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    Implications of a Psychological Approach to Collective Remembering: Social Representations as Cultural Ground for Interpreting Survey and Experimental Results
    (SAGE Publications on behalf of Beijing Normal University, 2021-01-01) Liu JH; Khan SS
    Psychology has become connected to the “memory boom” in research, that highlights the concept of social representations, defined as a shared system of knowledge and belief that facilitates communication about social objects where culture is conceptualized as a meta-system of social representations mediated by language, symbols, and their institutional carriers. Six articles on collective remembering, including survey results, text analysis, and experiments, are summarized in this introduction. All rely on content-rich meanings, embedded in sociocultural contexts that influence the results of the surveys and experiments. In the cases of Germany and China, the “historical charter” of the states in the late 19th century was ruptured, resulting in substantially different expressions of nationalism and national identity (in Germany) and filial piety and nationalism (in China) today. Surveys on the organization of living historical memory in Hungary and Finland found that the European Union formed an enduring social context for the formation of memory groups regarding recent history. Finally, in experiments, historical reminders are likely to be anchored in existing networks of meaning, and prime people about what they already believe, rather than exert independent causal effects. This anchoring of historical memory in communicating societies explains why the experimental results in this area are so inconsistent.
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    Trade cost and its impact on agri-food trade growth among China, EU and ASEAN : in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of AgriCommerce, Massey University, Palmerstone North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2017) Fang, Ling
    Trade cost is broadly defined to include all costs incurred in getting a good to a final user other than the marginal cost of producing the good itself. According to Anderson and van Wincoop (2003), a rough estimate of the tax equivalent trade costs for industrialized countries is 170 percent. While compared to industrial products, agricultural goods suffer more from trade cost due to its low value to volume ratio and perishable characteristic as well as high protection in both developed and developing economies. By using the trade cost index developed by Dennis Novy (2013), this study examines the trade costs and its relationship with trade growth among China, EU, and ASEAN in agricultural sector. The results indicate that first, although the bilateral agricultural trade among these three economies have been growing steadily over last fifteen years, their trade costs are still high. In particular, the average trade cost between China and EU is about 633 percent tax equivalent. Secondly, economic growth is still the key driver of trade expansion. The contribution of trade cost reduction varies among trading pairs. In the case of China & ASEAN and EU & ASEAN, its impact is limited. But, in the case of China and EU, it contributes over half of the overall trade growth. Combined with the fact that China now has converted from a net exporter to a net importer of EU’s agricultural products, a further trade liberalization between these two could possibly increase bilateral trade significantly. Thirdly, the reduction of multilateral trade barriers diverts large amount of bilateral trade. The trade diversion effect of regional trade agreement is one possible reason. Finally, compared to distance, which is a static number, the trade cost index has a better explanatory power. It is time sensitive, more comprehensive, and not hard to compute.
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    Mandatory recognition of externalities, price elasticity and the market value of firms : 110.899 thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for MBS degree
    (Massey University, 2009) Mead, John
    The scene for environmental performance and disclosures is changing rapidly from that of a voluntary state to one where both are being mandated. One such regulatory initiative is that of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), under which all firms within certain industries have to comply with similar environmental performance and disclosure requirements. The imposition of such requirements can have both adverse and beneficial effects on firm value. The purpose of this study is to examine how EU ETS membership affects the market value of European firms. Using a sample of 1,985 firm-year observations from Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, I find that joining the EU ETS has a positive impact on firm value, and this impact is larger for firms with high price elasticity of demand (PED). These findings suggest that a regulated environmental performance and environmental disclosure setting is likely to reduce uncertainties pertaining to externalities, in particular, for firms which are unable to shift their externality costs to their consumers.
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    0027: the EU : an international agent in Palestine? : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts in Politics at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2009) Lyons, Katherine
    This thesis examines the ability of the European Union (EU) to impact on the Palestinian people and their institutions. Before using the formal concept of actorness to examine the extent of this impact, it presents a model of actorness that synthesises aspects of Bretherton and Vogler’s and Sjösjedt’s models. It uses the components of this model as a series of lenses through which to focus on and examine various facets of the EU’s influence. The analysis deals with diplomacy, aid, and the effects of the unexpected Hamas victory in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections. The thesis finds that the EU’s early lack of diplomatic direction improved for a period but was limited by its consistent inability to have an effect if it ignored the US. In the field of aid, the EU has been a more successful actor. However, the EU’s best efforts in these spheres have been undone by two EU blunders. First, it classified Hamas as a terrorist organisation and subsequently felt unable to provide aid to a Hamas-run government. Second it joined the Quartet in the hope of increasing its own diplomatic clout, but found that it had given the US the opportunity to erode its ability to act as an independent financial agent.