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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of sprue distributions on the flow field and temperature field of the cladding casting process and verify the simulation results by experiments.

A steady-state mathematic model for the coupling of fluid flow, heat transfer and solidification to describe the process of cladding casting was present. The effect of sprue distributions on melt flow and temperature field was discussed. Based on the numerical simulation results, the cladding billet was prepared successfully. Moreover, the model has been verified against by temperature measurements during the cladding casting process.

There is a good agreement between the measured and calculated results. The homogeneity of melt flow determines the formability of cladding billets and circular temperature difference affects the bonding of the two alloys. The AA4045/AA3003 cladding billet with no defects in size of f140/f110 mm was fabricated successfully. The alloy elements diffused across the interface and formed diffusion layer with a thickness of 15 µm. The interface bonding strength is higher than the tensile strength of AA3003, indicating the metallurgical bonding between two alloys.

The casting parameters are limited to the aluminum alloy cladding billet in size of f140/f110 mm in this paper.

There are few reports of cladding billet, which are used to prepare condense pipes of automotive engines. The effect of distribution schemes on the cladding casting process is rarely studied.

International trade is a long-standing issue for the development of any country. In the traditional theory of trade exports or trade pattern arises because of supply side differences between countries such as technological or factor endowment differences. Such theories predict inter-industry trade but not intra-industry trade (IIT). But in contrary, the simultaneous export and import of products of the same sector was led after the industrialization of developed countries from the 1960s onwards, which was described as “IIT” by [Balassa, B. (1986). Oxford Economic Papers, 38, 220–233]. In this study, India's bilateral IIT with major Asian trading partners was analyzed and the trends in IIT level for horizontal and vertical IIT were observed separately, along with gravity model for the year 2009–2018. This study examined the geographic component in knowledge flows, which could be found at the international level and whether or not an exchange of knowledge is related to foreign trade, particularly IIT. To measure the IIT level for investigating trade patterns between India and member countries of major Asian trading partners, IIT index will be used, known as Grubel-Lloyd index.

In this study, we would like to examine the export prospect of India in the era of neo-protectionism. This particular era is characterized by increased used of trade barriers mainly by the large economies and a very sluggish growth in world export as a whole. Our study shows that both tariff and non-tariff barriers as well as world income affect India’s exports significantly. And, India as of 2017–2018, exports nearly 40% of its exportable to the developed world. So, the present era is not very encouraging for India. As a strategic response, it may try to re-orient its exports from more restrictive developed countries like European Union to countries like Japan, which are much less restrictive, as complete re-orientation from developed to developing world is not possible.

During the last few decades, rising intra-regional volumes of trade as well as air passenger traffic have been key characteristics of Asia-Pacific’s economic development. Although conceptual and empirical linkages between rising levels of trade and air passenger flows are often assumed, relatively little is known about the potential causality in these parallels. In this chapter, we seek to empirically uncover this causality through the application of heterogeneous Time Series Cross Section Granger causality analysis for the period 1980–2010. Four scenarios are found amongst the different country-pairs: (1) there is no co-evolution, implying that both patterns develop independently (e.g. Japan–Australia); (2) there is ‘real’ co-evolution in that both patterns influence each other through feedback loops (e.g. South Korea–Philippines); (3) air passenger traffic is facilitated by trade (e.g., South Korea–Philippines); or (4) trade is facilitated by air passenger traffic (e.g. Australia–Malaysia). Some possible interpretations of this heterogeneity are discussed.

In spite of the extensive literature on the regulation of air transport services, until the development of the Quantitative Air Services Agreements Review (QUASAR) methodology no systematic review existed of the degree of liberalization granted through air services agreements. The chapter lays out QUASARs key features, and presents the main results its application has generated. It then elaborates on how the methodology could be further refined and extended to other segments of the air transport industry yet uncovered. Based on QUASAR, the chapter critically evaluates some commonly held beliefs about the liberalization of international passenger transport and then moves on to explore the technical feasibility of creating a liberal multilateral regime for air transport services. QUASAR has demonstrated that, although the air transport sector has experienced some liberalization over the past few years, this has been, overall, rather marginal. The skies are not truly open.

