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Business start-ups, small and medium sized companies face financial difficulties to finance their innovative activities, which hinders innovative products from commercialization. This mainly results from the high risks and information asymmetries involved in such projects. Standard debt financers are reluctant to take these risks, besides the young enterprises lack collateral to receive the credit. However, the risk tolerance for investors differs as well. One of the alternatives for bank loans is venture capitalists, who rather become partners than creditors of young, innovative companies with growth potential. Particularly venture capital or the so-called "smart money" is what financially supports such business ventures, provides funding for technological transfer and commercialization. The authors of the present paper have chosen to examine and compare the venture capital attraction possibilities in the Baltic States using Venture Capital and Private Equity Country Attractiveness Index (by Groh et al.) data for 2012-2018. Venture capital market development is currently a very topical issue for the Latvian government, taking into consideration the critical importance of venture capital for financing innovation. Becoming the leader in the venture capital sector and No. 1 choice of start-up companies in the Baltics are now the objectives of the government of Latvia. It was therefore relevant and important to compare venture capital attraction possibilities in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania to see and analyse in which aspects Latvia lags behind its neighbouring countries and in which it succeeds. The paper compares the six main factors or key drivers which determine the attractiveness of venture capital markets. According to Grohet al. (2016), these factors are: 1) Economic Activity; 2) Depth of Capital Market; 3) Taxation; 4) Investor Protection & Corporate Governance; 5) Human & Social Environment and 6) Entrepreneurial Culture & Deal Opportunities. However, the results of the research reveal that the main problems for international investor attraction in the Baltic States are underdeveloped capital markets and low economic activity. Latvia, unfortunately, is the most unattractive for international venture capital investors. Nevertheless, it has experienced the fastest growth during six years, which means that there is potential for becoming a leader in the venture capital sector. The present paper reveals the aspects to be improved for becoming more attractive for venture capital investments. JEL codes: G24, G28, F21, M14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15544/ssaf.2018.03

International education is an important channel of labor migration. Most commonly, this form of labor migration is considered as "brain drain," represented by the retention of graduate students in science and engineering in the host labor market. This case study of contemporary Chinese student migration to Japan shows that international students have different credentials, interests, and motivations for migrating abroad, and consequently provide the host society both unskilled and skilled labor power. Moreover, Chinese students' labor market practices as skilled labor migrants show their important roles in the economic globalization. Aside from scientific and engineering skills, Chinese students use their linguistic and cultural competencies to act as intermediaries between their host and home economies.

Abstract'Partnership' has become a standard buzzword in the NGO and 'development' world. Until 1980s it was common for many Northern NGOs (NNGOs) to implement their own 'development' programmes and projects. This implementation approach has shifted to one in which local 'partner' organisations are identified and do most of the work, with the NNGOs in a funding and organisational support role. Also many Northern donors started funding the Southern NGOs directly making many NNGOs irrelevant. This paper reviews the current literature on 'partnership' between Northern and Southern NGOs and concludes that the new role of the NNGOs in the North should be to work with governments and business to change policies which create poverty in both the North and the South. It also examines the 'partnership' between a NNGO (Save the Children (UK)) and local NGOs in Bangladesh. There are probably more and bigger NGOs in Bangladesh than in any other country of its size. This paper concludes that in Bangladesh the relationship is led by the financial constraints of the NNGOs not by any intention to build partnership. In other words it is 'donorship' rather than 'partnership'. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.