Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Financial Reporting Quality Of Chinese Reverse Merger Firms: The Reverse Merger Effect Or The China Effect?, Kun-Chih Chen, Qiang Cheng, Ying Chou Lin, Yu-Chen Lin, Xing Xiao

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In this paper, we examine why Chinese reverse merger (RM) firms have lower financial reporting quality. We find that while U.S. RM firms have similar financial reporting quality as matched U.S. IPO firms, Chinese RM firms exhibit lower financial reporting quality than Chinese ADR firms. We further find that Chinese RM firms exhibit lower financial reporting quality than U.S. RM firms. These results indicate that the use of RM process is associated with poor financial reporting quality only in firms from China, where the legal enforcement is weaker than U.S. In addition, we find that compared to Chinese ADR firms, …

Optimism Versus Pessmism: An Exploratory Analysis Of China In Zambian Media, Bob Wekesa

Zambia Social Science Journal

The huge interest in Zambia-­‐China relations globally, both in academia and popular press, inspires several inquisitions. How have these relations changed and panned out in the present, from a Zambian media perspective? Would a Zambian media approach help provide insights into the ebb and flow of perceptions about China inside Zambia? What can we gather from the Zambian media on the September 2011 regime change in Zambia vis-­‐à-­‐vis China’s engagement? In other words, how did Zambian media craft perceptions on and of China in the era of late president Michael Chilufya Sata’s leadership? To answer these questions, this exploratory study …

From The Outside In: China’S Dragons Are Here, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Like a blockbuster movie 20 years in the making, China’s dragons have evolved to push the boundaries of global competition. Accelerated innovation is the new frontier of global competition and it’s a space where China’s go-global companies are excelling.

Social Work: A New Phenomenon In China, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Social tensions are bubbling in China. Are social workers the way to maintain social stability?

Stock Liquidity And The Pricing Of Earnings: A Comparison Of China’S Floating And Non-Floating Shares, Lou Fang, Jiwei Wang, Hongqi Yuan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The reform to convert non-floating shares to floating in China provides a setting in which shares are subject to different liquidity constraint. We show that the severity of this constraint is inversely related to the extent to which earnings information is reflected in the share prices. Specifically, before the reform, the transfer prices of non-floating shares reflect much less earnings information than the market prices of floating shares. After the reform, however, both types of transfer reflect more earnings information, although the weights are still less than that found in the market prices. Thus, China's unique setting shows that share …

New Media And Ict For Social Change And Development In China, Song Shi

Open Access Dissertations

As the country with biggest Internet population, by December 2011, China had at least 513 million Internet users. As the biggest developing country in the world, in the past three decades China experienced rapid social change and enormous economic development. The impacts of new media and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) on social change and development in China have attracted increasing attention among scholar communities. This dissertation aims to study the new media and ICT for social change and development phenomena in China. It draws upon data from my fieldwork and participant observations in the past three years as well …

Asean: Integration, Internal Dynamics And External Relations, Clara Portela

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Throughout its evolution, ASEAN has consistently maintained its attachment to the full respect of national sovereignty and the principle of non-interference in internal affairs, which translates into consensual decision-making, political rather than legally-binding agreements and the lack of sanctions for non-compliance. A major breakthrough in terms of institutionalisation came about with the signing of the ASEAN Charter of 2007, which has enhanced ASEAN’s standing as a rule-based organisation and approximated it somewhat to structures typical of the EU. Unfortunately, the persistence of consensual decision-making and non-confrontational habits has slowed down some of ASEAN’s integration projects and hindered the development of …

Regionalisation And Singapore's Transborder Industrialisation: A New Perspective On Suzhou Industrial Park, Xun Cai, Lu Gao, Caroline Yeoh

Caroline Yeoh

The dynamics of international economic competition have prompted governments to re-examine accustomed policies, and search for alternative strategies, in order to re-position their economies for the future. This paper takes a look at Singapore’s search for a competitive positioning in the global marketplace, and focuses on the city-state’s much-publicized, and controversial, flagship project in China, viz, the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP). This strategic initiative is premised on the perceptions that Singapore’s positive reputation with multinational corporations, and ‘guanxi’ (or connections) with regional governments, will give the regional sites a strategic advantage in the competition for foreign investments. Earlier studies have …