The use of air cargo by low-income countries and the effects of freight charges on their export flows are described. This is accomplished by illustrating the difference between export flows from developing countries of perishable products and high-tech goods. Descriptive statistics are used to highlight the importance of trade that travels by air from these countries to the United States and the European Union. Subsequently, costs of air freight are estimated. A gravity model of trade measures the effect of these costs on export flows. Major institutional and regulatory constraints that may be halting additional trade that relies on air transportation, and the implications for economic growth, are identified.

This study aims to analyze the effect of institutional dimensions and corporate reputation (CR) on the performance of Latin American companies using a study framework built on institutional theory.

The authors used a panel data analysis of 45 companies from the 6 biggest economies in Latin America for 5 years.

The authors found a positive effect between institutional independence and transparency perception, certifications, social norms, chief executive officer (CEO) international experience, board of directors' networks and CR with international performance (IP) and a negative effect between property rights protection and the perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) with performance.

The uniqueness of this paper is based on the analysis of institutional and reputational variables on the IP of firms from emerging markets.

Este estudio busca analizar el efecto de las dimensiones institucionales y la reputación corporativa en el desempeño internacional de las compañías latinoamericanas, desde una perspectiva de la teoría institucional.

Los autores usan un análisis de datos de panel de cuarenta y cinco compañías provenientes de las seis economías más grandes de Latinoamérica, durante cinco años.

Se encontró un efecto positivo entre la interdependencia y la transparencia institucional, certificaciones internacionales, normas sociales, experiencia internacional del gerente, las redes de la junta directiva y la reputación corporativa con el desempeño internacional. Así mismo, se encontró un efecto negative entre la protección a la propiedad intelectual y la percepción de responsabilidad social con el desempeño.

La excepcionalidad de este artículo se basa en el análisis de variables institucional y reputacionales en el desempeño de compañías provenientes de mercados emergentes.

At the heart of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) are substantial trade preferences, which coupled with the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) grant a wide range of goods produced in qualified African countries duty-free access to the USA. To be AGOA-eligible, countries are assessed annually on their progress in undertaking appropriate economic, institutional and human rights reforms. This paper seeks to cover new grounds by exploring whether exports of apparel to US crowds out EU-15's imports from Africa.

This paper employs the gravity model to gauge trade displacement effects from the EU to the US due to AGOA, and whether the more relaxed special waiver embodied in AGOA's apparel provision causes non-knitted exports to EU-15 to be crowded out. The basic gravity model, which posits that trade between two countries is positively influenced by the economic size and negatively affected by the distance between them, is augmented with other trade inhibiting and trade facilitating variables.

The gravity model provides no evidence of trade displacement but, instead, provides support for the hypothesis of complementarity of African exports to the two key markets. A strong positive impact of the bilateral trade between the US and Africa on the EU–African trade is evident mainly before the phasing out of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC). This paper finds that Special Rule beneficiaries' exports to the two markets still complement each other, but for every percentage increase in exports to the USA, there is a less than proportionate increase in exports to EU-15 indicating a higher utilisation of the special waiver. This paper also provides evidence for complementary apparel exports to both LDCs (least developing countries) and non-LDCs, with stronger effects on non-LDCs and the non-knitted sector.

Future work could consider the longer lifespan of AGOA following its latest renewal in 2015. This would allow one to also capture the ongoing changes in EU trade arrangements in particular implementation of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). This new agreement comes with more flexible rules of origin requiring single transformation step instead of the double step. As most African nations are still in the process of adopting EPAs, new research can shed more light on complementary or displacement effects once these agreements are adopted.

Since the main intent of AGOA is to enhance Africa's integration into the global economy by encouraging trade and investment, generate employment and increase productivity and per capita income growth, its impact on Special Rule beneficiaries' exports to the US has been extensively examined. However, the indirect effects of this trade agreement on African exports to other key markets providing similar preferences such as the EU has not been fully explored. This study also covers new grounds by examining whether there has been any apparel trade displacement from the EU to the US, as a result of the Act, over 2001–2016 period right from AGOA's inception.

The purpose of this paper is to boost the internationalization of companies by implementing key factors that will help them to increase their exports in a context of an emerging country such as Mexico, where very few small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) achieve internationalization.

According to different theories on the internationalization of companies, five independent variables were designed to measure their effect on the export performance using a multiple regression model on a sample of 95 Mexican industrial SMEs. In this context, the objective of this study is to investigate the impact of the product price, product quality, installed capacity, innovation capacity and financial capacity on the export performance of SMEs; and to identify the factors that are more significant.

