This study investigates the interactions between provincial characteristics and foreign-specific agglomerations on Taiwanese investors' location choice in China. Using firm-level data, we find that nationality agglomeration and Asian agglomeration have non-negligible impacts on these investors. Furthermore, we find that their location choice follows a sequential selection process. These findings suggest that a region-wide development strategy is a more effective means of attracting these investors than province-specific fiscal concessions and preferential treatment.

We investigate the effects of provincial characteristics on the distribution of Taiwanese investment in China. For the period 1996-2005, we find that the distribution of this investment can be attributed to the effects of industrial linkages, labour-market pooling and monitoring costs. Furthermore, we find evidence that the determinants of this investment not only differ across regions, but also change over time. Importantly, we find mild evidence that this investment is adversely affected by a market-crowding effect.

Using quarterly data spanning from 1994Q1 to 2014Q4, we find a neutral relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and domestic investment in China. However, when we consider the entry mode chosen by foreign investors, we find that whilst equity joint venture (EJV) crowds in domestic investment, wholly foreign-funded enterprise (WFFE) crowds it out. Our results remain robust under alternative estimators and across different time periods. Based on these results, we argue that the Chinese government needs to actively promote the formation of EJV and uses it as the catalyst for industrial upgrading in the economy.

This study investigates whether large Australian companies use their political power to lower their effective tax rates (ETRs) over and above their political costs. It also tests whether there is an industry effect on ETRs for the mining and financial industries in Australia. This study expands the current research into the effect of political power on ETRs by incorporating other tax rate theories. Using 402 mature Australian public companies over a 13-year period the study applies three separate tests to profitable companies.
Firstly, we employ panel data analysis to examine changes in the ETR of 55 profitable companies over the 2000-2012 periods. Secondly, we use cross-sectional analysis to ascertain the relationship that the effect can be seen over a long period by using panel data testing methodology between company size and ETR for profitable companies on a year-by-year basis. Finally, we assess various tax-rate theories by examining the ETR paid by the profitable public companies in 2012.
Out findings from this study provide evidence that there is a consistent negative relationship between company size and ETRs. We suggest, that further research incorporating the use of qualitative data would be needed to counter the effect of political costs on individual companies and industries.

This thesis examines the determinants and effects of foreign presence in 60 Vietnamese provinces for the period 2000–2010. Unlike its predecessors, this thesis formulates its research questions on foreign presence in Vietnam through the lens of new economic geography (NEG). These questions include: (i) what are the provincial determinants of foreign presence; (ii) does foreign presence contribute to provincial wage disparity; and (iii) can foreign presence explain changes in provincial productivity? In the extant literature, this thesis represents the first systematic inquiry into foreign presence across the Vietnamese provinces since the turn of this century. This thesis begins with an interpretative survey of the main aspects of NEG and related literature on the determinants and effects of foreign presence in its host economy. This survey provides the investigative context for choosing Vietnam as the case study in this thesis. It is then followed by an in-depth discussion on key reforms in the Vietnamese economy, with explicit emphasis on those that are pertinent to the research questions addressed in the later part of this thesis. The next three chapters form the analytical core of this thesis, each corresponding to a specific research question. In order to maintain consistency of the empirical results, these chapters make use of provincial data collected and compiled by the Vietnamese General Statistical Office (GSO). The final chapter summarises the key findings and provides recommendations to policy makers in Vietnam. This thesis reaches three major conclusions. Firstly, similar to other studies on Vietnam, it reports that foreign presence is positively associated with market access and industrial linkages, but negatively associated with trade costs. However, it finds no discernible pattern between labour-market pooling and provincial distribution of foreign presence. Secondly, it shows that cost-of-living and industrial linkage effects exert positive effects on provincial wage in Vietnam, whereas trade costs depresses it. Importantly, it fails to find any systematic relationship between foreign presence and provincial wage during the period investigated. Finally, while it concludes a negative foreign presence–provincial productivity nexus in Vietnam, it also demonstrates the deterministic role of provincial absorptive capacity in influencing the nature of this nexus. In short, the findings in this thesis make a strong case for encouraging a more balanced development of foreign presence across Vietnamese provinces in the near future; and creating a stable macroeconomic environment would be the first step going forward.

Using taxation statistics, we first derive consistently defined Gini coefficients for the period 1942-2013 for Australia as a whole as well as its eight states and territories. While income inequality exhibited a downward trend until 1979, it has since been on the rise not only over time, but also across states and territories. We then proceed to examine the effect of inequality on economic growth after controlling for changes arising from investment in physical and human capital using available panel data across all states and territories (1986-2013). We find that inequality adversely affects economic growth with a couple of years delay, an outcome consistent with similar studies undertaken in the United States and Europe. Our findings suggest that policymakers can address rising income inequality by implementing measures that support, and enhance, human capital accumulation given its long-run economic and social benefits.

