Issues of productivity and competitiveness at a regional level have increasingly been a focus for both academic and policy concern. Significant and persistent differences in productivity are evident both in the UK and across Europe as a whole. This paper uses data relating to individual business...

This paper examines factors that influence the propensity of a firm to take up external business support using random effects nominal probit regression analysis to capture sector heterogeneity. The results suggest a strong positive association between the orientation of the firm towards growth...

Two simple but seemingly profitable betting rules for betting on the away win in association football are developed. One rule is consistent with avoiding those games in which there is a clear favourite. The second rule is based directly on modelling bookmaker odds and assessing the residuals...

A considerable literature indicates that class attendance is an important determinant of academic performance but the narrative on what influences students decisions to attend class is scant. This article examines why students choose not to attend class through the use of a survey distributed to...

This paper presents a chronological, adaptive and reflective investigation into students' perceptions of and motivations for choosing to study economics. Applications of multiple quantitative and qualitative techniques to student-level primary survey and focus group data reveal the following....

Webber D., Curry N. and Plumridge A. Business productivity and area productivity in rural England, Regional Studies. Rural area productivity and rural business productivity measure different things. This paper presents a empirical analysis of labour productivity differentials across the new...

This article presents a simple method for identifying distributional dynamic properties of economies using the ideas of concordance and discordance. It can be employed to examine the strength and validity of the results of other methods. The method has the advantage of comparing distributions at...

This note reports research undertaken to establish whether the factor price for labour has converged across regions of the European Union between 1980 and 1994. A Markov chain is employed to examine relative average regional pay for a cross-section of 57 EU regions. Results suggest average...

Cutts D. and Webber D. J. Voting patterns, party spending and relative location in England and Wales, Regional Studies. There is growing evidence that context can influence how people make voting decisions, and some of the contexts are spatially defined. Votes are cast in constituencies, but...

There is a growing body of literature which suggests that voting patterns are not independent from space yet few empirical investigations exist which take explicit account of space. This article examines the determinants of voting patterns across constituencies in England and Wales using spatial...