This is a study of the decline and collapse, in 1973, of the Birmingham Small Arms Company Ltd, primarily a motorcycle manufacturing company and pre-WW2 world market-leader. The study also integrates and extends several earlier investigations into the collapse that concentrated on events in the...

Providing access to finance to the poor has been proposed as a tool for economic development and poverty reduction. Our research aims to provide a deep analysis of how to enhance access to finance on a sustainable basis, focussing on rural Vietnam. It analyzes four main areas: (i) why access to...

This thesis deals with the optimal design of pensions systems in the face of demographic changes. Though the chapters differ in terms of the key questions addressed, the unifying theme remains which pensions system yields the highest welfare under differing economic conditions. We use a standard...

This thesis provides an empirical analysis on how Foreign Direct Investment could affect economic growth. The analysis focuses on China and two East Asian countries, South Korea and Taiwan, for the period from 1980 to 2006. A VAR system is applied to China and the other two countries, while...

Self assessment system (SAS) has become the key administrative approach for both personal and corporate taxation in developed countries including the USA, UK and Australia. This approach emphasises both the taxpayers’ responsibility to report their income and the need for them to determine...

The study set out to explore how small exporting firms coordinate production functions and the extent to which the chosen path of institutional arrangements enable them to reduce market imperfections, access resources, meet export market requirements and succeed in the export market. The...

This thesis deals with the exporting performance of Ukraine. Focusing on the reorientation of merchandise exports, both in terms of geography – from East to West – and in terms of commodity composition, it explores the multi-level determinants of the observed picture. While until 2003-2004...

This thesis describes and analyzes the earnings inequality in the United Kingdom and related countries in particular Italy and Germany, incorporating institutional measures and changes. There are three main tasks: firstly, Chapter 2 shows that earnings inequality as well as skill premiums have...

This thesis explores second and third generation South Asian entrepreneurship in Britain. To date the majority of studies have focused on understanding entrepreneurship by first generation South Asian immigrants who established businesses in traditional sectors of the economy, frequently as a...

Based on a letter book of the London Baltic merchant Michael Mitford dating 1703-1707 this paper argues that the ability of merchant networks to secure property rights in long distance trade must be re-evaluated. Contrary to the argument of the New Institutional Economists, these were not...