From the early days of Anglo-settlement, Australia was a strong defender of protectionist trade policies. This began in the relations between the colonial states which engaged in closer and freer trade with their colonial master, the United Kingdom (UK), than with other colonies. However, by the 1950s, Australia was a staunch defender of the GATT approach in its attempts to create a greater level playing field across many sectors and especially in the agricultural sector. The Australian Government made its most significant leap into free trade with the reforms to the economy in the 1980s which continued in the following decades, ultimately leading to bilateral relations trade agreements with some eleven nations with a further five waiting for implementation. Its most ambitious Free Trade Agreements have been with China, Japan and South Korea as they were Australia's key markets and were at the same time Australia's first, second and third most important export destination. A Free Trade Agreement with the European Union (EU) remains a key objective. The EU is not yet “institutionalised” with a trade agreement yet it is Australia's second largest trade partner (regional) and includes (at the time of writing) one of its historical primary trading partners, the United Kingdom (UK). For decades trade discussions with the European Union (and its predecessors) brought very little comfort or agreement in Australian trading circles. Australian agricultural producers had lost a crucial market when the UK had joined the Common Market, and had had to make amends to cover that loss. Over time the global markets changed and Australia's new trade preferences, with Asian partners in particular, were able to compensate for that loss. The EU has re-emerged as a market of significant interest and the past tensions are being put to bed. It was, in the words of the former Trade Minister, the “missing piece” in Australia's trade scenario [see endnote].

The objective of this study is to determine the link between economics factors and sovereign rating changes. The economic factors are expected to significantly affect the sovereign rating and hence the rating changes. The history of sovereign credit crisis has proven that it was detrimental and costly to one country and transmits to global economy through the globalized financial markets. The falling sovereign rating of the PIIGS- Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain slowdown the economic growth of Euro zone. In worst case of sovereign debt crisis, the debt would be defaulted which will be the last thing to be expected by the investors because the debt default will cause the international capital flight as the investors will divest their capital away. The currency system will collapse; local currency of a country will depreciate sharply with hiking inflation that will course the country to suffer from high cost of living and rising unemployment. The research question is how macroeconomics factors affect the rating changes. Due to the latest events happening in the world economy; the information on sovereign rating changes was now sufficiently available. This study used discriminant analysis for all sovereign changes from 2000 to 2012 (12 years) from 53 countries, where no study has been done. The results identified two macroeconomics factors that discriminate the upgrade and downgrade of the sovereign rating changes. The two discriminate factors are External debt/GDP and the foreign reserves/GDP. External debt/GDP indicate the percentage of debt over the amount of GDP held by one country. This factor represents the long run solvency of one country by taking GDP per capita as the measurement of income. Hence, the smaller the ratio, the more capable a country is in paying the medium or long-term debt. The Foreign reserves/GDP is the foreign currency deposit and bond held by the central bank with obligation of currency stability. This factor is the percentage of foreign reserve over GDP. These findings are plausible as both measured the health of the financial system for a country.

The European Union (EU) has been a pioneer in regional integration and long been its most developed model. However, the recent increase in populism raises questions about the integration of the EU. Some pessimists even predict that disintegration of the EU might occur if populism becomes stronger. It is difficult to deny that the EU has faced a series of major setbacks in the last decade. However, setbacks do not equal disintegration. This thesis starts from recent disintegration phenomena in Europe and discusses the underlying reasons for those problems. Furthermore, this thesis attempts to utilize theoretical perspectives to elucidate recent trends. Mainstream integration theories will be discussed and reviewed. Transactionalism of Karl Deutsch will be used to observed whether the EU is really suffering from disintegration. Furthermore, Post-Functionalism will help to explain why certain factor, i.e., identity, matter than other indicators to explain the integration and disintegration of the EU.

Arrival of Japanese investment has flooded into Thailand since the 1960s. In Thailand, the country carrying out most of the investment is Japan. Thus Thailand has become an important investment area for Japanese companies. The study found that a regional characteristic of Japanese-affiliated companies in Thailand are concentrated in and around the capital known as Bangkok. Even the Thai government actively promoted investment in areas outside of Bangkok. Many Japanese companies chose locations in the Bangkok-wide area because of the access to the harbor and the relationship with business partners and associated firms. But specific places of accumulation differ by the dominated industry type; i.e., automotive industry, the electric/electronics industry, and the electronic component/electronic device industry. Such regional lumps are referred to as specific regional industrial agglomerations or industrial clusters. Japanese firms are increasingly transferring the development function, and thus strengthening local unification supervising function for ASEAN. The results from this study suggest that in the Thai industrial cluster, there is a possibility to stimulate innovation with competition coexisting with cooperation. Furthermore, in the presence of intense competition there are cost reductions as well as.

Comparative sub-regionalism represents a rather new research strategy and reflects the relevance of regional integration processes as a focus for academic inquiries and political actor considerations. Whereas regional-level integration processes have been the focus of extended analysis, investigations into sub-regional integration processes have been relatively few, and almost nonexistent are comparative enquiries. Considering that the structural framework and the political, economic and social aspects shape integration processes, sub-regional integration processes will take different avenues. Therefore, by providing insight into sub-regional integration dynamics, comparative sub-regionalism offers a viable route for investigation. Two cases, located within different structural settings, have been selected for explicit and detailed comparison, one within Central and Eastern Europe, and the other in Southeast Asia, namely the EU Strategy for Danube Region (EUSDR) and Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS).