Essays on emissions trading markets

This dissertation is a collection of three economics essays on different aspects of carbon emission trading markets. The first essay analyzes the dynamic optimal emission control strategies of two nations. With a potential to become the largest buyer under the Kyoto Protocol, the US is assumed to be a monopsony, whereas with a large number of tradable permits on hand Russia is assumed to be a monopoly. Optimal costs of emission control programs are estimated for both the countries under four different market scenarios: non-cooperative no trade, US monopsony, Russia monopoly, and cooperative trading. The US monopsony scenario is found to be the most Pareto cost efficient. The Pareto efficient outcome, however, would require the US to make side payments to Russia, which will even out the differences in the cost savings from cooperative behavior. The second essay analyzes the price dynamics of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), a voluntary emissions trading market. By examining the volatility in market returns using AR-GARCH and Markov switching models, the study associates the market price fluctuations with two different political regimes of the US government. Further, the study also identifies a high volatility in the returns few months before the market collapse. Three possible regulatory and market-based forces are identified as probable causes of market volatility and its ultimate collapse. Organizers of other voluntary markets in the US and worldwide may closely watch for these regime switching forces in order to overcome emission market crashes. The third essay compares excess skewness and kurtosis in carbon prices between CCX and EU ETS (European Union Emission Trading Scheme) Phase I and II markets, by examining the tail behavior when market expectations exceed the threshold level. Dynamic extreme value theory is used to find out the mean price exceedence of the threshold levels and estimate the risk loss. The calculated risk measures suggest that CCX and EU ETS Phase I are extremely immature markets for a risk investor, whereas EU ETS Phase II is a more stable market that could develop as a mature carbon market in future years.

Guiding public protest: assessing the propaganda model of China’s hybrid newspaper industry

This dissertation presents an account and analysis of published mainland Chinese media coverage surrounding three major events of public protest during the Hu-Wen era (2003-2013). The research makes a qualitative analysis of printed material drawn from a range of news outlets, differentiated by their specific political and commercial affiliations. The goal of the research is to better understand the role of mainstream media in social conflict resolution, a hitherto under-studied area, and to identify gradations within the ostensibly monolithic mainland Chinese media on issues of political sensitivity. China’s modern media formation displays certain characteristics of Anglophone media at its hyper-commercialised, populist core. However, the Chinese state retains an explicit, though often ambiguous, remit to engage with news production. Because of this, Chinese newspapers are often assumed to be one-dimensional propaganda ‘tools’ and, accordingly, easily dismissed from analyses of public protest. This research finds that, in an area where political actors have rescinded their monopoly on communicative power, a result of both policy decisions and the rise of Internet-based media platforms, established purveyors of news have acquired greater latitude to report on hitherto sensitive episodes of conflict but do so under the burden of having to correctly guide public opinion. The thesis examines the discursive resources that are deployed in this task, as well as reporting patterns which are suggestive of a new propaganda approach to handling social conflict within public media. Beside the explicitly political nature of coverage of protest events, the study sheds lights on gradations within China’s complex, hybrid media landscape both in terms of institutional purpose and qualitative performance.

Financial media, globalisation, and China’s economic integration: comparing narrative construction of the Economist and Caijing