The results indicate that innovation has a positive relationship, while the price of the product has a negative relationship with the internationalization of small- and medium-sized enterprises, showing that there is a possibility of overemphasizing the role of both variables in export performance of SMEs, at least in the Mexican context. The rest of the variables were not statistically significant to the generated model, perhaps because they are implicitly considered at the time of exporting and entering international markets.

These results will help companies to focus their efforts on obtaining resources to maintain and expand exports and find new opportunities in foreign markets to grow. They also show that companies can implement different types of internationalization strategies with the study’s variables to achieve better performance.

El objetivo de este estudio es impulsar la internacionalización de las empresas mediante la implementación de factores clave que les ayudarán a incrementar sus exportaciones en un contexto de países emergentes como México, donde muy pocas pequeñas y medianas empresas logran la internacionalización.

Según las diferentes teorías sobre la internacionalización de las empresas, cinco variables independientes fueron diseñadas para medir su efecto en el desempeño de las exportaciones, utilizando un modelo de regresión múltiple en una muestra de 95 pequeñas y medianas empresas industriales mexicanas. En este contexto, el objetivo de este estudio es investigar el impacto del precio del producto, la calidad del producto, la capacidad instalada, la capacidad de innovación y la capacidad financiera en el desempeño exportador de las PYME, e identificar los factores que son más relevantes.

Los resultados indican que la innovación tiene una relación positiva, mientras que el precio del producto tiene una relación negativa con la internacionalización de las pequeñas y medianas empresas, lo que demuestra que existe la posibilidad de sobre-enfatizar el papel de ambas variables en el desempeño exportador de las pequeñas y medianas empresas, al menos en el contexto mexicano. El resto de las variables no resultaron estadísticamente significativas para el modelo generado, tal vez porque están consideradas de forma implícita al momento de exportar e ingresar a los mercados internacionales.

Estos resultados ayudarán a las empresas a concentrar sus esfuerzos en obtener recursos para mantener y expandir las exportaciones y encontrar nuevas oportunidades en los mercados extranjeros para el crecimiento. También demuestran que las empresas pueden implementar diferentes tipos de estrategias de internacionalización con las variables de estudio para lograr un mejor desempeño.

This study examines the relationships between the foreign entry mode (FEM) used by a company, its global corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the host country's local CSR environment in Spanish quoted firms. Additionally, it seeks to explore the moderating role of the host country's CSR in the relationship between firm's global CSR and FEM.

To test the proposed hypotheses, binary logistic regression is used with a sample of 418 foreign direct investment (FDI) operations between 2002 and 2008. This period is chosen with the aim of knowing what happened after the boom in Spanish investments abroad in the 1990s and the uncertainty of the early 2000s.

The results reveal firm patterns of behaviour regarding the FEM of companies and the two types of CSR according to the proposed hypotheses. Furthermore, it is found that the host country's local CSR may not only have a direct influence on the FEM decision but may also moderate the relationship between the firm's global CSR and firm's entry mode in a host country.

This is one of the first studies to propose as explanatory variables of FEM two types of CSR (firm's global CSR and host country's local CSR). This has been possible by the creation of an ad-hoc database with data from different information sources of FDI (Instituto Español de Comercio Exterior) and CSR [Eikon™ and AccountAbility National Corporate Responsibility Index (NCRI)].

Se examina las relaciones entre el modo de entrada en el exterior (MEE) de una empresa, su responsabilidad social corporativa (RSC) global y el entorno de RSC local del país de destino en empresas cotizadas en España. Además, analiza el papel moderador de la RSC del país de destino en la relación entre la RSC global de la empresa y el MEE.

Se utiliza la regresión logística binaria con una muestra de 418 operaciones de inversión directa exterior (IED) entre 2002–2008. Este período se elige para conocer qué sucedió durante el auge de las inversiones españolas en el exterior a principios de 2000.

Los resultados revelan patrones de comportamiento en relación al MEE de las empresas y los dos tipos de RSC según las hipótesis propuestas. Además, se encuentra que la RSC local del país de destino puede también moderar la relación entre la RSC global de la empresa y el MEE.

Este es uno de los primeros estudios en proponer como variables explicativas del MEE, dos tipos de RSC (RSC global de la empresa y RSC local del país de destino), gracias a la creación de una base de datos ad-hoc con datos de diferentes fuentes de información de IED (ICEX) y RSC (Eikon ™ y AccountAbility NCRI).