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The importance of strategic alliances in the form of international joint ventures (IJVs) is growing in the present international business environment where competition is on a global scale. A review of the IJV literature, especially in developing countries, shows an over-emphasis on China and the NIEs (the first tier newly-industrialising economies: Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea). To date, relatively little attention has been paid to the ASEAN4 countries (the high-performing economies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations: Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia), even though since the 1990s this region has had one of the fastest growing economies in the world. This study provides new empirically based insights into the under-researched phenomenon of IJV formation in the South East Asian region. The study takes Thailand as an example of the ASEAN4 countries. Drawing on an unpublished official database of international joint ventures (IJVs) and a survey of managers of IJVs operating in Thailand, the study sets out to identify recent trends in Thai international joint ventures (IJVs), explore the motives and contributions of firms that participate in such IJVs and examine some of the factors that influence their performance. The study provides for the first time an in-depth analysis of a key dimension of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Thailand. Recent trends in Thai IJVs were found to be an upward path for IJV formation in the post 2000 period and the continued dominance of Japanese manufacturing companies as investors. Similarly key motives were found to differ markedly between foreign and local investors, while among the factors affecting performance were found to include IJV commitment, organisational learning and similarities in organisational culture.

The central bank of Ghana officially adopted an explicit inflating targeting monetary policy in May 2007 following its operational independence in March 2002. This thesis firstly explores the evolution of monetary policy and inflation in Ghana, before characterising the conduct and effectiveness of monetary policy. The thesis uses time series estimations of Taylor-type reactions functions to characterise monetary policy conduct and uses three other approaches to evaluate monetary policy effectiveness. In the first approach the long-run interest rate response to inflation, output gap, and other inflation precursors from estimated reaction functions is compared with Taylor’s reference values. The second method analyses the responsiveness of the policy interest rate to commercial bank retail rates while the third approach investigates the monetary transmission mechanism to the wider economy using variables’ impulse responses to investigate how other important variables that are either the final objective of policy or the conduit through which the final objective of policy is attained, behave in response to monetary policy. The analysis uses a modified cointegration and error correction model that is robust to the stationary properties of the data as well as vector autoregression techniques. The results show monetary policy was largely effective in influencing the savings rate but not quite effective in controlling inflation. An alternative model (McCallum 1995a) that uses monetary aggregates as a policy instrument appears to explain monetary policy in Ghana better. The thesis suggests possible reasons for the non effectiveness of monetary policy and offer policy recommendations for long-term inflation control.

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This thesis evaluates the impact of the 1980 reform programme on the performance of the Turkish economy through applied econometric analysis. In particular, the effects of trade liberalisation on output, exports, imports and price determination are examined. In the theoretical literature, analyses of economic reform programmes have established that a reduced form relationship exists between trade liberalisation and economic performance and that this relationship is based on complex structural relationships. Our first broad contribution is to formalise and examine these arguments to provide a theoretical framework to help think about the complexity of these issues. The second contribution is to study, using data disaggregated by industry, the impact of economic reform in Turkey since the mid-1960'sThe empirical literature on policy reform on Turkey indicates policy change has a positive effect on economic performance. However, the literature has mainly concentrated on aggregate analysis and paid little attention to the links between policy reform and economic performance operating at the disaggregate, industrial level. An analysis undertaken with aggregate data is subject to two deficiencies: The first, economic deficiency, concerns the loss of important information that can be obtained from an investigation of interrelations between the sectors of economy since aggregate analysis disguises a lot of information. The second, statistical deficiency is closely related to the fact that there are complex interrelations among the sectors of economy, and that the structure of the economy changes over time. Results indicate that trade liberalisation has a positive impact on the performance of the Turkish economy. Importantly, the empirical evidence suggests the existing studies in the literature underestimate the impact of openness on output and the contribution of the international trade sector in this process, but they overestimate the contribution of the competition effect.

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Zambia adopted the policy of internal contracts, as part of the broader health sector reforms. Drawing on insights from New Institutional Economics, this study investigated the policy of internal contracts between District Health and Referral Hospital Boards. The objectives of the study were: to describe the nature of contracts between districts and hospitals; assess the impact of different types of contract settings on referrals; and explore the processes through which contracts impacted on referrals. The study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. The study found that internal contracts had produced positive outcomes such as the delineation of service provision functions among providers, devolution of authority to devolved units, and increased interaction between districts and hospitals. These outcomes were, however, marred by a narrow decision making space, which was characterized by staff inadequacies and management difficulties and service delivery constraints. The juxtaposition of autonomous district and hospital units with hierarchies further limited the effectiveness of internal contracts. The study showed that referral inappropriateness was a pervasive problem and there were significant differences between public and NGO contracts. Both the districts and hospitals faced a combination of incentive structures which impacted on referrals. The contract payment method resulted in the district and hospitals' urge to maximise referrals and minimise referral care respectivley. The providers were more likely to respond to social than organisational incentives. Among NGO providers, the social incentives were more pervasive, the likelihood of congruence between provider and managerial objectives was higher, and there was a high level of social deprivation and low quality public health services, which generated referral pressures. The weak/lack of effective rewards and penalties perpertuated referral difficulties. The New Institutional Economics framework was helpful in understanding the difficulties of contracts by identifying the influence of incentive structures on referrals. The study recommended that: internal contracts could be more effective with the expansion of autonomy, improvement of service delivery capacity, and adoption of effective rewards and penalties. In order to monitor and improve the operation of contracts, the information system ought to capture referral data.