In June 2015, legal frameworks of the Asian Infrastructural Investment Bank were signed by its 57 founding members. Proposed and initiated by China, this multilateral development bank is considered to be an Asian counterpart to break the monopoly of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In October 2015, China’s Central Bank announced a benchmark interest rate cut to combat the economic slowdown. The easing policy coincides with the European Central Bank’s announcement of doubts over US Fed’s commitment to raise interest rates. Global stock markets responded positively to China’s move, with the exception of the indexes from Wall Street (Bland, 2015; Elliott, 2015). In the meantime, China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ (or New Silk Road Economic Belt) became atopic of discourse in relation to its growing global economy, as China pledged $40 billion to trade and infrastructure projects (Bermingham, 2015). The foreign policy aims to reinforce the economic belt from western China through Central Asia towards Europe, as well as to construct maritime trading routes from coastal China through the South China Sea (Summers, 2015). In 2012, The Economist launched a new China section, to reveal the complexity of the‘meteoric rise’ of China. John Micklethwait, who was then the chief editor of the magazine, said that China’s emergence as a global power justified giving it a section of its own(Roush, 2012). In July 2015, Hu Shuli, the former chief editor of Caijing, announced the launch of a think tank and financial data service division called Caixin Insight Group, which encompasses the new Caixin China Purchasing Managers Index (PMI). Incooperation with with Markit Group, a principal global provider of PMI, the index soon became a widely cited economic indicator. One anecdote from November’s Caixin shows how much has changed: in a high-profile dialogue between Hu Shuli and Kevin Rudd, Hu insisted on asking questions in English; interestingly, the former Prime Minister of Australia insisted on replying in Chinese. These recent developments point to one thing: the economic ascent of China and its increasing influence on the power play between economics and politics in world markets. China has begun to take a more active role in rule making and enforcement under neoliberal frameworks. However, due to the country’s size and the scale of its economy in comparison to other countries, China’s version of globalisation has unique characteristics. The ‘Capitalist-socialist’ paradox is vital to China’s market-oriented transformation. In order to comprehend how such unique features are articulated and understood, there are several questions worth investigating in the realms of media and communication studies,such as how China’s neoliberal restructuring is portrayed and perceived by different types of interested parties, and how these portrayals are de-contextualised and re-contextualised in global or Anglo-American narratives. Therefore, based on a combination of the themes of globalisation, financial media and China’s economic integration, this thesis attempts to explore how financial media construct the narratives of China’s economic globalisation through the deployment of comparative and multi-disciplinary approaches. Two outstanding elite financial magazines, Britain’s The Economist, which has a global readership and influence, and Caijing, China’s leading financial magazine, are chosen as case studies to exemplify differing media discourses, representing, respectively, Anglo-American and Chinese socio-economic and political backgrounds, as well as their own journalistic cultures. This thesis tries to answer the questions of how and why China’s neoliberal restructuring is constructed from a globally-oriented perspective. The construction primarily involves people who are influential in business and policymaking. Hence, the analysis falls into the paradigm of elite-elite communication, which is an important but relatively less developed perspective in studying China and its globalisation. The comparing of characteristics of narrative construction are the result of the textual analysis of articles published over a ten-year period (mid-1998 to mid-2008). The corpus of samples come from the two media outlets’ coverage of three selected events:China becoming a member of the World Trade Organization, its outward direct investment, and the listing of stocks of Chinese companies in overseas exchanges, which are mutually exclusive in sample collection and collectively exhaustive in the inclusion of articles regarding China’s economic globalisation. The findings help to understand that, despite language, socio-economic and political differences, elite financial media with globally-oriented readerships share similar methods of and approaches to agenda setting, the evaluation of news prominence, the selection of frame, and the advocacy of deeply rooted neoliberal ideas. The comparison of their distinctive features reflects the different phases of building up the sense of identity in their readers as global elites, as well as the different economic interests that are aligned with the corresponding readerships. However, textual analysis is only relevant in terms of exploring how the narratives are constructed and the elements they include; textual analysis alone prevents us from seeing the obstacles and the constrains of the journalistic practices of construction. Therefore, this thesis provides a brief discussion of interviews with practitioners from the two media, in order to understand how similar or different narratives are manifested and perceived, how the concept of neoliberalism deviates from and is justified in the Chinese context, and how and for what purpose deviations arise from Western to Chinese contexts. The thesis also contributes to defining financial media in the domain of elite communication. The relevant and closely interlocking concepts of globalisation, elitism and neoliberalism are discussed, and are used as a theoretical bedrock in the analysis of texts and contexts. It is important to address the agenda-setting and ideological role of elite financial media, because of its narrative formula of infusing business facts with opinions,which is important in constructing the global elite identity as well as influencing neoliberal policy-making. On the other hand, ‘journalistic professionalism’ has been redefined, in that the elite identity is shared by the content producer, reader and the actors in the news stories emerging from the much-compressed news cycle. The professionalism of elite financial media requires a dual definition, that of being professional in the understanding of business facts and statistics, and that of being professional in the making sense of stories by deploying economic logic.

