This paper presents a model of mismatch unemployment in two local labour markets in Scotland. A total of seven possible sources of such unemployment are identified and examined within the context of a predominantly urban area and a mixed urban-rural area. These are contiguous...

This paper tests the appropriateness of government employment policies in targeting specific groups of unemployed job seekers in the UK. A sample of 169 job seekers is divided into those who were successful and unsuccessful in finding employment and the attributes of each group is analysed. A...

This paper discusses the potential value of local, partnership-based employability training and job guarantee programmes, focusing on one example—the ‘Alloa Initiative’. The Initiative involved an employability training and job guarantee scheme developed in partnership with...

In this paper we provide a detailed profile and analysis of the regional risk capital market in Scotland, using an innovative methodology and specially developed databases which cover risk capital investment in young companies in the periods 2000--04 and 2005--07. This identifies the investment...

This paper examines the nature of entrepreneurial dynamics in small business service firms. The past decade has seen a rapid growth in the number of small business service firms, with a corresponding increase in their importance in terms of employment and income generation. Despite the growing...

The concept of 'employability' plays a crucial role in informing labour market policy in the UK, the EU and beyond. This paper analyses current and previous applications of the term and discusses its value as an exploratory concept and a framework for policy analysis. It then traces the...

Stated preference experiments are introduced and applied to an investigation of the influence of road transport and other factors on industrial location in terms of the ex ante decision making process. The experiments, based upon repeated hypothetical discrete choices between pairs of locations,...

This article considers the micro- and macro-economic benefits and costs of PPPs and some implications of implementing new international accounting standards. If public sector financial costs are forced to move ‘on balance sheet’, then there are likely to be impacts on the use in PPPs by...