This paper shows that economic recessions result from a scarcity of product innovations attributable to the flawed balanced approach of the current patent system. While rejecting the balanced approach, this paper proposes an innovative approach and suggests a number of reforms to build a new patent system, including redefining patent right, banning exclusive patent licenses and patent assignments, standardizing patent licenses, prolonging patent duration infinitely, and improving the patent quality standard. It is projected that the new patent system will lead to faster and smoother economic growth.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the usefulness of the yield spread for forecasting growth in the Australian economy since 1969. Design/methodology/approach - This paper applies time series analysis to evaluate the in-sample and out-of-sample forecasting power of the spread-growth nexus in Australia for the period spanning from 1969 to 2014. Findings - This paper concludes that the spread serves as a useful predictor of growth in output, private dwellings, private fixed capital formation, and inventories in Australia, both in-sample and out-of-sample. Its predictive content is not sensitive to the inclusion of monetary policy variables or the switch to the inflation-targeting regime by the Reserve Bank of Australia in the early 1990s. Originality/value - This paper provides significant evidence to policy makers and market participants on the usefulness of the spread in forecasting output growth for up to eight quarters ahead.

Attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) remains a key developmental strategy that is prescribed by policy-makers in many developing economies. It rests on the premise that FDI accelerates economic growth in the host country through both tangible and intangible channels. In the extant literature, China’s dominance in the world’s vast FDI scene has captured many researchers’ attention. However, the majority of the existing studies have focused on either the national or provincial level, leaving the determinants of FDI and its effects on the host city largely under-explored. An in-depth understanding of the reasons behind the mixed experience of Chinese cities in hosting FDI provides invaluable input for local officials. With these points in mind, this thesis is partly designed to bridge the gap in our current understanding by examining FDI using city-level data from China, and, partly, to provide the Chinese policymakers with an insight into the interactions between FDI and the host city.

A comprehensive panel dataset of 287 prefectural cities in China for the 2001–2012 period forms the basis of this thesis. Findings from this thesis complement earlier results and offer important lessons for local development. From a methodological perspective, this thesis addresses aggregation bias by considering various subsamples based on geographical topology and city-specific characteristics. Furthermore, it controls potential endogeneity bias by applying panel instrumental variable (IV) or generalised method-of-moment (GMM) estimators.

This thesis is organised in a paper-based format and presented in three parts. Part I provides essential background information that links various facets of this thesis together. Part II presents the results of the empirical analyses in five distinct, but related, papers that are delineated by specific research questions and objectives. Part III discusses the main findings and their policy implications. This final part also lists the limitations of the current research and offers directions for future research.

The first two papers focus on the city-level determinants of FDI. Specifically, the first paper investigates the role of soft infrastructure as an attractor of FDI. After capturing the notion of soft infrastructure by the local banking sector (LBS), it finds a positive association between LBS development and FDI across Chinese cities. This finding suggests that local governments need to devote their limited resources to improving soft infrastructure, like access to financial services. Meanwhile, the second paper addresses the effect of capital-city status in attracting FDI. It finds that, all things being equal, capital cities manage to host more FDI compared to cities without capital-city status. This finding implies that Chinese policy-makers need to focus their attention on non-capital cities in order to achieve a balanced growth path within the province.

The remaining three papers apply GMM estimator to study the interactions between FDI and its host city in China. Paper three investigates whether FDI complements or substitutes for domestic investment (DI) in the Chinese cities. The analysis shows that a complementary FDI– DI nexus only exists in the eastern and central cities. This heterogeneous relationship is further supported by the results in paper four, which attributes the positive FDI–growth nexus in the eastern cities to soft infrastructure, such as local financial development and human capital, and in the inland cities to hard infrastructure, like transportation networks. Meanwhile, paper five finds a unidirectional causality running from FDI to growth in the eastern cities, but a bidirectional causality in the central cities. In general, these findings attest to the argument that the interactions between FDI and the host economy crucially depend on initial economic conditions and the local institutional environment. Without taking these city-specific characteristics into consideration, any attempt to attract and internalise the benefits associated with FDI is likely to be futile.

Overall, this thesis provides two major contributionsto the FDI literature. First, it demonstrates that soft infrastructure has played an increasingly important role in influencing the location choices of foreign investors in China. Second, it highlights the need to study the determinants and effects of FDI on a smaller geographical scale, particularly in a large country such as China.

Higher education institutions are increasingly seeking technological solutions to not only enhance the learning environment but also support students. In this study, we explored the case of an early alert system (EAS) at a regional university engaged in both on-campus and online teaching. Using a total of 16,142 observations captured between 2011 and 2013, we examined the relationship between EAS and the student retention rate. The results indicate that when controlling for demographic, institution, student performance and workload variables, the EAS is able to identify students who have a significantly higher risk of discontinuing from their studies. This implies that early intervention strategies are effective in addressing student retention, and thus an EAS is able to provide actionable information to the student support team.