Travel, back and forth, to the myth. Cinema´s contribution to the formation of the tourist iconography of Mallorca

Mallorca, the largest of the Balearic Islands, is a well-known summer holidays destination; an ideal place to relax and enjoy the sun and the sea. That tourist gaze reflected on postcards results from advertising campaigns, where cinema played an important role with documentaries and fiction films. The origins of that iconography started in the decades of the 1920’s and 1930’s, reflecting the so-called myth of the “island of calm”. On the other hand, the films of the 1950’s and 1960’s created new stereotypes related to the mass tourism boom. Busy beaches and the white bodies of tourists replaced white sandy beaches, mountains and landscapes shown up in the movies of the early decades of the 20th century. Besides, hotels and nightclubs also replaced monuments, rural landscapes and folk exhibitions. These tourist images mirror the social and spatial transformations of Mallorca, under standardization processes like other seaside mass tourist destinations. The identity was rebuilt on the foundations of "modernity". Although "balearization" has not ceased, nowadays filmmaking about Mallorca is advertising again a stereotype close to that one of the 1920s and 1930s, glorifying the myth of the "island of calm". This singular identity makes the island more profitable for capital that searches socio-spatial differentiation in post-fordist times.

Contraprestaciones por los servicios financieros del Consulado de México y sus miembros: los fondos extraordinarios para la guerra contra Gran Bretaña, 1779-1783

Nueva España aportó la mayor parte de los recursos que sostuvieron a las fuerzas armadas españolas durante la guerra contra Gran Bretaña que se desarrolló en el Caribe entre 1779 y 1783. En el artículo se analizan las medidas a las que recurrieron las autoridades reales para obtener recursos extraordinarios del Consulado y varios mercaderes de la ciudad de México. Asimismo se exponen algunas de las contraprestaciones que negociaron a cambio de dichos servicios financieros y se plantean diversas hipótesis acerca de los motivos económicos, sociales y políticos que los llevaron a colaborar con el monarca, teniendo en cuenta los negocios que realizaban durante el conflicto bélico y la forma en que eran afectados por la reciente apertura comercial.

Los debates en torno al ferrocarril en España anteriores a la creación de RENFE: el camino hacia el monopolio de Estado

Desde su nacimiento hasta la caída de la dictadura de Primo de Rivera, el ferrocarril se perfiló como una industria doblemente creadora de riqueza, estimulando por un lado la ya existente e impulsando el desarrollo económico por otro. Ante sus peculiaridades técnicas, económicas y de mercado, los distintos gobiernos adoptaron soluciones intervencionistas de mayor o menor grado. Simultáneamente, en su primer desarrollo, se produjo el abandono del paradigma clásico basado en la libre competencia, lo que derivó en la conversión del ferrocarril en foco de la retórica anti-competencia y de la práctica intervencionista. En este trabajo realizamos un seguimiento del nacimiento y desarrollo del ferrocarril, centrado exclusivamente en la evolución político-económica del sector dentro de la propia evolución histórica, paralela a la vía nacionalista del capitalismo español, y en la descriptiva teórica y práctica del desarrollo del intervencionismo y las restricciones al libre mercado.

Commentary on the Stationers' Royal Charter 1557

Royal Charter providing the Company of Stationers with corporate legal status within the City of London, and conferring on them exclusive control over printing within England. The grant of the Charter ensured that the Company's licensing procedures became the standard by which members of the book trade secured the right to print and publish literary works, giving rise to what is generally referred to as ‘stationers' copyright'.
The grant of the Charter by Mary is often understood as the point at which the monarchy established an effective regulatory institution to control and censure the press, in the guise of the Stationers' Company, in exchange for an absolute monopoly over the production of printed works. In fact, the commentary suggests that censorship of the press throughout the Tudor period remained an essentially ad hoc and reactive phenomenon, and that both Mary and Elizabeth relied, not primarily upon the Company of Stationers, but on the use of statutory instruments and royal proclamations to censure heretical and treasonous texts.

Commentary on the Statute of Monopolies 1624

Legislation restricting the monarch's ability to make monopoly grants in accordance with the royal prerogative, and providing a statutory basis for the patent system. The legislation established the basis upon which patents for "new manufacture[s]" might be granted to "the true and first inventor" of the same in furthering the interests of industry, the economy, and the state. At the same time, privileges concerning printing were left unaffected by the legislation, as were those for the manufacture of saltpetre or gunpowder and for the casting and making of ordnance (canons). In limiting the term of protection for future patents to 14 years while confining existing patents for the same to a period of 21 years, the legislation influenced the choice of the two copyright terms in the Statute of Anne 1710.

