FB I - Wirtschaftswissenschaften
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Auswirkungen der Besonderheiten im grenzüberschreitenden Cash Pooling auf dessen ökonomischen Nutzen
(2018)
The agriculture sector is a vital link for the socio-economic development of many rural areas in the developing countries. A major part of the poverty reduction is largely affirmed with an expansion of smallholders´ agricultural production and their capabilities. Moreover, the largest portion of their income is derived from the trade of agricultural products. However, over the last few years, with the raise of private agri-food standards, those often go beyond public requirements, agri-food value chains became not only sophisticated but private agri-food standards emerged as an entrance ticket to access European market segments. This trend, at the other extreme, significantly confronts less financially endowed smallholders´ in developing economies and shrinks their opportunities to participate in the global agri-food value chains thus, sell their product on the valuable markets. Against this background, this work provides a complementary perspective on the structural changes in the global food marketplace resulting from the emergence of global value chains and compliance with the retailer-led food safety and quality standards. Moreover, based on the case analysis of the Global GAP and fresh fruits and vegetable sector, located in the buyer-driven chains, it examines major implications of the private food quality and safety certifications and identifies their inhibiting factors on the small-scale farmers in developing economies. Due to some constraints such as lack of financial and technical capacities, these vulnerable value chains actors are not able to comply with the tightening private certification schemes repercussions of which, among others are lost income, savings and increased poverty level.
It is likely that private food standards will continue to evolve. Thus, contingent upon the findings and conclusions derived from the analysis, this research identifies possible governance mechanisms and points of interventions for addressing detrimental implications of private food schemes. This also includes recommendations for empowering small-scale farmers to comply with the food standards and national authorities in developing countries in creating enabling
export enabling environment for smallholder farmers. In that regard, it also provides insights on enhancing the legitimacy of the private food certifications. Last but not least, it discusses the role EU should play, in respect to leveraging private agri-food schemes, to prevent exclusion of small-scale farmers from the European markets that could threaten their livelihoods and hinder development objectives in general.
China has achieved a tremendous economic growth in the past few decades. In the pursuit of self-reliance, economic and social upgrading, the central government of China has given a great attention to upgrading their industries. In this regard, the automobile industry and automanufacturing companies have attracted great attention from both central and local governments.
The intention of the Chinese central government to encourage the establishment of joint ventures between the local Chinese and European automobile manufacturers was to take advantage of the technology spillover that would take place as a result. This project is a case study on the relationship between European and Chinese automobile industries to inspect the possibility of achieving social upgrading via economic upgrading as a result of technological spillover. The argument is that technology transfer has been made possible through industrial collaboration between the Chinese and the European automakers. In addition, industrial upgrading in China is translated to an unprecedented economic growth that has affected the
society.
The Portuguese water supply and sanitation sector has witnessed over the last 40 years a steady improvement in levels of coverage and in the general quality of services provided. This evolution has been hailed by international organizations as the "Portuguese miracle". Yet, this qualification is restricted to the results achieved during the period marked by the liberalisation of the sector. In 1993, a water sector reform led by the central government started a number of processes towards commercialization, corporatization and liberalization of the Portuguese water sector. In 2007, a major financial crisis started in the United States of America and spread across the world. In the European Union, and in particular in Portugal and other peripheral countries, the crisis meant the enforcement of neoliberal shock therapy for almost five years after the so-called sovereign debt crises. The social impacts were devastating and provision and access to public services were restricted. This paper concentrates on assessing the links between the neoliberalisation of the Portuguese water sector and the situation of access to water and sanitation services in the aftermath of the deep crisis. The analysis focus on typical dimensions of neoliberalisation in this sector and empirically tries to assess how and to what extent these processes impact on the political and human rights goal of progressive universal access to these services in a context of austerity politics. It is argued that neoliberalisation processes both increase and hinder access to the services. In fact, by expanding networks under an environmental paradigm and improving consumer rights, neoliberalisation delivered on increasing levels of access with improved quality, yet consistently rising water prices coupled with policy loopholes and institutional blindness to the distributional impacts of that trend lead to the imposition of inequitable burdens on low-income households. Recent policy initiatives to relief the financial burden on low-income households seem weak and difficult to implement since they do not break away from the basic principles guiding water policy (user-pays principle, polluter pays principle and full-cost recovery from water charges).