Is The Renminbi East Asia’S Dominant Reference Currency? A Reconsideration, Hwee Kwan Chow

Research Collection School Of Economics

Recent empirical studies show that the Chinese currency renminbi is either becoming or has become a dominant reference currency in East Asia. This paper reviews the evidence with daily exchange rate data from seven East Asian economies namely, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan. We consider the likely problems and pitfalls associated with the application of Frankel-Wei regressions to determine the weights of the US dollar and the renminbi in the implicit currency baskets. We show empirically the estimation of currency weights using non-orthogonalised renminbi movements could suffer from imprecision and/or inconsistency. To circumvent the simultaneity bias …

Regional Security Complex Theory And The Conflict In The East China Sea, Lukas Danner

Lukas K. Danner

No abstract provided.

Blue Growth In The Middle Kingdom: An Analysis Of China’S Ocean Economy, Rui Zhao, Stephen Hynes, Guang Shun He

Working Papers

This paper builds on the work carried out by OEAS in China, which established the framework of ocean economy accounting in China. It also demonstrates how it is possible to compile ocean economy data, from the existing government databases in China. The Chinese ocean economy was divided into two separate parts for the purpose of the analysis presented; the ocean industry and ocean-related industry. Data was collected for 12 major ocean industries. Using a similar methodology to that developed in previous international studies, it was found that the major ocean industries produced US$239.09 billion in value added output in 2010 …

It's Not Just About The Money: Motivations For Youth Migration In Rural China, Yilin Chiang, Emily C. Hannum, Grace Kao

Emily C. Hannum

This study investigates the incentives for labor migration of youth in rural China using panel data from the Gansu Survey of Children and Families, a longitudinal study of youth in rural Gansu Province of China. We investigate the individual and altruistic economic motivations featured prominently in demographic and economic research on migration. However, we propose that the non-economic goal of personal development, a motivation suggested in numerous qualitative studies of women migrants in China and elsewhere, is also important, especially for young migrants. Analyzes indicate that, while young men and young women hold different motivations for migration, the desire for …

Tourism In China With An Emphasis On Shanghai: A City Thriving Off Of The Future, Not The Past, Eileen Wu

Social Sciences

Tourism is an important industry throughout the world, not only does tourism create an influx of visitors to a certain destination, but it also creates millions of jobs around the world. Ever since China's opening reveal to the world in 1978, the tourism industry has increased and is a thriving business throughout the country. With the growing middle class of the Chinese population and their disposable incomes, tourism has increased not only internationally, but also domestically. More specifically, Shanghai has been a booming city with the recent renovation of Pudong, improvements in infrastructure for upscale accommodations, and the hosting of …

We Are The Champions, Nirmalya Kumar, Jan-Benedict E. M. Steenkamp

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

From China Mobile to Coal India, state-supported firms are on the march. The authors map out the route from being a national champion to becoming a global brand.

Generations Apart: Cultural Revolution Memory And China's Post-80'S Generation On The Chinese Internet, Vincent R. Capone

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis examines how the memory of the Cultural Revolution is used on the Chinese internet by China's post-80's generation and the Chinese Communist Party to describe and highlight examples of social instability. These comparisons are representative of the broad historical narrative written by the Party which forms the basis of how China's younger generations learn about and internalize the Cultural Revolution. This study analyzes how the memory of the Cultural Revolution is held by China's post-80's generation as viewed through the lens of the Chinese Internet. Specifically, this research engages with the intended purposes of the post-80's generation for …

Tourism, Development And Poverty Reduction In Guizhou And Yunnan, John A. Donaldson

John Donaldson

How did the differing strategies adopted to develop tourism in Guizhou and Yunnan affect patterns of economic development and poverty reduction? The answer is paradoxical. Both provincial governments incorporated tourism as part of their overall development strategies, but their tourism sites were distributed and structured strikingly differently. In Yunnan, although tourism contributed to rapid economic growth, it did not reduce rural poverty as much as might be expected from a large rural-based industry. By contrast, Guizhou's relatively small-scale tourism industry, although not contributing significantly to growth, was distributed largely in poor areas and was structured to allow poor people to …

The Rise Of Agrarian Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics: Agricultural Modernization, Agribusiness And Collective Land Rights, Qian Forrest Zhang, John Andrew Donaldson

John Donaldson

The article discusses the agricultural transformation taking place in the rural areas of China. Details about the Chinese laws regarding rural reform and the effect they have had on rural Chinese farmers and families are included. The authors examine the expansion of agrarian capitalism in China and describe the rise of agribusiness in rural Chinese areas. The practices of Chinese agribusinesses and the Chinese land rights laws are explored. The relationships between individual farmers and agribusinesses is also examined.

