Over the past 35 years of the reform period Beijing has tried to make its state-owned enterprises more efficient and competitive. In the early 1990s it adopted a strategy modeled closely on the Western corporation and the equity and debt capital markets that support its operations. But China's big SOEs have demonstrated more and more independence despite outright economic and ownership control by the government and the Communist Party. And this independence has not led to greater efficiencies or, arguably, even competitiveness. Instead the National Champions represent monopolistic economic and political power. Today China's new leadership confronts the National Champions seeking to regain control over the state's principal assets. How did this happen and what can be done to reassert Beijing's rights?  

Carl E. Walter worked in China and its financial sector for over 20 years and actively participated in many of the country’s financial reform efforts. While at Credit Suisse First Boston he played a major role in China’s groundbreaking first overseas IPO in 1992. Later at Morgan Stanley he was a member of senior management at China International Capital Corporation, China’s first and most successful investment bank. While there he supported a number of groundbreaking domestic and international stock and bond underwritings for major Chinese corporations. More recently at JPMorgan he was China Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer of its China banking subsidiary. During this time Carl helped build a pioneering domestic security, risk and currency trading operation. In his spare time he enjoyed driving his Jeep to distant provinces.

A long time resident of Beijing before his recent return to the United States, Carl is fluent in Mandarin and holds a PhD from Stanford University and a graduate certificate from Peking University. In Spring 2013, Carl returned to Stanford as a visiting scholar at the Shorenstein-Asia Pacific Research Center, FSI. He is the co-author of Red Capitalism: the fragile financial foundations of China’s extraordinary rise, which has been published in Chinese in China. His earlier book, Privatizing China: inside China’s stock markets, was also published in China and, like Red Capitalism, contributed to the government’s policy debate.

This event is co-sponsored with CEAS and is part of the China under Xi Jinping series.

SPEAKERS
Eze Vidra - Head of Campus London and Google for Entrepreneurs European Outreach, Google

Samantha Evans - Vice Consul, Software, UK Trade & Investment

ABOUT THE SEMINAR

Innovation Hub: London
Eze Vidra, Head of Campus London and Google for Entrepreneurs European Outreach, Google
Samantha Evans - Vice Consul, Software, UK Trade & Investment (UKTI)

Wednesday, October 30, 12:00-1:00 pm 
Venue: McClelland Building, Room M109 - Stanford Graduate School of Business. 

London's Tech City, or Silicon Roundabout, is the fastest growing tech cluster in Europe with over 1300 startups, and has managed to attract industry leaders such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, Intel, and more to establish a presence there. 

Learn more about what is going on in this hub of innovation in a one-hour seminar with Eze Vidra, the head of Campus London, Google's first physical startup hub worldwide providing entrepreneurs with work and event space, mentorship, and educational programs. Joining him will be Vice Consul Samantha Evans of UKTI, who will offer a government/policy perspective on Tech City.

This talk is part of a seminar series hosted by the Silicon Valley Project at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

 

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

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Eze Vidra is the Head of Campus London and Google for Entrepreneurs Europe. In March 2012, Eze launched Campus London, Google's first physical startup hub worldwide providing entrepreneurs with work and event space, mentorship and educational programs as well as access to a vibrant startup community.

Before Campus, Eze spearheaded Google's commerce strategic partnerships in EMEA, launching Google Shopping in Spain and Local Shopping in the UK among other projects. In the years before joining Google, Eze held product management leadership roles at Shopping.com in Israel, Gerson Lehrman Group in New York, Ask.com in Silicon Valley and AOL Europe in London, where was the Principal Product Manager for Search in EMEA. In 2003, Eze co-founded a startup in Israel, developing text-input technology for mobiles.

In 2005, Eze founded VC Cafe, a highly regarded venture capital blog shining a spotlight on Israeli startups. In 2012, he founded Techbikers, a non-for-profit cycling community responsible for starting a school and 20 libraries for children in the developing world. Eze serves as advisory board member of BBC Worldwide Labs and is a trustee of StartupWeekend Europe. He holds a BA in Business and Entrepreneurship from IDC in Israel (Cum Laude) and an MBA from London Business School. A native Argentinean raised in Israel, Eze is fluent in Spanish, Hebrew and English and lives in London with his family.

Eze Vidra's bio on the Campus London website: http://www.googleventures.com/team/eze-vidra
Eze Vidra on twitter: www.twitter.com/ediggs

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Samantha Evans is the Vice Consul for Software at UK Trade & Investment. Her role is to advise Enterprise software companies and fast growing start-ups on the opportunities in the UK and European Market as well as providing practical support to accelerate their success in the UK. UKTI is a UK Government organization based in 90 cities across the world – with a overall aim of economic development for the UK – both through import and export.

