We review the policy arguments in favour of assisting SMEs in various areas of their operations. Our review suggests that many of the arguments put forward for subsidising SME activities (as distinct from some activities of firms regardless of size) are not economically justified. Nonetheless,...

The fundamental theorem of welfare economics asserts that under conditions of perfect competition Pareto efficiency will obtain. This has provided the conceptual basis for the market failure approach to regulation, which focuses on failure to satisfy the conditions for perfect competition as...

Asymmetric information is at the heart of situations involving trust. In the case of B2C Internet commerce, the information asymmetry typically relates to the difficulty that consumers have of distinguishing between "trustworthy" and "untrustworthy" Web merchants. The impasse can be resolved by...

This authoritative Handbook provides a thorough account and analysis of the important issues relating to the globalization of the international economy.

This paper examines the process of innovation within SMEs, focusing on a sample of firms in New South Wales, Australia. The trend of the last several decades towards increased integration of global markets, or globalization, has meant that many firms are experiencing continuously increasing...

This article examines discernable patterns of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth co-movements across 29 countries, using consistent time series data (1912--2008). Of these countries, only 12 are found to form three statistically significant groupings (i.e. G6-six Organization for Economic...

This study examines the technical efficiency of Thai manufacturing SMEs and their firm-specific determinants utilising firm-level industrial census data for 1997 and 2007. Results from a stochastic frontier production function and technical inefficiency effects model reveal that Thai SMEs are...

This paper sheds light on the issue of SME financing in selected Asian economies using a unique sample survey. It elaborates on (i) the key sources of external finance for SMEs (ii) the extent to which, if at all, the SME sector as identified by firm size, country and in aggregate for a sample...