Research on the Evaluation of Cross-Border E-Commerce Overseas Strategic Climate Based on Decision Tree and Adaptive Boosting Classification Models

At present, China’s cross-border e-commerce has ushered in a golden period of development. When developing cross-border e-commerce, enterprises should first assess the market climate of the target country and reasonably select the target country. Based on the PESTEL theory, an evaluation index system is established for China’s cross-border e-commerce overseas strategic climate. Taking “One Belt, One Road” as the opportunity and background, the overseas strategic climate of cross-border e-commerce in 62 countries along the “One Belt, One Road” is selected as the research object, and the Decision Tree and Adaptive Boosting classification methods in machine learning are applied to train and predict the established index system. Finally an overall picture of the overseas strategic climate of the 62 countries is obtained. The results are compared and analysed in depth to identify the most suitable countries for cross-border e-merchants and to provide reference for cross-border e-merchants investors.

Westerners Underestimate Global Inequality

Most global inequality is between-countries, but inequality perceptions have mostly been investigated within-country. Five studies (total N = 2149, four preregistered) show that Westerners (U.S. American, British, and French participants) believe that developing and middle-income countries’ GDP per capita is much closer to developed countries’ than it actually is, and that people in developing and middle-income countries have higher rates of car ownership, larger houses, and eat out more frequently than they actually do, meaning that Westerners underestimate global inequality. This misperception is underpinned by a convergence illusion: the belief that since the 1990s, poorer countries have closed the economic gap with richer countries to a larger extent than they have. Further, overestimating GDP per capita is negatively correlated with support for aid to the target country and positively correlated with a country’s perceived military threat. We discuss implications for inequality perception and for global economic justice.

Analyzing the practice of South Korea’s public diplomacy in Indonesia: An approach with communication pyramid of public diplomacy

The dissemination of South Korean culture in Indonesia becomes prominent as it attracts lot of people and creates many fans. The penetration of its spread in Indonesia is supported by some institutions which emphasizes on advocating and developing the South Korean culture and practice. The phenomena are not incidentally occurred, but it is well-managed by the government of South Korea as the advocate country of public diplomacy in collaboration with the target country which is Indonesia in achieving this mission. Public diplomacy is positioned as an approach of the advocate country to influence the public of foreign country to support the advocate’s country position which can be implemented through their state and non-sate actors in achieving mutual benefits. This paper observes the practice, impact, and challenges of South Korea’s public diplomacy in Indonesia based on Communication Pyramid Public Diplomacy framework. The findings show that the practice of public diplomacy allows cultural hybridity and increase enthusiasm of Indonesian in understanding the culture of the advocate country while the challenge is asymmetric direction between state and non-state actors of South Korea in the implementation of public diplomacy.

Trade Sanctions and Customs Union Partners of the Target Country: Evidence from Kazakhstan

This paper analyses the effects of trade sanctions between Russia and Western countries on Kazakhstan. The nature of these sanctions is characterized by unilateral sanctions from Russia and multilateral sanctions against Russia. Although Kazakhstan refused to participate in these sanction wars, this might affect its economy significantly as it is highly integrated into the Russian economy. An empirical analysis is performed on the product level and time series techniques are used to estimate the effects of the sanctions. The paper assesses the overall effectiveness of trade sanctions through aggregating product level results into a sanction index. The derived sanction index shows that multilateral sanctions did not divert the trade flows from Western countries. On the other hand, the index indicates the existence of sanction busting activities against Russian unilateral counter-sanctions, confirming the hypothesis that unilateral sanctions are ineffective and allow for third-country effects.

Do Sanctions Cause Economic Growth Collapses?