Sam moved to San Francisco for her current role in January 2013. She previously worked for MIDAS – Manchester’s Investment Agency and a Technology Accelerator in Manchester.

This seminar is part of the "Europe and the Global Economy" series.

How do geopolitical forces influence international capital markets? In particular, do market actors condition their responses to crisis lending initiatives on the political incentives of major lenders? In this paper, Randall Stone and co-writers Terrence Chapman, Songying Fang and Xin Li  analyze a formal model which demonstrates that the effect of crisis lending announcements on international investment flows is conditional on how market actors interpret the political and economic motivations behind lending decisions on the part of the lender and borrower. If investors believe the decision to accept crisis lending is a sign of economic weakness and lending decisions are influenced by the political interests of the major donor countries, then crisis lending may not reduce borrowing costs or quell fears of international investors. On the other hand, if market actors believe that crisis lending programs, and attendant austerity conditions, will significantly reduce the risk of a financial crisis, they may respond with increased private investment, creating a "catalytic effect."  In this model, the political biases of key lending countries can affect the inferences market actors draw, because some sovereign lenders have strategic interests in ensuring that certain borrowing countries do not collapse under the strain of economic crisis. Although this theory applies to multiple types of crisis lending, it helps explain discrepant empirical findings about market reactions to IMF programs. The implications of their theory is tested by examining how sovereign bond yields are affected by IMF program announcements, loan size, the scope of conditions attached to loans, and measures of the geopolitical interests of the United States, a key IMF principal.

Randall Stone (Ph.D. 1993, Harvard) is Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester.  His research is in international political economy and combines formal theory, quantitative methods, and qualitative fieldwork.  He is the author of Controlling Institutions:  International Organizations and the Global Economy (Cambridge University Press 2011), Lending Credibility:  The International Monetary Fund and the Post-Communist Transition (Princeton University Press, 2002) and Satellites and Commissars:  Strategy and Conflict in the Politics of Soviet-Bloc Trade  (Princeton University Press, 1996), as well as articles in the American Political Science Review, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Review of International Organizations, and Global Environmental Politics.  He has been awarded grants by the NSF, SSRC, NCEEER, and IREX, was the last recipient of the Soviet Peace Prize (1991), and has been a Senior Fulbright Scholar visiting the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin.  He speaks German and Russian fluently and Polish moderately well, and reads all Slavic languages. 

Co-sponsored by the Center of East Asian Studies, Stanford University

Prominent health policy expert—Rachel Lu from Taiwan—will share her view on recent health policy developments in the region, drawing on her extensive research and policy background.

Jui-fen Rachel Lu, Sc.D., is a Professor in the Department of Health Care Management, at Chang Gung University (CGU) in Taiwan, where she teaches comparative health systems, health economics, and health care financing and has served as department chair (2000-2004), Associate Dean (2009-2010) and Dean of College of Management (2010-2013).  She earned her B.S. from National Taiwan University, and her M.S. and Sc.D. from Harvard University, and she was also a Takemi Fellow at Harvard (2004-2005) and is an Honorary Professor at Hong Kong University (2007-2014), a guest professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (2010-2013), and an adjunct professor at Xi’an Jiaotong University (2011-2014) in China.  Her devotion to teaching driven by her firm belief in the value of education and investment in human minds was recognized by the Award of Excellence in Teaching conferred by CGU in both 2002 and 2013.

Her research focuses on 1) the equity issues of the health care system; 2) impact of the NHI program on health care market and household consumption patterns; 3) comparative health systems in Asia-Pacific region.  She is a long-time and active member of Equitap (Equity in Asia-Pacific Health Systems) research network and is currently the coordinator for the catastrophic payment component of Equitap II research project which involves 21 country teams and is jointly funded by IDRC, AusAID, and ADB.  Professor Lu has also been appointed to serve as a member on various government committees dealing with health care issues in Taiwan, such as National Health Insurance Supervisory Committee (DOH), Hospital Management Committee(DOH), and Hospital Global Budget Payment Committee (BNHI), etc.  Dr. Lu received the Minister Wang Jin Naw Memorial Award for Best Paper in Health Care Management presented by Kimma Chang Foundation in 2002 and was the recipient of IBM Faculty Award in 2009.  She has published papers in Health Affairs, Medical Care, Journal of Health Economics, Health Economics, Social Science and Medicine, Health Economics, Policy and Law, Osteoporosis International, Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, and Taiwan Economic Review etc, and is the author of “Health Economics”(a textbook in Chinese) and various book chapters.