China’s new creative strategy : the utilization of cultural soft power and new markets

This book examines different aspects of Asian popular culture, including films, TV, music, comedy, folklore, cultural icons, the Internet and theme parks. It raises important questions such as – What are the implications of popularity of Asian popular culture for globalization? Do regional forces impede the globalizing of cultures? Or does the Asian popular culture flow act as a catalyst or conveying channel for cultural globalization? Does the globalization of culture pose a threat to local culture? It addresses two seemingly contradictory and yet parallel processes in the circulation of Asian popular culture: the interconnectedness between Asian popular culture and western culture in an era of cultural globalization that turns subjects such as Pokémon, Hip Hop or Cosmopolitan into truly global phenomena, and the local derivatives and versions of global culture that are necessarily disconnected from their origins in order to cater for the local market. It thereby presents a collective argument that, whilst local social formations, and patterns of consumption and participation in Asia are still very much dependent on global cultural developments and the phenomena of modernity, yet such dependence is often concretized, reshaped and distorted by the local media to cater for the local market. Contents: Introduction: Asian Popular Culture: The Global (Dis)continuity Anthony Y.H. Fung Part 1: The Dominance of Global Continuity: Cultural Localization and Adaptation 1. One Region, Two Modernities: Disneyland in Tokyo and Hong Kong Micky Lee and Anthony Y.H. Fung 2. Comic Travels: Disney Publishing in the People’s Republic of China Jennifer Altehenger 3. When Chinese Youth Meet Harry Potter: Translating Consumption and Middle Class Identification John Nguyet Erni 4.New Forms of Transborder Visuality in Urban China: Saving Face for Magazine Covers Eric Kit-Wai Ma 5. Cultural Consumption and Masculinity: A Case Study of GQ Magazine Covers in Taiwan Hong-Chi Shiau Part 2: Global Discontinuity: The Local Absorption of Global Culture 6. An Unlocalized and Unglobalized Subculture: English Language Independent Music in Singapore Kai Khiun Liew and Shzr Ee Tan 7. The Localized Production of Jamaican Music in Thailand Viriya Sawangchot 8. Consuming Online Games in Taiwan: Global Games and Local Market Lai-Chi Chen 9. The Rise of the Korean Cinema in Inbound and Outbound Globalization Shin Dong Kim Part 3: Cultural Domestication: A New Form of Global Continuity 10. Pocket Capitalism and Virtual Intimacy: Pokémon as a Symptom of Post-Industrial Youth Culture Anne Allison 11. Playing the Global Game: Japan Brand and Globalization Kukhee Choo Part 4: China as a Rising Market: Cultural Antagonism and Globalization 12. China’s New Creative Strategy: The Utilization of Cultural Soft Power and New Markets Michael Keane and Bonnie Liu 13. Renationalizing Hong Kong Cinema: The Gathering Force of the Mainland Market Michael Curtin

How technological change affects power relations in global markets : remote developers in the console and mobile games industry

This paper focuses on Australian development firms in the console and mobile games industry in order to understand how small firms in a geographically remote and marginal position in the global industry are able to relate to global firms and capture revenue share. This paper shows that, while technological change in the games industry has resulted in the emergence of new industry segments based on transactional rather than relational forms of economic coordination, in which we might therefore expect less asymmetrical power relations, lead firms retain a position of power in the global games entertainment industry relative to remote developers. This has been possible because lead firms in the emerging mobile devices market have developed and sustained bottlenecks in their segment of the industry through platform competition and the development of an intensely competitive ecosystem of developers. Our research shows the critical role of platform competition and bottlenecks in influencing power asymmetries within global markets.

An integrated design approach to power systems : from power flows to electricity markets

Power system is at the brink of change. Engineering needs, economic forces and environmental factors are the main drivers of this change. The vision is to build a smart electrical grid and a smarter market mechanism around it to fulfill mandates on clean energy. Looking at engineering and economic issues in isolation is no longer an option today; it needs an integrated design approach. In this thesis, I shall revisit some of the classical questions on the engineering operation of power systems that deals with the nonconvexity of power flow equations. Then I shall explore some issues of the interaction of these power flow equations on the electricity markets to address the fundamental issue of market power in a deregulated market environment. Finally, motivated by the emergence of new storage technologies, I present an interesting result on the investment decision problem of placing storage over a power network. The goal of this study is to demonstrate that modern optimization and game theory can provide unique insights into this complex system. Some of the ideas carry over to applications beyond power systems.

The future of energy: are competitive markets and nuclear power the answer?

The inaugural lecture of Professor Stephen Thomas at the University of Greenwich, 4th February 2010. It examines whether further pursuit of competition in energy markets and expansion in the role of nuclear power can be the main elements in a policy to meet goals of security, sustainability and affordability.

