Whilst there is a volume of literature mapping out the evolution, causes and implications of income inequality across countries, there is little in-depth evidence concerning the desire of populations for income equality. This paper tackles this gap by presenting UK evidence from a large-scale...

The results indicate that the closeness of the small firm-bank relationship tends to result in lower bank premia, notwithstanding the predicted firm-size effect.

Individual worker data is used to identify which types of workers and firms choose PRP in Belgium and The Netherlands. The results show that there are significant differences across these neighbouring countries in terms of the workers who choose PRP systems and the firms who adopt them. Results...

The results indicate that age of firm and closeness of the small firm-bank relationship tend to reduce the incidence of loan collateralization, which implies that relationship banking can yield tangible benefits to small businesses.

Support for small businesses is often delivered separately for urban and rural areas, based on the idea that the barriers to business growth differ geographically. Yet firms in rural and urban areas will also differ in their characteristics, and these may be more important influences on firm...

Results show that there are significant differences across countries in terms of who becomes an entrepreneur. In particular age, gender and education were found to be key variables, although the nature and strength of the relationship varies considerably across countries. It was concluded that...

The incidence of performance related pay (PRP) varies substantially across countries. Using individual worker level data, it is the intention of this paper to examine initially the extent to which institutional factors across Denmark, Sweden and Finland affect the coverage of Performance Related...

This paper examines the role of interest rates and securities within the context of the small firm - bank lending relationship and questions whether banks alter their lending conditions on the basis of specific firm characteristics and the nature of the borrowing undertaken. The results suggest...

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, there has been increased focus on access to finance for small firms. Research from before the crisis suggested that it was harder for innovative firms to access finance. Yet no research has considered the differential effect of the crisis on innovative...

A matched sample methodology was utilized to detect ownership and management differences between first generation and multi-generation independent unquoted family companies in the UK. Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) in first generation and multi-generation companies were generally drawn from the...