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The purpose of this paper is to consider competition’s issues between European market firms, such as Euronext, and multilateral trading facilities, following Markets in Financial Instruments Directive’s enforcement. This new domestic competition is adding to the existing international competition among financial centers. While diversification of local trading services can improve the international competitiveness of a financial center, the fragmentation of order flows can harm its attractiveness.

The theoretical setting analyzes the interaction between heterogeneous who experiment network externalities, and heterogeneous local trading services providers (alternative platforms and incumbent) in an international context. The authors compare two forms of organizations of the market: a consolidated market, and a fragmented market with alternative platforms – in both cases, in competition with a foreign universe.

The results of this study point out the importance of the trade-off between diversification and externalities. With alternative platforms entry, enhanced competition decreases fees and redistributes informed investors between the foreign market and the domestic one. The increase of domestic platforms’ number then has more complex effects on externalities (of information and liquidity). When the liquidity externalities are low, the diversification of financial platforms increases the number of investors on domestic centers. When liquidity externalities are not negligible, despite the decrease of fees, this same diversification orientates more informed investors to the foreign center.

This model is the first to analyze jointly the internal and international competition of trading platforms with heterogeneous investors.

The purpose of this paper is to present new empirical evidence on global trends in equity‐related transaction costs and trading volume, as well as to highlight recent research in international market microstructure.

Estimates of brokerage commissions, indirect trading costs, and trading volume are obtained from a comprehensive institutional investor database. Quarterly data are used to compute trends in transaction costs and trading volume, as well as shifts in trading between mature and emerging markets.

The results indicate a steady decline in brokerage commissions around the world but indirect trading costs appear to have reached a plateau. The fastest growth in trading volume can be found in the emerging markets of South America but the USA leads the way in terms of the steepest reductions in transaction costs.

The paper relies on one source of transaction cost estimates over a relatively short period (March 2005‐December 2007).

The paper provides comprehensive and current empirical evidence on important trends in international market microstructure.

Sustainability performance of the global trade as well as of the traded products are affected by the trade policies and trade tariffs. Trade tariffs and policies can either encourage or discourage trade among the countries affecting feasibility of trade. In other words, the scope and amount of these trade tariffs have impact on the trade globally. Based on an in-depth literature review, this chapter aims to examine impacts of the trade policies and trade tariffs on the environmental footprint of the global trade. With this aim, recent trade policies and trade tariffs as well as roles of the trade policies, trade tariffs in reducing environmental footprint of the global trade are examined. It arrives at the conclusion that trade tariffs can affect environmental footprint of the global trade as well as of the traded products. They can have impact on the feasibility of the trading activities influencing their profit margins and costs. Based on these findings, recommendations for trade policies and trade tariffs are thereby provided to enhance sustainability performance of the global trade.

While demand for many products has become more homogeneous across countries, cultural factors have strongly inhibited this change as well. In a multicultural world, cultural heterogeneity will continue to remain the most significant barrier to one global market. Cultures are resilient and enduring and so is the concept of global multiculturalism. At the global level, trading blocs may be viewed as a cluster of geographically close countries that share abstract and/or material culture in varying degrees. It is interesting to note that the three major regional trading blocs (i.e. the European Union, North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Association of South East Asian Nations) can be characterized by significant differences in culture. With the rapid emergence of trading blocs in the multicultural market, our paper attempts to meet several objectives. First, we discuss the growing importance and underlying motives of regional trading blocs in a multicultural setting. The level of trading arrangements between nations is described and a brief overview of the three major trading blocs is then presented. The level of heterogeneity of each trading bloc is examined with implications for market segmentation. The critical role of strategic alliances in the context of regional trading blocs is discussed next. Finally, we recommend marketing strategies for firms marketing to countries within its trading bloc as well as to countries outside its trading bloc.