The Energiewende as concept and policy strategy for an energy transformation towards a renewable energy regime in Germany, has since its very beginning included many societal goals beyond the mere shift towards renewables. The decentralised dimension based on principles of energy democracy have characterise the roots of the transition, and through the distinct legislative framework in Germany, mainly by the Renewable Energy Source Act(EEG), the market landscape has reached a large degree of actor heterogeneity mainly constituted by small players. However, in recent years this decentralisation has been challenged by a variety of different policies, resulting from European Union and national legislation. This research outlines how these two governance levels have evolved with respect to the renewable energy regime and how certain policies have affected the decentralised dimension of the Energiewende. Through this policy analysis on the shifting framework, many risks for the continued existence of the renewable energy regime in Germany based on decentralised principles have arisen are being outlined. Small actors under the new market-based conditions have been strongly impacted by the shifting regime and first results of the regime change have been analysed and show the challenges. Based on those findings, the analysis has concluded that to a certain degree, mainly in the legal and policy spheres, a shift towards a more centralised renewable energy regime that favours concentrated ownership structures has occurred. The main drivers have been market-based interests pushed forward by the European Union and a decreased effort of Germany to uphold its renewable energy market design which allowed the shift towards decentralisation. However, the paper also concludes that it is yet too early to say if an overall shift towards centralisation has taken place, as the recent developments of the new regime will have to be further monitored in the coming years, and it will have to be seen how smaller market actors will continue to respond to a framework which is no longer in their favour in the long-run.
The Rise of Right-wing populism in Europe. Different or similar causes in Western/Eastern countries?
(2018)
Craving for Super-foods - Understanding underlying motivation driving consumers´food consumption
(2018)
This paper explains the emergence of the „pledge and review‟ governance approach found in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, in place of the „obligatory targets and timetables‟ approach found in the Kyoto Protocol, from a neo-Gramscian perspective. The main argument is that the adoption of pledge and review was a response to both the pressure to agree a new international treaty and the simultaneous divergence of interests and fragmentation of negotiation groups within the UNFCCC regime.
Firstly, the bilateral agreement between the US and China, signed in November 2014, signified the commitment of the world‟s two largest economies to reduction their GHG emissions. Combined with the commitment of the EU, these three actors represent over half of all GHG emissions worldwide, applying strong pressure towards reaching an agreement during the Paris climate negotiations. Breaking from previous historical reluctance on the part of China and the US in the field of international climate policy, China‟s recent heavy investment in green technology and its numerous policy initiatives to increase energy efficiency and reduce pollution have lowered China‟s cost of participation and heightened the cost of its obstructionism within international negotiations, as it shifts onto a path of low-carbon development in an attempt to increase economic competitiveness, increase energy security, and reduce domestic pollution levels. The US, under Obama‟s Democratic Presidency, has sought to make fresh strides in the field of domestic and international climate policy.
And secondly, a continuous fragmentation of the international climate negotiation process has occurred since the early days of the UNFCCC, with an increasingly divergent set of interests being expressed within the negotiations, compounded by the recent addition of developing countries‟ emission reduction targets that resulted in a whole new set of interests being added to the table. This emerged as part of a broader fragmentation of the global climate regime in general, as numerous diverse sites of climate governance were founded, both within and outside the existing UN climate regime. The failure to show leadership on climate from the Global North, the decline of US hegemony and the shift of power towards China and the East, and the emergence of a new multi-polarity in the world political economy were given as causes of fragmentation of the global climate regime. In addition to the complex nature of climate change as a problem, requiring an equally complex and differentiated response from a diverse set of actors, networks, and sites of governance.
When taken together, the pledge and review approach can be seen to have reinforced cooperation between nations and strengthened consensus building, facilitating the search for an agreement under differentiated interests. Being less fixed than obligatory quantitative emission reduction targets, this degree of flexibility is key to the functioning and adoption the system. Thus, the pressure to reach an international agreement and the divergence of interests and fragmentation of negotiation groups resulted in the adoption of the pledge and review governance approach found within the Paris Agreement.