Following privatisations in the 1980's, the UK financial industry embarked on a series of demutualisations, which developed into a global trend in the late 1990's. This structural shift has generated numerous debates in academic circles concerning various managerial issues of mutual versus stock...

This thesis opens up the black box of ‘markets’ by scrutinising the process of market formation and examining its complexities in the context of Shanghai’s development as an international financial centre. The financial markets in Shanghai are framed, understood and acted upon differently...

In this age of globalization, firms are automatically put into a more vulnerable position to risks. This affects both business operation of the firms and decision making process of stakeholders. Therefore, risk management and risk reporting is gaining more interest from business, as well as...

Political risk is one of the crucial factors influencing the operation of a country’s financial market as widely claimed by numerous studies. Many examples of the events which are considered as a political risk are the switch in regimen, a revolution, a coup incident, or a civil war. In...

This thesis is concerned with an examination of consumer purchases of life insurance. The problem is tackled in three main areas: first a theoretical examination of consumption, saving and bequest, based on the Yaari 'life-cycle' model of lifetime consumption. Secondly an analysis is developed...

The family is a universal and enduring institution that forms the basis of many economic decisions. Is decision making within the family efficient? The empirical literature on this issue is inconclusive to date, hence this paper uses a quasi-field experiment to examine this question. The...