The Dragon's Footprints

This chapter examines Chinese migration and investment into Europe and explores models of migration and investment by identifying the gap between the two. The chapter highlights the major characteristics of Chinese investment and migration into Europe by identifying and separating the investment from Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and that of private individuals. This triangulation provides scholars and policy makers with a unique scenario. The migration and investment literature has been conducted as two separate and parallel topics. A small number of studies investigate the relationship of the two as one inter-connected relationship. There is even less focus on Chinese migration and investment due to the fact that over the past decade it has been a fast-moving phenomenon because of the speed of Chinese economic development. In addition, China's different political and economic system and its unique state structure adds another layer of complexity for scholars.

Potential Changes in the Demand and Supply Sides in the Construction Industry

Sustainability of the economy depends on the reduction of the environmental footprint of the supply and demand as economy relies on the production enabled by natural resources. The construction industry is one of the major industries influencing sustainable and social development. The construction industry and the built environment, however, have important environmental footprints. Therefore, the demand and supply sides in the construction industry must be transformed into more sustainable ones. Furthermore, the principles and emerging concepts of sustainable and innovative economy need to be adopted by the construction industry. Based on an in-depth literature review, this chapter focuses on the integration and impacts of the emerging concepts for the sustainable and innovative economy in the construction industry. This chapter is expected to be useful for academics, graduate and undergraduate students, researchers, policymakers, and construction industry professionals.

Product Sophistication

The sudden rise of countries like China and India has captured serious attention among economists. Some papers explain it with the changing structure of their product mix and construct an export sophistication index to rank countries according to their comparative advantages. By starting from the discussions on product quality, this chapter investigates whether a more rapid progression up the comparative advantage ladder or a more sophisticated export basket results in a more rapid economic expansion. For this purpose, data from 115 countries for the period 1985 to 2001 are used. The results support the positive effect of export sophistication on growth. The authors also show that when a country progresses, its growth rate increases.

Is Sustaniable Tourism a Leverage FOR Economic Development?

Does development mean employment and social welfare, or the natural environment, ecosystem, and biodiversity? The answer to this question is sought worldwide while trying to solve the dichotomy between ecological sustainability and the development sustainability. The authors observe a series of pursuits under the names of ecological tourism, environmentally friendly tourism, and socially responsible tourism that emerge in order to overcome this dichotomy in the tourism discipline. They all merge around the common idea of offering a framework that examines economic activities for this dilemma. Meanwhile, this chapter examines the pursuits within the scope of sustainable tourism based on the assumptions of principal ecological approaches (e.g., environment protection, shallow ecology, deep ecology, and social ecology) and determines the position of sustainable tourism within these ecological approaches. It is deduced that sustainable tourism is actually sustainable at very low levels from the perspective of ecological sustainability.

The Effect of Globalization on Economic Growth

Globalization has gathered great momentum over the past four decades and it has led to important changes in the economic, political, and cultural dynamics of countries. It is theoretically expected that globalization stimulates economic growth by leading institutional reforms, opening economies to global markets, direct and indirect foreign investments, and technology transfers. Therefore, it is crucial for emerging economies to increase economic growth. This study investigates the impact of globalization on economic growth for the panel of emerging economies by conducting second generation panel data techniques. For this purpose, employing annual data spanning from 1970 to 2014, the effects of overall KOF globalization index and three dimensions of globalization on economic growth are estimated via CUP-FM and CUP-BC estimators. Results show that overall the KOF globalization index, economic, and social dimensions of globalization have positive influence on economic growth while the effect of political dimension on economic growth is negative.

Essence of International Environmental Law to Address the Effects of Climate Change

Environmental problems are enormous around the world and threaten the global environment. In most cases, these problems are caused by rapid growth of population and poverty. Climate change and sustainable development are inter-linked and are priority issues in the development continuum. Any adverse impact on the environment and biodiversity can cause the restriction of resources and limit available options. Concerted efforts of all the states can bring positive result to address the effects of climate change. Compliance with the treaty provision and sharing of resources and actions among the states can ensure proper utilization of resources and sustainable development.

A Scale of Relative Institutional Challenge During MNC Global Expansion

This chapter develops a reliable and valid scale of relative institutional challenge between 40 country pairs by drawing on three measures of institutional uniqueness. The single measure can be used by researchers and practitioners to assess the relative institutional challenge that a multinational corporation (MNC) may face in the internationalization process between their home and potential host country. The value of this single scale includes (1) a more comprehensive and broad scale than three separate scales, (2) demonstrated reliability and validity, (3) a standardized measure of institutional challenge that can be used by different researchers in different research settings, and (4) a tool for practitioners that is easily applied and robust when considering alternative off-shore investment opportunities.

Residents' Attitudes in Punta del Este (Uruguay)

Homogeneity studies in recent decades have segmented residents according to their attitudes. The aim of this work is to segment the residents of Punta del Este according to their attitudes toward tourism. Recently, there have been some segmentations of residents in diver's tourist destinations in the world. Resident segmentation has been performed with a cluster analysis using the K-mean algorithm, generating three groups: enthusiastic supporters (33.1%), supporters with nuanced opinion (45.2%), and people without a formed opinion (21.7%). The profile of the groups generated is quite similar and no groups with a clear opposition to tourism have been detected. The overall assessment of the residents surveyed in this research is positive.

Challenges in Creating and Sustaining an Entrepreneurial Business in Milwaukee

Small business entrepreneurs have made important contributions to economic activities in the U.S. In recent years, there were decline and high entrepreneurial failure rates for entrepreneurs throughout the country. Specifically, the continuous challenges faced by entrepreneurs in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin have negatively affected job creation and the entrepreneurial process. What are the challenges faced by Milwaukee's entrepreneurs in creating and sustaining their businesses? How have the entrepreneurial challenges affected Milwaukee entrepreneurs' experiences in creating and sustaining their businesses? What specific support might be effective in overcoming the challenges? The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experiences of 20 entrepreneurs, specifically the challenges they encountered while sustaining an entrepreneurial enterprise in the city of Milwaukee. This chapter identifies the barriers and challenges that entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial small businesses must overcome. Recommendations for government leaders, entrepreneurs, and future researchers are provided.

Global Labor Market, “Re-Shoring” Dynamics, and Skill Mismatch

Workers' capabilities and knowledge are factors that a company can use to boost its productivity. The relocation of operational activity away from industrialized nations has led to the erosion of manufacturing skills, and this fact often results in a severe skill shortage in specific local labor markets, becoming much more prominent in the case of re-shoring. Consistent with the transaction cost economics approach (TCE), the purpose of this research was to verify if students possess at least basic skills at the end of their educational path to face the labor market without economic frictions in school-to-work transition. Finally, this chapter presents a model that could be useful in order to design programs aimed to overcome the erosion of manufacturing skills and provide students with skills that companies need to deal with local labor markets successfully.