This chapter explores whether economic sanctions are able to trigger sudden economic growth collapses. The primarily aim of economic sanctions is to cause a political or behavioural change by imposing serious restrictions on important economic activities undertaken by the target country. In particular, the basic idea is that sanctions cause a large adverse and sudden shock to the target’s economy. It assumes that when this shock is severe enough, the target country is more willing to cooperate. The findings reported in this chapter clearly demonstrate that economic sanctions have a significant positive effect on the likelihood of a growth deceleration in the first three years after the first threat signals or actual imposition. It turns out that not all sanctions are equally successful in creating a sudden economic shock. In particular, trade sanctions, multilateral sanctions, and sanctions aimed at the business sector are the most harmful for the economy of the target country.

Effectiveness of Sanctions in International Politics

Even though IR literature has accumulated a large amount of empirical data and knowledge in sanctions policy effectiveness, this problem remains contested: IR has failed yet to reach a consensus and elaborate the sanctions theory. The article reviews the variety of approaches to evaluating the effectiveness of the sanctions policy and explains why researchers have come to conflicting and mutually exclusive conclusions about the impact of various factors and conditions on the outcome of sanctions pressure. It argues that the disagreement is primarily rooted in different approaches to conceptualizing basic concepts – “sanctions” and “effectiveness”. This disagreement results in coding the same cases as successful and unsuccessful and presents an obstacle to obtaining similar results using statistical analysis. The main demarcation line goes between the realist and liberal understandings of sanctions as a foreign policy tool. This is reflected in the ongoing disputes between those who adhere to the idea of inflicting severe economic damage on the target country and supporters of targeted sanctions; between those who promote multilateral sanctions as capable of causing economic effects, or try to identify weaknesses of ad hoc coalitions, or see the only way to get the effect of sanctions in support from international organizations; between those who focus their research on the target country and those who are interested in pressure on the allies.

Human Mobility Towards Turkey: A Retrospective Endeavor to Understand

Last decade, Turkey experienced the most extensive migration raids in its history. The transition of Turkey from a migrant-sending country to a transit and target country is one of the most referenced periodization practices in the literature. However, Anatolia has a history of migration with very different experiences by its location. Human mobility is inherent to the structure of this geography, even though its quality and quantity have changed and transformed in the historical process. Therefore, it is important to understand that Turkey, which is home to the most significant number of forced migrants in the twenty-first century, is historically a country of migration. Hence, in this article that attempts to understand human mobility towards Turkey, we have focused on Turkey's changing position on the international migration scheme after summarizing the migration flows before and during the republic period to capture the holistic perspective. Based on the current research, reports, and statistical data, this article seeks a better understanding of the possibility and sustainability of social cohesion and integration in Turkey, in a global world characterized by uncertainties, risks, and pursuits.

The Institutional Ownership and Firm Performance: Evidence from The Capital Bank

Governments have increasingly liberalized their policies in recent years to attract foreign investment, as they have witnessed a favorable impact – both direct and indirect – on target country firms and economic development. The effect of multiple large shareholders on firm performance cannot be considered in isolation, however, as the institutional and developmental conditions vary across countries. The objective of this research is to determine the influence of institutional ownership to firm performance especially in The Capital Bank. This research uses quantitative methods and linear regression analysis. The results of the analysis show that there is no effect of institutional ownership on ROA and ROE at The Capital Bank for the period December 2012 – December 2019. There is no effect of institutional ownership on the performance of The Capital Bank because the percentage of institutional ownership less than 50% so the contribution does not have much effect on the company's strategic decisions.

The impact of economic sanctions on the country's economy

Currently, sanctions are considered an important tool of international policy for maintaining security and collective response to violations of international order. At the same time, they are a factor of negative impact on the economic situation of the country, growth and production in the target country. Russia and Iran have been under sanctions from Western countries and their allies for many years and are experiencing economic problems in this regard. The article provides a characteristics and comparative analysis of economic sanctions against Russia and Iran, reveals their differences, assesses the impact of sanctions on their economic structure and financial sector. The paper shows that sanctions directly or indirectly affect the country's macroeconomic indicators and cause their decline. The authors give the substantiations for the negative impact of sanctions on the financial markets of Iran and Russia, including the banking and stock markets.