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Mid seventeenth century Rossendale was economically backyard even by the contemporary standards of highland England. The rest of the century did little to improve the position of Rossendale as a whole. Within Rossendale, the experience was not uniform. The west, which experienced at best stable population and stable per capita wealth, remained economically committed to cattle rearing. The east, which experienced rising per capita wealth and population levels, became more orientated to woollen manufacturing. These differential experiences and trends are unlikely to have been merely fortuitous. From cl715, a new phase of long term economic and demographic growth was entered, benefitting all parts of Rossendale. This growth, based on the woollen trade, was at the expense of the more traditional features of the local economy, notably agriculture and the market and fair of Haslingden. Long term demographic and economic expansion continued down to the 1790's. Now, however, the economic base of expansion was widened particularly in western Rossendale by the growth of cotton manufacturing and factory production. Both developments were rapid, but neither were particularly new. Cotton manufacturing had been present earlier in the century, whilst the scale of early mills was usually as modest as in the old established domestic sector. From the mid 1790's this long phase of expansion on a traditional domestic base was ended, most dramatically by the impact of the French wars, the building of large factories and the emergence of large scale business units.

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This thesis is an empirical analysis of the performance, innovation and networks of high technology firms. It is conducted at the micro-economic level, based on new empirical evidence by fieldwork methods, from the primary source data on firms in the five Scottish hi-tech clusters. The questionnaire design is cross-sectional, to which was added a time series element, and involves many unique features. It enabled the gathering of rich quantitative and qualitative data on all stages of the dynamic innovation process. The database was used in cross-sectional analysis of many key hypotheses in the hi-tech context, by robust econometric models of export, innovation (e.g. Schumpeterian hypothesis), and growth (e.g. Gibrat’s Law of Proportionate Effect) performances. The hi- tech firm’s networks, internationalisation and embeddeddness, are analysed using novel measures. A structural simultaneous equations model is developed to explain the relationship between networks, innovation and performance, by establishing a link between the innovation input, the innovation output, and performance, based on the empirical knowledge production function model. The 2-stage, 4 equations model, (using Heckman’s procedure) deals with both simultaneity and sample selection bias. Robust estimation techniques (I3SLS, Tobit) are used for estimation. The results highlight the simultaneity and selectivity issue. The hi-tech firms with aggressive innovation strategies, international markets and global products, still find it vital to be embedded in local networks, which in turn raise their performance. Technology-push factors, research networks, knowledge spillovers from markets, and a firm’s radical innovation attempts determine its innovation input intensity. Firms are unable to attain innovation success through innovation investments alone; integration of internal and external resources is important. The innovation sales intensity are not determined by innovation input, but by the demand-pull factors like customer networks, exporting, and market expansion strategies. This also applies to their export intensity. Lack of internal resources, capabilities, and government support are the major obstacles to commercialisation of innovation.

The main objective of this thesis is to conduct a socio-economic analysis of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK and to examine the impact or consequences that refugees often pose for the hosting economy e.g. their assimilation in the new society and economy as well as attitudes from the host nation towards them. Attempts are made to clearly distinguish between asylum seekers/refugees and other immigrants in order to examine how their labour market performance varies by constructing an indicator of the immigrant's route's of entry to the UK using information from the Labour Force Survey, Home Office and UNHCR sources. The thesis is developed as follows: Chapter 1 presents an introduction and overview of the different immigration phases in the UK. Some fundamental literature on key issues relating to immigrants' socio-economic impact is discussed in Chapter 2, while recent immigration trends and policies in Europe and the UK are covered in Chapter 3. In chapters 4 and 5, micro data from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey from 2001-2006 is analysed using econometric techniques to explore the labour market performance of different categories of immigrants. The social impact of refugees and asylum seekers are focused upon in Chapter 6 by examining public attitudes to these groups. Chapter 7 contains the concluding comments.

