Commissioned by the European Commission, the Final Report for the EU-Canada Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) on the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) provides a comprehensive assessment of the potential impacts of trade liberalisation under CETA. The analysis...

This paper analyses the major changes in textile products, production costs, prices, and market orientations during the era when the ‘draperies’ or cloth industries of the late-medieval Low Countries and England had become increasingly dependent upon northern markets and the German Hanseatic...

As the legislation on foreign direct investment (FDI) in Hungary has been probably the most liberal in Central and Eastern Europe since the mid-1980s, FDI is the primary form chosen by Western firms to enter the Hungarian market. The major channels of FDI include the privatisation of former...

A small proportion of high growth firms create the majority of all new jobs. For policymakers, it is important to know (1) the obstacles faced by high growth firms are and (2) the obstacles faced by firms with the potential to achieve high growth, but which are yet to achieve this. This...

This paper provides an empirical investigation of the agency relationship between the public sector and small firms targeted for assistance by examining micro and macro data for a cross section of eligible women business enterprises (WBEs). Using hedonic sales and employment indices we find that...

This paper studies information acquisition under competitive pressure and proposes a model to examine the relationship between product market competition and the level of innovative activity in an industry. Recent empirical papers point to an inverted-U shape relationship between competition and...

As business-to-business commerce shifts to the Internet, newer suppliers with cheaper but unreliable technologies enter the market place to win orders from firms by beating the price of their perfectly reliable (but expensive) competitors. The dilemma facing purchasing firms is the allocation of...

The bulk of the global innovative effort takes place in 5 countries: USA, Japan and China as leaders, with France and United Kingdom as immediate followers, which all display, on the long run, a negative marginal value added on innovation. The present paper attempts to answer the following...

Following a multi-decade history of lethal fires in the Bangladeshi garment industry, Sato (2012) proposed a contract framework that encourages manufacturers to adopt measures that reduce loss of life. Apart from the humanitarian imperative, the manufacturer has an incentive to sign the contract...

Indian Leather industry is recognized as the most promising foreign exchange earning sector since early ‘70s of the previous century. In terms of percentage share, leather export earnings accounted for 8% of the total foreign exchange earning sector, even in 1998-99, when the first...