Commentary on Stationers' Company v. Carnan (1775)

Case in which the Court of Common Pleas decided that the Crown did not have the authority to grant exclusive prerogative rights over the printing of almanacs, a monopoly which the Stationers' Company had enjoyed, uncontested, since the formation of the ‘English Stock' in the early seventeenth century.
The commentary describes the background to the litigation, as well as the various strategies that the Stationers' Company employed in their efforts to regain control of the almanac market in the wake of the decision. It also explores how the decision provided the springboard for the emergence of a more contemporary concept of prerogative copyright. It was no longer thought that the Crown could grant printing patents over certain classes of work as of right. Rather, it was the monarch's unique constitutional position as head of both church and state that imposed an obligation to ensure the dissemination of authentic and authoritative versions of both legal and religious materials, and, from this obligation, the right to print the same arose.

Commentary on the Royal Commission's Report on Copyright (1878)

The first major governmental review of the national, colonial, and international copyright regime. The commentary explores the background to the Royal Commission and in particular the efforts of the Association for the Protection of the Rights of Authors in lobbying for law reform. The commentary also explores the extent to which debates about free trade and monopoly commended the attention of the Commissioners and provided a challenge to the dominant conception of copyright - that is, copyright as a property right. The Report affirmed that copyright should continue to be regarded as a property right, and acknowledged the need for reform and consolidating legislation. Beyond that, however, the Commissioners were in considerable disagreement as to copyright's purpose and proper scope, with few of the Report's major recommendations receiving the unanimous support of the same.

Value creation in a reregulated market : Divestments, firms and dynamic processes

This thesis makes use of the unique reregulation of pharmaceutical monopoly in Sweden to critically examine intraindustry firm heterogeneity. It contributes to existing divestiture research as it studies the dynamism in between reconfigurations of value constellations and its effects on value creation of divested pharmacies. Because the findings showed that the predominant theory of intraindustry firm heterogeneity could not explain firm performance, the value constellation concept was applied as it captured the phenomena. A patterned finding informed how reconfigurations of value constellations in a reregulated market characterized by strict rules, regulations, and high competition did not generate additional value for firms on short term. My study unveils that value creation is hampered in situations where rules and regulations significantly affect firms’ ability to reconfigure their value constellations. The key practical implication is an alternative perspective on fundamental aspects of the reregulation and how policy-makers may impede firm performance and the intended creation of new value for not only firms but for society as a whole.

The Transition of World Cashew Industry and the Challenges to India

Cashew is an important commodity traded across the continents and the world cashew industry is the livelihood of more than three million people worldwide, the majority of whom are womenfolk from the socially and economically backward community of the developing nations. Cashew tree was originally planted to prevent soil erosion and it was during the beginning of the 19th century that cashew kernels attained the status of a food item. Further, the cashew kernels attained the status of an international commodity with India exporting its first consignment of cashew kernels to U.S.A. in 1920. India was the first country to hit the world market with cashew as a commodity and it was she who pioneered cashew processing as an industry. For decades together India was enjoying a monopoly in the world cashew industry in the fields of raw nut production (cultivation), processing and the market share in the international trade. The liberalisation of international trade has brought in a big transition in the world of cashew. India started to benefit from the trade policy, that improved her supply positions of raw nuts from other producing countries, accelerated her growth in processing of raw nuts and exports of cashew kernels. On the other side, her domestic consumption started growing up that by the beginning of the new century, she emerged out as the world’s largest consumer of cashew kernels as well.

Pratiquer l’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes au sein des organisations : étude de cas des ONG au Mali.