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Before 1700 the manufacture of soap was carried on in mxnerouo small houses throughout the country. The chief soap making centres were London and Bristol. Until about 1750 Tuch of the hard soap used in Britain Evas imported from Southern Europe. By 1785 Britain had become largely self cufficiont for supplies of hard soap and the proportion of soft soap =ado doolinod to leas than 10 of the total. Between 1785 and 1851 the number of licensed soap ma'wrs in Britain declined from 971 to 176 and the average output por firm rose fron about 20 to 500 tons a year. Thore was a marked dooline in the number of small soap makers situated away from the main industrial towns of the Midlands and the North and the ports of London, Liverpool ant Glasgow. About 1830 synthotic soda came into general use in the manufacture of soap, forty years after tho procecs of iianufaoturing coda from aalt had been perfeoted by Zeblano. 01§41 This deli] was probably because there was an adequate supply of imported vegetable alkali and boeause the soap rakers did not vrioh to make use of the noro convenient synthotio alkZ Li, A few soap works on tho canal bank cites, ideal for the acewmulation of raw matorials, were able to exploitthe new source of alkali for a few years but they failed to capture much of the trade of Liverpool or London. Fron an early date the ranußaoture of soap was dependent upon imported raw materials and the greatest concentrations of the industry were located at the ports. In the first half of the 19th century, Liverpool had advantages in the manufacture, in the export market, and in the industrial markets for soap, yet the demand for soap by the population of London sustained London as the chief soap producing area in Britain.

We first summarise the principal trends and fluctuations in the development of the cotton industry from 1780 until 1815, bringing out for discussion the effects of the French and American wars on the various sections of the industry. We then examine the home and overseas markets for cottons, assessing their major characteristics, their relative importance, and the types of goods in demand. The main sources of cotton wool are analysed, showing how and why supply adjusted itself to demand, highlighting the pressure-group activities of merchants and manufacturers who made their requirements known to the government, and the manner in which the latter responded by encouraging those in the plantations to step-up production. The beginnings of commercial cotton growing in the United States are also described. The methods of marketing cotton wool are outlined. The emergence of Liverpool as the premier port for the importation of cotton is traced, and the chain of distribution from the importers, through the dealers and brokers, to the spinners, is analysed. The markets, the methods of marketing yarn and cloth, and the links between the spinner, weaver, finisher, and the consumer, are also investigated. A survey of fixed and working capital is given. This involves a description of factories, machines, equipment, and motive power at work in the industry, and a summary of the methods used to finance them. The balance sheets of various firms are examined to show the relative importance of fixed and working capital, and the contribution of bankers and bills of exchange to the development of the industry are assessed, and an indication given of the methods of granting credit, settling accounts, and paying wages.

The period 1660 to 1800 marked the transition from sparsely populated rural coastline to industrial belt in West Cumberland. At the same time, within this major transition, there occurred a local development of equal significance for west Cumberland, the changing role of Whitehaven. Dominant during the first half of the century, and an integral part of mercantile expansion on the western seaboard, Whitehaven was by the close of the century being challenged by Workington and even to some extent Maryport; and although still dominant in absolute terms, relatively its growth rate was in decline. The central factor in this period of transition was the growth of trade in general and coal exports in particular. West Cumberland's shipping industry expanded ten-fold, and by 1790 the Port of Whitehaven, comprising Whitehaven, Workington, Harrington and Maryport, owned more shipping tonnage than either Glasgow or Bristol. The first part of the thesis is a study of this expansion in trade and its mode of operation. But trade is only one aspect of shipping growth. The need for more ships, and conversely the needs of the ships in terms of servicing, anchorage and loading facilities, led to expansion in shipbuilding, harbours and the maritime trades. It is this aspect of shipping espansion which is dealt with in the second part of the thesis. Thirdly, the rapid expansion of the merchant fleet led to population growth. This entailed not merely urban change in general, but specific consequences derived from the particular qualities and problems inherent in the mariner's profession. The third section,therefore, deals with population change and the maritime profession. However, the three parts are not so much separate studies as separate approaches to the central problem of shipping expansion. It is hoped that by presenting the inter-action between economic, urban and social factors in this way, the study may contribute to a fuller understanding of the total impact of shipping expansion on West Cumberland at this period.