjustment, petroleum, Argentina] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economics of decentralization implies that it generates efficiency improvement (higher growth) due to local government's ability to respond to the needs of local communities. However, this is not always the case. While policies do matter, this paper argues that institutional factors hold the key to the problem. The interactions among these factors and the characteristics of leaders in the region determine the outcome of decentralization. By capturing these important properties, multiple equilibria can be generated, avowing the ambiguous effects of local capture. On this basis, a typology of local leaders is developed. To the extent that welfare-enhancing activities are often related to regional growth, the role of an incentive system in determining the local leaders' behavior is also analyzed. In essence, a lack of incentive mechanisms for local leaders to promote growth and the absence of a stick-and-carrot system explain why post-decentralization growth performance has been generally disappointing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the regulatory agencies in Norway as part of the population of state agencies by focusing on who controls and what is controlled and how. The authors analyze whether regulatory agencies are regulated and controlled to different degrees, by different external actors, and in different ways than other agencies, and on whether this control focuses on different aspects. They also examine whether the variation in regulation and control according to type of agency task is sustained if one controls for structural and cultural features. The empirical basis is a broad survey of Norwegian state agencies carried out in 2004, and the theoretical approaches embrace a task-specific, a structural-instrumental and a cultural-institutional perspective. The authors find that regulatory tasks represent a major activity for state agencies in Norway and that external control by both the executive and the legislative bodies of agencies is rather significant. Moreover, in contrast to what one would expect, given current regulatory orthodoxy, regulatory agencies are controlled to a larger extent than other agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various levels of government contract-out the provision of public services such as health and education to community organizations, which have traditionally received core funding for these services. In recent years, however, with the adoption of neoliberal policies and New Public Management ideals, Canadian federal and provincial governments have increasingly off-loaded the provision of social services to community organizations through a project-funding regime. Community organizations and their workers now find themselves facing new challenges created by this new funding regime. This article explores the ways in which the daily lives of these workers have been organized and influenced by project-funding regime procedures and rules, which benefit the state but create hardships for workers. This analysis draws on staff interviews and focus group data collected from three community organizations in three provinces across Canada. The qualitative analytic approach includes both a thematic analysis and the identification of practices that benefit the institution but complicate worker activities, as identified by the Psycho-Social Ethnography of the Common-Place method, which borrows from Institutional Ethnography. Through the analysis of procedures of increased accountability, short-term funding, hiring on contract, use of information and communication technologies, and forced partnerships, the authors delineate the ways in which a neoliberalized ruling system benefits and manages staff activities while complicating the lives of the workers. Recommendations and responses to this situation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is intended to liberate the companies from bureaucratic control that hinders their management. Discussions of SOE reform, however, downplay the policy consequences. Can SOEs be “free” to succeed economically while some political control is maintained? Surprisingly, American experience with hybrid organizations—government-created companies that straddle the line between public and private—offers some precedent for managing the balance between political control and enterprise independence. Three strategies are derived for China. First, welfare functions must be stripped from SOEs and replaced by policy objectives compatible with commercial purposes. Second, reducing financial dependence on SOEs will remove a barrier to rational control. Third, and most importantly, a robust regulatory framework for control must be developed as a substitute for the weakened administrative linkages. The emerging control infrastructure rooted in state asset commissions is likely to prove ineffective for its blurring of ownership, administration, and regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's gradual transition from a command economy to a market system has been vexed by its ailing state-owned enterprises (SOEs) employing huge numbers of surplus workers. Under the growing challenge of market competition, the survival of SOEs depends critically on the release of unwanted staff. If not handled well, however, massive layoffs could trigger ugly protests, erode social stability and challenge the governing mandate of the Chinese Communist Party. Facing this dilemma, the state's response has been to invent a process of ‘xiagang’ (off-duty employment) whereby redundant state workers can leave the production process without causing social turbulence, and to introduce a national programme of re-employment service centres (RSCs) which offer living allowances, social security, job training and re-employment assistance as a transitional measure. As a distinct form of unemployment, xiagang reflects the special challenge confronting the state and civil society in a critical stage of China's market transition. This article sets out to explore the political and social meanings of xiagang and the RSCs to elucidate how the state uses a specific social policy to balance both group and national interests and to steer the country on to the next stage of market development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the concept of privatization that changed the values of political and administrative actors who hold power. Privatization in Great Britain began at the margins of public policy and worked its way inward. Privatization was quickly reflected in the dominant public discourse employed by policy-makers. Privatization was sold as a means to deal with under performing, loss making public enterprises. Policy learning, a feature of any reform agenda, was therefore a significant issue in the emergence of privatization as a viable, fully worked out policy.

Argues that the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules on state trading seeks to discipline the behavior of state trading enterprises. Approaches to potential reforms of WTO state trading rules; Role of state trading in China; Impact of WTO accession on state trading in China.

Analyzes the nature of state trading enterprises in the agricultural sector. Definition of a state trading enterprise as used in the World Trade Organization (WTO); Concerns expressed by some governments about the ability of state trading enterprises to be unfair traders; Proposals of WTO members.