Virtual power producers simulation - negotiating renewable distributed generation in competitive electricity markets

Sustainable development concerns made renewable energy sources to be increasingly used for electricity distributed generation. However, this is mainly due to incentives or mandatory targets determined by energy policies as in European Union. Assuring a sustainable future requires distributed generation to be able to participate in competitive electricity markets. To get more negotiation power in the market and to get advantages of scale economy, distributed generators can be aggregated giving place to a new concept: the Virtual Power Producer (VPP). VPPs are multi-technology and multisite heterogeneous entities that should adopt organization and management methodologies so that they can make distributed generation a really profitable activity, able to participate in the market. This paper presents ViProd, a simulation tool that allows simulating VPPs operation, in the context of MASCEM, a multi-agent based eletricity market simulator.

Reforming the Market Design of EU Electricity Markets: Addressing the Challenges of a Low-Carbon Power Sector. CEPS Task Force Report, 27 July 2015

This CEPS Task Force Report focuses on whether there is a need to adapt the EU’s electricity market design and if so, the options for doing so. In a first step, it analyses the current market trends by distinguishing between their causes and their consequences. Then, the current blueprint of EU power market design – the target model – is briefly introduced, followed by a discussion of the shortcomings of the current approach and the challenges in finding suitable solutions. The final chapter offers an inventory of solutions differentiating between recommendations shared among Task Force members and non-consensual options.

Keeping up with the neighbours : China's soft power ambitions

Over the past century numerous waves of transnational media have washed across East Asia with cycles emanating from various centers of cultural production, such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Seoul. Most recently the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has begun to exert growing influence over the production and flow of screen media, a phenomenon tied to the increasing size and power of its overall economy. The country’s rising status achieved truly global recognition during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In the seven years leading up to the event, the Chinese economy tripled in size, expanding from $1.3 trillion to almost $4 trillion, a figure that made it the world’s third largest economy, slightly behind Japan, but decisively ahead of its European counterparts, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. The scale and speed of this transformation are stunning. Just as momentous are the changes in its film, television, and digital media markets, which now figure prominently in the calculations of producers throughout East Asia.

Re-made in Asia : transformation across Asian markets and popular culture

The thesis is an examination of how Japanese popular culture products are remade (rimeiku). Adaptation of manga, anime and television drama, from one format to another, frequently occurs within Japan. The rights to these stories and texts are traded in South Korea and Taiwan. The ‘spin-off’ products form part of the Japanese content industry. When products are distributed and remade across geographical boundaries, they have a multi-dimensional aspect and potentially contribute to an evolving cultural re-engagement between Japan and East Asia. The case studies are the television dramas Akai Giwaku and Winter Sonata and two manga, Hana yori Dango and Janguru Taitei. Except for the television drama Winter Sonata these texts originated in Japan. Each study shows how remaking occurs across geographical borders. The study argues that Japan has been slow to recognise the value of its popular culture through regional and international media trade. Japan is now taking steps to remedy this strategic shortfall to enable the long-term viability of the Japanese content industry. The study includes an examination of how remaking raises legal issues in the appropriation of media content. Unauthorised copying and piracy contributes to loss of financial value. To place the three Japanese cultural products into a historical context, the thesis includes an overview of Japanese copying culture from its early origins through to the present day. The thesis also discusses the Meiji restoration and the post-World War II restructuring that resulted in Japan becoming a regional media powerhouse. The localisation of Japanese media content in South Korea and Taiwan also brings with it significant cultural influences, which may be regarded as contributing to a better understanding of East Asian society in line with the idea of regional ‘harmony’. The study argues that the commercial success of Japanese products beyond Japan is governed by perceptions of the quality of the story and by the cultural frames of the target audience. The thesis draws on audience research to illustrate the loss or reinforcement of national identity as a consequence of cross-cultural trade. The thesis also examines the contribution to Japanese ‘soft power’ (Nye, 2004, p. x). The study concludes with recommendations for the sustainability of the Japanese media industry.

A toothless chihuahua? : the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, neoliberalism and supermarket power in Australia

During the Senate Inquiry into 'milk price wars' in 2011, Senator Nick Xenophon accused the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) of being 'less effective than a toothless Chihuahua'. This follows the ACCC's lack of action regarding the reported abuse of market power of Australia's supermarket duopoly, where an extensive inquiry into the competitiveness of retail prices in 2008 found grocery retailing to be 'workably competitive' despite numerous claims to the contrary. How can farmers' submissions to the inquiry that cite market abuse be reconciled with the ACCC's finding that all is well in the food supply chain? Following an in-depth examination of 53 farmer submissions to the inquiry, we conclude that the findings of the ACCC are commensurate with the neoliberal economisation of the political sphere, where commercial entities 'legitimately' govern beyond their corporate boundaries, often using disciplinary measures that were once exclusive to governments. We argue that such clear structural inequalities between farmers and major corporations is reason to re-regulate markets and reinsert a stronger role for government to 'level the playing field'.

