The authors examine the developing role of personal business advisors (PBAs) within Business Link. Drawing on a national survey of PBAs, they highlight trends and variations in practice and perceptions relating to four key areas: the client focus of PBAs and the identification of growth firms,...

Many problems arise in applying conventional statistical methods to accounting ratios, often relating to assumptions about the statistical distribution of ratios. This paper presents a non-parametric model of corporate performance which obviates the need for specification of statistical...

We explore the determinants of job reallocation in this paper. A model which associates technological advances with the process of economic growth is analysed and extended. A consequence of this model is that innovation leads to the creation of new jobs and the destruction of older jobs...

This paper is concerned with the matching of job searchers with vacant jobs: a key component of the dynamics of worker reallocation in the labour market. The job searchers may be unemployed, employed or not in the labour force and we estimate matching or hiring functions including all three...

In this paper, it is shown that the institutional context within which lump-sum grants are given can be an important determinant of local (or state) government expenditure responses to such grants. By using the system of local government finance that operated in England until 1990 as a case...

It is widely accepted that local authorities in England have been placed under increasing fiscal pressure during the 1980s by the block grant system combined with the rising level of grant penalties. Controversy surrounds the question of which local authorities have been worst treated by the new...

Ratio analysis has been a tool of analysts for as long as financial statements have been prepared. Yet its limitation to considering only one numerator and one denominator severely limits its usefulness. This paper extends the traditional ratio analysis to permit the incorporation of any number...

In each of the years in the period 81/82 to 85/86 the Government has set individual expenditure targets for English local authorities. Penalties, in the form of withdrawal of grant, were incurred if these targets were exceeded, and this suggests an incentive to reduce expenditure. However,...