China’S Agrarian Reform And The Privatization Of Land: A Contrarian View, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson

John Donaldson

Many media and scholars outside China are advocating for the privatization of land ownership in China, claiming it to be a necessary step before China can transform its agriculture into large-scale, market-oriented and technology-intensive modern agriculture. Chinese scholars advocating land privatization, on the other hand, typically argue that land privatization would offer farmers more protection of their rights. In this paper, we present a contrarian view to these calls for land privatization published in both mainstream media and academic journals. We argue that, under China’s current system of collective land ownership and individualized land use rights, the aforementioned goals can …

Comparing Local Models Of Agrarian Transition In China, Qian Forrest Zhang

Qian Forrest ZHANG

The development of markets and the penetration of capital into agriculture have started the agrarian transition in rural China, which is transforming smallholding, household-based agriculture into various forms of capitalistic production. This again raises in a new historical and social context the long-debated question in the agrarian transition literature: Can family farms survive the onslaught of capitalist agriculture based on wage labor and what shapes the confrontation between family farms and agro-capital? I argue that it is the local political economy—rather than some natural obstacles in agriculture to the penetration of capitalism—that shapes this confrontation and gives rise to a …

The Strength Of Sibling Ties: Sibling Influence On Status Attainment In A Chinese Family, Qian Forrest Zhang

Qian Forrest ZHANG

What allowed eight siblings from a politically disadvantaged rural family to overcome institutional barriers and achieve upward mobility during Maoist China? What then restricted their children’s chances of upward mobility during the Reform era, when both family background and institutional environment were more favourable? In studying this anomalous case, whose experiences contradicted the well-documented effects of state policies and yet cannot be explained by parental influence, this study examines how adult siblings influenced each other’s status attainment processes, an issue largely neglected in the literature. Through comparing the micro-level mobility processes of the two generations in this family, I propose …

To Compete Globally, Brics Nations Need Reputation, Not Imitation, Ahmed E. Souaiaia

Ahmed E SOUAIAIA

The economic, political, and social rise of the Western block of nations was founded on the single most enduring currency: reputation. Reputation, the source of credibility and trust, is the real asset that allows the U.S. to project its stature around the world. BRICS nations cannot rise to prominence by mimicking developed countries. They must build their reputation first. Wealth is only a byproduct of this more precious commodity, and countries who have it can squander it just as emerging economies can acquire it. For either of those results to happen in any country, circumstantial conditions and principled actions must …

China's 80后 And 90后: The Next Generation Of Leaders In The World's Next Superpower, A Students-Teaching-Students Course, Patrick Slavin

Senior Honors Projects

In light of China’s recent reemergence as a global superpower, it is becoming increasingly important for westerners to understand its history and culture. For current college students, the culture of China’s youth is particularly pertinent.

In this project, a course, HPR 107: Chinese Youth Culture, was designed and taught through the Students-Teaching-Students program, which provides senior Honor’s Program students the opportunity to design and teach their own Honor’s Program course. The HPR 107 course focuses on China’s 80后 and 90后 generations, those born in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively.

This multi-faceted project includes: subject matter research, course development, pedagogy development, …

Women’S Entry Into Self-Employment In Urban China: The Role Of Family In Creating Gendered Mobility Patterns, Qian Forrest Zhang, Zi Pan

Qian Forrest ZHANG

How did family characteristics affect women and men differently in self-employment participation in urban China? Analyses of national data show dual marriage penalties for women. Marketization made married women more vulnerable to lay-offs from state-sector jobs; their likelihood of being pushed into unskilled self-employment surpassed that of any other groups. The revitalized patriarchal family tradition favored men in family businesses and resulted in their higher rates of entering entrepreneurial self-employment. Married women who had the education to pursue entrepreneurial self-employment were constrained by family responsibilities to state-sector jobs for access to family services, and had much lower rates in entering …

