Features of the American foreign direct investment: the role of the American holdings

Article is dedicated to the determination of key features of the United States participation in the international capital movement on the example of FDI outflows and inflows, and confirmation of its heterogeneous nature. Tax reform that has been implemented in the end of 2017 led to the result when USA was deleted of the list of TOP-20 world investors of 2018 (by UNCTAD). The scientific opinion and fears were connected with the forecasts that the tax reform could change the movement of FDI flows back to the USA from foreign countries, especially, and the countries with the low taxes and the most favorable investment regimes. At the same time, it needs to underline that the analysis of U.S. FDI inflows and outflows showed that the negative indicator of U.S. FDI outflow (export) in 2018-2019 was connected with the repatriation of U.S. holding companies profits, that were doing business in countries with the most favorable tax and investment regimes. The authors tried to investigate the nature of the American holdings role and the integration of U.S. in to the global system of FDI and capital movement.

Wildcat or Lion? Inequality, Agency, and the New Chinese Working Class

<p>The study of Chinese labour politics has returned to the centre of scholarly interest as China has increasingly become involved in global production and trade. As the incidence of labour dispute and workers’ strikes continued to soar, ubiquitous cases of labour rights abuse have been widely reported by international media and academics. The literature of Marxist international political economy has long predicted the insurgency of the Chinese working class resulting from rising inequality, global capital movement and labour division. In contrast, traditional Chinese labour studies are inconclusive as to whether the Chinese working class has gained enough class consciousness to become a cohesive agent for social and political change. This research examines how rising economic, social and political inequalities have impacted on the Chinese working class’s agency. The research shifts the focus from top-down structural analysis to workers’ agency itself, with an emphasis on their cognitive strength. The research was undertaken via a two-case comparative study of the Chinese working class in four megacities and four smaller cities. Data came mostly from statistics and field interviews. This two-case comparative study concludes that, overall, the Chinese working class had a weak behavioural strength, as manifested by inconsistent wildcat-style strikes, which had no clear political strategies. This research also concludes that the working class’s cognitive agency is weak and conservative, as manifested by a weak class identification, their poor understanding of democracy, their low willingness to participate in collective action, and their weak sense of class solidarity. I argue that inequalities and capital movement do not have a simple and unidirectional relationship with the working class’s collective agency. On the one hand, inequalities and capital movement can arouse the working class’s behavioural strength quickly. On the other hand, workers’ cognitive strength is more inert and does not correspond neatly to these two factors. The research findings show that the megacities are more economically developed, with higher inequalities, but with considerably weaker and more conservative working class agency; whereas the smaller cities are less economically developed, with lower inequalities, but with less weak and conservative working class agency. The addition of cognitive strength as a new dimension of working class study provides a pluralist analytical framework for the study of Chinese labour. The new Chinese working class are better educated and more individualised with three main characteristics - occupation-based, precarious, and conservative - which distinguish them from the older generations of workers who had a clear group identification, such as the SOE workers in the 1990s, and the rural migrant workers in the 2000s. These theoretical and empirical findings open up possibilities of new strategies for effective labour organisation that should be considered by labour NGOs, civil society and the government. These players not only need to manage the working class action carefully, but also need to better understand the workers’ complex cognitive situations.</p>

Wildcat or Lion? Inequality, Agency, and the New Chinese Working Class

<p>The study of Chinese labour politics has returned to the centre of scholarly interest as China has increasingly become involved in global production and trade. As the incidence of labour dispute and workers’ strikes continued to soar, ubiquitous cases of labour rights abuse have been widely reported by international media and academics. The literature of Marxist international political economy has long predicted the insurgency of the Chinese working class resulting from rising inequality, global capital movement and labour division. In contrast, traditional Chinese labour studies are inconclusive as to whether the Chinese working class has gained enough class consciousness to become a cohesive agent for social and political change. This research examines how rising economic, social and political inequalities have impacted on the Chinese working class’s agency. The research shifts the focus from top-down structural analysis to workers’ agency itself, with an emphasis on their cognitive strength. The research was undertaken via a two-case comparative study of the Chinese working class in four megacities and four smaller cities. Data came mostly from statistics and field interviews. This two-case comparative study concludes that, overall, the Chinese working class had a weak behavioural strength, as manifested by inconsistent wildcat-style strikes, which had no clear political strategies. This research also concludes that the working class’s cognitive agency is weak and conservative, as manifested by a weak class identification, their poor understanding of democracy, their low willingness to participate in collective action, and their weak sense of class solidarity. I argue that inequalities and capital movement do not have a simple and unidirectional relationship with the working class’s collective agency. On the one hand, inequalities and capital movement can arouse the working class’s behavioural strength quickly. On the other hand, workers’ cognitive strength is more inert and does not correspond neatly to these two factors. The research findings show that the megacities are more economically developed, with higher inequalities, but with considerably weaker and more conservative working class agency; whereas the smaller cities are less economically developed, with lower inequalities, but with less weak and conservative working class agency. The addition of cognitive strength as a new dimension of working class study provides a pluralist analytical framework for the study of Chinese labour. The new Chinese working class are better educated and more individualised with three main characteristics - occupation-based, precarious, and conservative - which distinguish them from the older generations of workers who had a clear group identification, such as the SOE workers in the 1990s, and the rural migrant workers in the 2000s. These theoretical and empirical findings open up possibilities of new strategies for effective labour organisation that should be considered by labour NGOs, civil society and the government. These players not only need to manage the working class action carefully, but also need to better understand the workers’ complex cognitive situations.</p>

ALLE RADICI DELLA GRANDE CRISI. GIORGIO LUNGHINI E JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

The notes in memory of Giorgio Lunghini deal with his approach to economic theory and in particular with his investigation of the causes of the great economic crisis of the 2007-2013 years. He identifies four main causes of the crisis: 1) the financialization of the world economy; 2) the growing debt of the private and public sectors; 3) the global trade and capital movement imbalances (in USA, Asia, South America and Europe); the existence of countries which are in a structural trade deficit and surplus; the sharp division between debtor and creditor countries; 4) the role of economic theory e in particular the return to the laissez-faire doctrine and liberalism (monetarism; the critiques to “bastard” Keynesians rather than Keynes who, in Lunghini’s view, is not a Keynesian); the return to the “Treasury view”, the “Washington consensus” and “Bruxelles consensus”. In the Notes, these four causes are analysed in detail.

Drivers of Financial Deregulation in Japan

This chapter aims to identify the real drivers of financial deregulation in Japan. Japan’s financial deregulation drivers clearly changed over time. In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, the liberalization of capital movement in Japan caused an administrative shift from its conventional rigid regulatory regime. From the mid-1970s, a rapid increase of Japanese government bonds issuances, as well as financial innovation, acted to remove the barriers between the banking and the securities businesses. From the mid-1980s, the pressure from the United States, as well as from domestic depositors and banks, urged the Japanese financial authorities to liberalize the financial market. It is evident that the drivers of financial deregulation in Japan in the 1980s were not only the pressure from abroad (as generally accepted), but that the deregulation was also driven by domestic interests including fiscal reasons.

METHODOLOGY FOR ESTIMATING THE DEPENDENCE BETWEEN WORKING CAPITAL AND PROFITS OF SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS

This article proposes a methodology for assessing the relationship between the turnover of working capital and the profit of organizations, as well as a method for increasing the efficiency of its use. The proposed methodology will help stabilize the cash flow of the business, provide high liquidity, manage working capital well, help companies be proactive in spending, in short and medium term financial planning. As a result of the study, we can conclude that there is a deep relationship between turnover and financial results: the higher the rate of capital movement, the greater the financial result the organization will receive.