The Impact of Emissions Trading on the Price of Electricity in Nord Pool : Market Power and Price Determination in the Nordic Electricity Market

The objective of this thesis is to find out how dominant firms in a liberalised electricity market will react when they face an increase in the level of costs due to emissions trading, and how this will effect the price of electricity. The Nordic electricity market is chosen as the setting in which to examine the question, since recent studies on the subject suggest that interaction between electricity markets and emissions trading is very much dependent on conditions specific to each market area. There is reason to believe that imperfect competition prevails in the Nordic market, thus the issue is approached through the theory of oligopolistic competition. The generation capacity available at the market, marginal cost of electricity production and seasonal levels of demand form the data based on which the dominant firms are modelled using the Cournot model of competition. The calculations are made for two levels of demand, high and low, and with several values of demand elasticity. The producers are first modelled under no carbon costs and then by adding the cost of carbon dioxide at 20€/t to those technologies subject to carbon regulation. In all cases the situation under perfect competition is determined as a comparison point for the results of the Cournot game. The results imply that the potential for market power does exist on the Nordic market, but the possibility for exercising market power depends on the demand level. In season of high demand the dominant firms may raise the price significantly above competitive levels, and the situation is aggravated when the cost of carbon dioixide is accounted for. Under low demand leves there is no difference between perfect and imperfect competition. The results are highly dependent on the price elasticity of demand.

Calm or storm? : Wind power actors perceptions of Finnish wind power and its future

Wind power has grown fast internationally. It can reduce the environmental impact of energy production and increase energy security. Finland has turbine industry but wind electricity production has been slow, and nationally set capacity targets have not been met. I explored social factors that have affected the slow development of wind power in Finland by studying the perceptions of Finnish national level wind power actors. By that I refer to people who affect the development of wind power sector, such as officials, politicians, and representatives of wind industries and various organisations. The material consisted of interviews, a questionnaire, and written sources. The perceptions of wind power, its future, and methods to promote it were divided. They were studied through discourse analysis, content analysis, and scenario construction. Definition struggles affect views of the significance and potential of wind power in Finland, and also affect investments in wind power and wind power policy choices. Views of the future were demonstrated through scenarios. The views included scenarios of fast growth, but in the most pessimistic views, wind power was not thought to be competitive without support measures even in 2025, and the wind power capacity was correspondingly low. In such a scenario, policy tool choices were expected to remain similar to ones in use at the time of the interviews. So far, the development in Finland has followed closely this pessimistic scenario. Despite the scepticism about wind electricity production, wind turbine industry was seen as a credible industry. For many wind power actors as well as for the Finnish wind power policy, the turbine industry is a significant motive to promote wind power. Domestic electricity production and the export turbine industry are linked in discourse through so-called home market argumentation. Finnish policy tools have included subsidies, research and development funding, and information policies. The criteria used to evaluate policy measures were both process-oriented and value-based. Feed-in tariffs and green certificates that are common elsewhere have not been taken to use in Finland. Some interviewees considered such tools unsuitable for free electricity markets and for the Finnish policy style, dictatorial, and being against western values. Other interviewees supported their use because of their effectiveness. The current Finnish policy tools are not sufficiently effective to increase wind power production significantly. Marginalisation of wind power in discourses, pessimistic views of the future, and the view that the small consumer demand for wind electricity represents the political views of citizens towards promoting wind power, make it more difficult to take stronger policy measures to use. Wind power has not yet significantly contributed to the ecological modernisation of the energy sector in Finland, but the situation may change as the need to reduce emissions from energy production continues.

Unrealized expectations of jumps in volatility: An explanation to the low and time-varying predictive power of implied volatility

The low predictive power of implied volatility in forecasting the subsequently realized volatility is a well-documented empirical puzzle. As suggested by e.g. Feinstein (1989), Jackwerth and Rubinstein (1996), and Bates (1997), we test whether unrealized expectations of jumps in volatility could explain this phenomenon. Our findings show that expectations of infrequently occurring jumps in volatility are indeed priced in implied volatility. This has two important consequences. First, implied volatility is actually expected to exceed realized volatility over long periods of time only to be greatly less than realized volatility during infrequently occurring periods of very high volatility. Second, the slope coefficient in the classic forecasting regression of realized volatility on implied volatility is very sensitive to the discrepancy between ex ante expected and ex post realized jump frequencies. If the in-sample frequency of positive volatility jumps is lower than ex ante assessed by the market, the classic regression test tends to reject the hypothesis of informational efficiency even if markets are informationally effective.