China-Taiwan Trade Relations: Implications Of The Wto And Asian Regionalism, Pasha L. Hsieh

Pasha L. Hsieh

Cross-strait relations underwent a fundamental change when both China and Taiwan joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. The WTO is the first world-wide multilateral organization in which China and Taiwan share equal statuses. Thus, the WTO provides a neutral forum for China and Taiwan to resolve trade conflicts. More importantly, the WTO requires the two states to behave toward one another in a manner consistent with WTO norms. Consequently, the trade policies of China and Taiwan would change in response to their WTO obligations. In addition to the WTO, Asian regionalism, which refers to the recent accelerated integration …

Social Capital, Informal Governance, And Post-Ipo Firm Performance: A Study Of Chinese Entrepreneurial Firms, Jerry X. Cao, Yuan Ding, Hua Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper explores the links between entrepreneurs' social capital and post-IPO firm performance in China's unique capital market and regulatory setting. Using hand-collected data on entrepreneurs' political connections and firm financial information, we construct original measures for various types of social capital and examine their roles in determining the accounting and financial performance of entrepreneurial firms after an IPO. On one hand, firm accounting performance is enhanced by entrepreneurs' bridging social capital, such as political connections or a willingness to share power with external investors. On the other hand, bonding social capital such as intra-group related party transactions causes performance …

The Transformation Of Urban Vegetable Retail In China: Wet Markets, Supermarkets, And Informal Markets In Shanghai, Qian Forrest Zhang, Zi Pan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The state-monopolised system of vegetable retail in socialist urban China has transformed into a market-based system run by profit-driven actors. Publicly owned wet markets not only declined in number after the state relegated its construction to market forces, but were also thoroughly privatised, becoming venues of capital accumulation for the market operators now controlling these properties. Self-employed migrant families replaced salaried state employees in the labour force. Governments’ increased control over urban public space reduced the room for informal markets, exacerbating the scarcity of vegetable retail space. Fragmentation in the production and wholesale systems restricted modern supermarkets’ ability to establish …

Perceived Discrimination And Subjective Well-Being Among Rural-To-Urban Migrants In China, Juan Chen

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Using data from a 2009 national household survey (N = 2,866), this study investigates the differential experience of perceived institutional and interpersonal discrimination among rural-to-urban migrants in China, and the consequences of these two types of discrimination on measures of subjective well-being. The results indicate that rural-to-urban migrants perceive institutional discrimination more frequently than interpersonal discrimination. However, perceived interpersonal discrimination has a more detrimental effect than perceived institutional discrimination for rural-to-urban migrants, and this effect takes the form of self-rated physical health and depressive distress. The research calls for a more equitable social environment and equal distribution of resources and …

China’S Agrarian Reform And The Privatization Of Land: A Contrarian View, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Many media and scholars outside China are advocating for the privatization of land ownership in China, claiming it to be a necessary step before China can transform its agriculture into large-scale, market-oriented and technology-intensive modern agriculture. Chinese scholars advocating land privatization, on the other hand, typically argue that land privatization would offer farmers more protection of their rights. In this paper, we present a contrarian view to these calls for land privatization published in both mainstream media and academic journals. We argue that, under China’s current system of collective land ownership and individualized land use rights, the aforementioned goals can …

Reassessing Apec's Role As A Trans-Regional Economic Architecture: Legal And Policy Dimensions, Pasha L. Hsieh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article examines the two-decade evolution of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the future prospects for Asian regionalism. It argues that while APEC retains advantages over competing regional structures, it should undergo reforms to accelerate the Bogor Goals and ensure its complementarity with the World Trade Organization (WTO). The article first analyzes the impact of stake-holding countries’ trade policies on APEC’s structure and development. By assessing APEC’s soft-law mechanism, it explores APEC’s WTO-plus contributions that reinvigorated the International Technology Agreement negotiations and improved supply chain facilitation. APEC’s goal of creating a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) can …

Rebuilding 2014 Afghanistan (Pakistan Observer), Shams Uz Zaman Mr.

Mr. Shams uz Zaman

Proposes a strategy to rebuild Afghanistan.