Argues that informational arrangement may make an organization less of a cumbersome machine by exteriorizing organizational processes on screen, making them transparent, witnessable and (reflexively) self‐changing. The platform organization addresses how some organizations – global investment banks engaged in institutional currency trading and big science collaborations engaged in high energy physics knowledge production – implement a transparency regime of information that extends to local and implicit knowledge. In other words, through being exteriorized, knowledge is kept current, alive and distributed in the respective organizations; to a significant degree, it is effectively precluded from becoming implicit and embodied in places and persons. Corresponds to a form of coordination that is content‐driven rather than social authority based. “Management by contact” is a knowledge‐enhancing, specialist activity closer to mediating and coaching than to “governing” and deciding.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

One of the important goals of trade facilitation is to lower the costs of trade that serve as a barrier to the developing countries from enjoying the benefits of increased trade and becoming integrated into global supply chains that account for nearly 60 percent of global trade today. The high trade costs that are plaguing most developing countries is mainly incurred from the lack of adequate trade-related infrastructure and low quality of institutions that hinder the efficient flow of goods across and within borders. Therefore, the trade facilitation rules that are contained in FTAs among bilateral trading partners are inevitably aimed at deepening their participation in the global value chain network. However, an observation of the FTAs concluded by Korea and the trade facilitation rules contained therein shows that the current trade facilitation rules in bilateral FTAs may be of little practical use for countries that lack the capacity to be involved in the international production activities in the first place. From the development perspective, the current WTO negotiations on trade facilitation which take full account of the special and differential treatment needs of the less developed country members appear more likely to contribute to providing the trading environment that is free from the barriers to trade that have inhibited the less developed countries from integration into the global supply chains and the benefits thereof.

We examine the impact of market frictions in the form of trading costs on investor average holding periods for stocks in the S&P global 1200 index to examine constraints on international portfolio diversification.

We determine whether it is appropriate to pool stocks listed in the USA, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Japan, Asia and Australia into investigations using the same empirical specification. This is very important because the pooled effects may not provide consistent estimates of the average.

We report overwhelming econometric evidence that it is not valid to pool stocks in all the underlying regional equity indices for our investigation, indicating that the effect of frictions varies between markets.

When we pool the stocks within markets, we discover that for companies listed in the USA, Europe, Canada and Australia, market frictions do not significantly influence holding periods and hence are not a barrier to portfolio rebalancing. However, companies listed in Latin America and Asia face market frictions, which are significant in terms of increasing holding periods.

We ascertain that taking into account the properties of stock markets in different geographical locations is vital for understanding the limits on achieving international portfolio diversification.

Unlike prior research, we overcome the problems caused by contemporaneous correlation, endogeneity and joint determination of investor average holding periods and trading costs by employing the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) system panel estimator. This makes our empirical estimates robust and more reliable than the previous empirical research in this area.

This paper aims to explore how multinational corporations (MNCs) may operate in the context of a so‐called emergent institution which is not yet settled and taken for granted, thus helping to shape a new form of governance with considerable private involvement. The case used to illustrate emergent institutions involves market mechanisms for climate change, particularly emissions trading. This instrument is a crucial component of the Kyoto Protocol, which has started to be implemented, but is still surrounded by uncertainty and diversity across countries/regions.

Information from MNCs' responses to the Carbon Disclosure Project is used to shed light on their bargaining and nonbargaining activities and how these seem to relate to their overall strategy and location.

Both with regard to nonbargaining and bargaining strategies MNCs' prevailing view seems that they have to deal with distinctive national patterns, adopting a multidomestic, frequently home‐country‐focused approach. Their responses vary according to the national situation, with the level of activity in emissions trading frequently shaped by local management. Yet, the type of corporate structures created by some MNCs indicates that they take into account that EU‐ETS may form the onset for a more global emissions trading scheme.

Since market mechanisms for climate change are just unfolding, follow‐up studies into larger numbers of firms would be worthwhile to unravel the dynamics. The aspects identified in this paper can be used as starting point for such analyses.

The information and corporate considerations regarding market mechanisms for climate change can be helpful for both managers and policymakers in designing future approaches and reflecting upon the limitations and opportunities for MNC involvement in global governance.

The paper explores how MNCs may help shape an emergent institution, considering the fact that they face the dualility of managing a global context and multiple local contexts.