The US dollar is frequently used as the invoicing currency of international crude oil trading. Hence, the fluctuation in US dollar exchange rate is believed to underlie the volatility of crude oil price and especially its forecasting accuracy. Using econometric techniques including...

This paper studies the internationalisation of Chinese piano firms from a branding perspective. The purpose of the paper is twofold. First, it examines the interplay between the country of origin (COO) effect and international branding, and how COO affects the choice of branding strategies in...

Reputation is generally considered an asset, especially in e-commerce markets. Any reputation system, however, elicits strategic responses from the sellers. Using panel data on a large random sample of online sellers from China’s largest e-commerce platform, Taobao.com, we study how...

This research paper reviews the development of China's outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) to the European Union since the global fnancial crisis, summarizes the apparent characteristics and causes behind that development, provides an in-depth analysis of the problems and deep rooted risks...

The 1996 Telecommunication Act introduces entry into an originally monopolistic U.S. local telephone industry. As competitors cherry pick rich, urban markets to enter, the Act calls for an explicit and pro-competitive subsidy policy to narrow the potential divide in telecom infrastructure. To...

We study how the financial constraints of agents affect the behavior of principals in the context of franchising. We develop an empirical model of franchising starting with a principal-agent framework that emphasizes the role of franchisees' collateral from an incentive perspective. We estimate...

Financial constraints are an important impediment to the growth of small businesses. We study theoretically and empirically how the financial constraints of agents affect their decisions to exert effort, and, hence the organizational decisions and growth of principals, in the context of...

In the 11th Five-Year Plan (FYP) (2005–2010), the Chinese Government initiated a series of energy-saving and emission reduction policies in many key fields in response to environmental pollution and climate change. This paper quantitatively evaluates the performance of energy conservation and...

Toggle switch as a common phenomenon in gene regulatory networks has been recognized important for biological functions. Despite much effort dedicated to understanding the toggle switch and designing synthetic biology circuit to achieve the biological function, we still lack a comprehensive...