This paper studies the causes and consequences of political centralization and fragmentation in China and Europe. We argue that a severe and unidirectional threat of external invasion fostered centralization in China while Europe faced a wider variety of smaller external threats and remained...

On June 23, 2016, the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain (UK) — mostly those residing in England and Wales — held a referendum that resulted in an overall vote to leave the European Union (EU). This so called ‘BREXIT', a fusionist portmanteau of the words ‘Britain' and...

During the second half of the eighteenth century, the Ottoman policy-makers adopted a more liberal attitude towards price formation. This was accompanied by the fiscal and administrative centralization of the grain trade. These seemingly contradictory policy changes could, in part, be explained...

In five recent cases involving the acquisition of European companies by Chinese state-owned enterprises, the European Commission has delved deeply into the relationship between Chinese state-owned enterprises and the wider Chinese State. A common issue arose in these cases: Did the notifying...

This comment examines the energy challenges that the Indian government faces in developing its infrastructure. It briefly summarizes the policies adopted by the government, as well as their scope and limits

European official development assistance to Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries increased sharply after 2011, ostensibly in support of the social, economic, and above all political changes demanded by the Arab uprisings. The subsequent turn to development policies driven by...

In recent years, China has launched ambitious measures to tackle water pollution. As political commitment and public investment soared, Chinese environmental scientists and practitioners have engaged in a substantial debate on the reorganization of the country's water management system. Domestic...

Although a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol has not materialised yet, the 2009 Copenhagen meeting underlined the importance of China in international debates on climate and energy. This is not only based on China’s current climate emissions, but also on its expected energy use and economic...

This article considers the relationship between centralised, exogenous institutions and the embedded, endogenous institutions of rural governance in Europe through an examination of the evaluation procedures of the European LEADER programme. LEADER is presented in the literature as progressive...

This paper reviews a number of recent contributions that demonstrate that a blend of welfare economics and statistical analysis is useful in the evaluation of the citations received by scientific papers in the periodical literature. The paper begins by clarifying the role of citation analysis in...