Cette thèse analyse les pratiques d’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes au sein des organisations non gouvernementales (ONG) maliennes qui ont reçu du financement canadien. En effet, l’aide publique au développement a subi des transformations majeures depuis les années 1950. L’une de ces transformations a été le rôle important joué par les ONG dans les années 1990, à la suite de l’adoption des politiques d’ajustements structurels et de la fin de la monopolisation par l’État en ce qui a trait à l’aide publique pour les projets de développement. Entre autres, les ONG ont été sollicitées pour promouvoir les politiques d’égalité entre hommes et femmes. L’importance des ONG dans l’aide publique au développement a créé des relations de dépendances vis-à-vis des bailleurs de fonds qui imposent des conditionnalités. Nos résultats ont montré que les bailleurs de fonds exigent l’égalité entre les sexes en ce qui concerne les bénéficiaires des programmes, mais, paradoxalement, ne l’exigent pas à l’intérieur des ONG et dans leurs ressources humaines. En analysant la composition du personnel de huit ONG maliennes, nos résultats montrent que 34 % du personnel sont des femmes alors que 66 % sont des hommes, ce qui démontre un déséquilibre assez important en matière de parité. Cependant, une analyse plus fine nous indique que les pratiques d’égalité entre femmes et hommes dans les structures et dans la gestion des ressources humaines diffèrent d’une ONG à une autre. Ces pratiques dépendent beaucoup de la volonté et des valeurs des gestionnaires. Notre recherche a fait ressortir plusieurs explications de cette disparité au niveau de l’emploi des femmes. Les raisons souvent mentionnées étaient : 1) la nécessité d’avoir du personnel compétent, 2) la conciliation famille-travail, 3) le contexte socioculturel, 4) l’interprétation de la religion musulmane en matière d’égalité. En effet, nos résultats ont démontré que sous l’influence des bailleurs de fonds les ONG se sont professionnalisées, que l’impact de la professionnalisation a été différent selon le genre et que celle-ci s’est faite aux dépens des femmes. Ainsi, certains gestionnaires, quel que soit leur sexe, préfèrent recruter plus d’hommes parce qu’ils les jugent plus compétents.Nos résultats confirment la théorie du plafond de verre qui met en exergue le fait que les femmes ont de la difficulté à accéder à des postes de responsabilité. Nos résultats ont aussi démontré qu’au Mali, le contexte socioculturel et la religion jouent un grand rôle dans les relations sociales et surtout en ce qui concerne la place des femmes au sein de la société.

The (Im)possibility of the Intellectual Worker Inside the Neoliberal University

The provocation and point of this paper is that universities of the North during the era of neoliberalism of have been sucked of their human life-giving capacities. What remains are closed doors and bare walls. Lest we give the impression of a hopelessly romantic view of the university (and embark upon a lament for some paradise lost), let us be clear from the outset: there is no such place – and there never has been. As will be outlined below, a consideration of the history of the university reveals it was born and has persistently drawn its life breath from oxygen formed in the tension ridden mix of an impulse to human freedom and accommodation to powers of church, state and capital. But, we contend, history is now the witness to the almost complete dissolution of that tension: to the exhaustion of emancipatory impulses in the service of indoctrination, regulation and accumulation. In the church-state-capital triad, it is the latter that has emerged hegemonic. Importantly, we argue, its dominance has emerged with the rise of what Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy describe as monopoly capital: the move from competitive (small entrepreneurial business) forms to monopolistic (large corporate business) regimes of accumulation (Baran & Sweezy 1966). A central feature of monopoly capitalism is its need for significant financial support of national states and the harnessing of public resources such as universities to feed accumulation. It is no surprise that neoliberalism, despite its neoclassical economic pronouncements, is a ‘big state’ advocate (Harvey 2005). Our argument is that neoliberalism, as the political workhorse of monopoly capitalism, has overseen a makeover of universities so they might behave like a monopoly capitalist corporation. Our time is the time of the near global domination of capital. The university has succumbed. In its colonisation – its capitalisation – the university has not only reinvented itself as a willing ally of capital but has also set about remaking itself in its image.

Caza y cazadores en la Castilla bajomedieval

La caza puede considerarse como uno de los ejercicios donde el instinto de agresividad y el espíritu lúdico se encuentran estrechamente ligados. El hombre la practica también para defenderse de una naturaleza hostil, asegurarse el alimento u obtener un beneficio en el mercado; suministradora de carne y de pieles, desempeña un papel innegable en las economías medievales. Aparece reflejada en la Literatura y en el Arte. En las clases superiores de la sociedad se ritualiza. Sus prácticas y sus técnicas son codificadas y enseñadas en libros que le consagran importantes personajes. La caza, en fin, da lugar también a una reglamentación y a un derecho que tienden a concebirla como un monopolio de los poderosos. Este trabajo pasa revista a esos y a otros problemas refiriéndolos al reino de Castilla durante la Baja Edad Media.