In 2001, the government of Thailand implemented a universal coverage (UC) policy for access to health care by introducing a tax-funded health insurance scheme, the UC scheme, to approximately 47 million people who were not previous beneficiaries of the Civil Servant Medical Benefit Scheme (CSMBS) or the Social Security Scheme (SSS). The UC policy resulted in a significant change in health care financing arrangements and financial barriers to health services. The purpose of this research was to explore the likely impact of the UC policy in terms of the following factors: changes in health care use, equity in health care finance, and the distribution of public subsidies on health among different socio-economic groups of Thais. In addition, the effectiveness of the UC policy in protecting households against financial hardship as a result of medical care costs was explored at the household level. Benefit incidence analysis (BIA) was employed as a tool to assess equity in health service use and the distribution of public subsidies. Two case studies of renal replacement therapy (RR T) for end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients and cardiac operations for heart disease patients were employed as tracers to explore the impact of the UC scheme's benefit package for better-off and less well-off households. Different choices of socio-economic group indicators (household income per capita or an asset index) and the use of aggregate and regional unit subsidies to calculate benefit incidence were also applied. Research results indicate that the UC policy did expand health care coverage to include nearly all Thais and increased the pro-poor nature of the Thai health care system, as well as the distribution of public health-related subsidies. Ambulatory service use and hospitalization of poorer quintiles significantly increased after the UC policy was implemented. The poorest quintiles gained the highest amount and proportion of public subsidies both prior to and after implementation of the UC policy. There was no change in conclusions regarding the distribution of public subsidies among different socioeconomic groups when different choices of socio-economic indicators or different levels of government unit subsidies were used. The analysis of financing incidence between 2000 and 2002 also showed less regressive overall health care finance, a greater decrease in household expenditure for health care among poorer quintiles, and a decrease in the catastrophic expenditure incidence in 2002, compared to 2000. The decision to exclude RRT from the UC benefit package resulted in a considerable financial barrier to health services and a substantial economic impact on poorer ESRD patients. Infrequent access to haemodialysis and the inability to obtain essential and expensive medication (erythropoietin) was shown to be a major cause of patients' death. Financial barriers to RR T prevented poorer ESRD patients from benefiting from access to essential health services, and the financial burden of RR T meant all poorer patients were inevitably faced with financial catastrophe as a result. Poorer ESRD patients adopted various financial strategies to cope with high health care expenditures, which impacted not only the ESRD patients themselves, but also other household members and relatives who had to provide supplemental financial support to help cover the costs of RRT. In contrast, neither poorer nor richer heart disease patients under the UC scheme experienced significant payments for the health care costs of open heart surgery due to the effectiveness of the scheme in financial risk protection. During the operation, a few poorer heart disease patients experienced financial burdens for travel costs and food expenditures for their relatives, but they were able to manage this financial burden by using their savings or taking loans, all without a significant financial impact on household living standards. In conclusion, the UC policy does appear to have overall improved equity in health care use and health care finance, and the distribution of public subsidies. Achievements of the UC policy in Thailand were most likely caused by the following three financing strategies: 1) the expansion of public health insurance to nearly universal coverage; 2) the removal of financial barriers to health services; and 3) the promotion of primary care use which is preferentially accessed and utilized by the poor in rural areas.

The expansion of the world market in the 1990s was significantly accelerated by the transition of formerly centrally planned economies of the USSR, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), China and Vietnam into capitalist ones. Prior to the introduction of the market in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and CEE during the late 1980s and in China and Vietnam from 1978, there was no genuine market production in them, by definition. This transition transformed these economies from top to bottom and subordinated them to market prices. In the CIS and CEE the transition to capitalism was profoundly destructive with huge output falls exceeding even the destruction wrought following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The collapse of centrally planned production was measured as a very large fall in national income by all of the official statistical agencies. In China and Vietnam the transition saw a general increase in output, as a consequence of the growth of the export oriented Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and expansion of agricultural production and the service sector. In neither case did official statisticians measure the distinctive growth of market production separate from the decline of centrally planned production. Rather official estimates of national income treated the central planned economy as if it were a market one. It was asserted that a non-capitalist economy could produce market value, including rents, profits and interest even without the exchange of commodities or landlords, capitalists and bankers. National income was assumed even in a centrally planned economy in which it did not actually exist. This thesis traces the early efforts of Soviet statisticians to develop measures of the economy through the application of Marx’s Capital. It shows how these efforts were transferred to the USA principally by the work of two Russian émigré economists Simon Kuznets and Wassily Leontief who established the US System of National Accounts (SNA) there. Under the direction of Abram Bergson, their work was then developed by the US Air Force Project Research and Development (Project RAND), who measured the centrally planned economy of the USSR as if it were a capitalist economy and then extended to include the CEE, China and Vietnam after the transition of their economies to planning. The transition of these centrally planned economies to market ones means that, if national income is a measure of economic production within the market boundary, the growth of production within the market boundary must be an expansion of national income. The use of these imputed measurements for non-existent national income in the centrally planned economies, explains why in the CEE and CIS when real market production and real national income were created during the transition to capitalism, an increase in national income was measured as a reduction of it. The expansion of market production became a contraction. The decline in centrally planned production and the imputed national income that measured it was misrepresented as a collapse of real national income rather than the creation of a real national income out of the central plan. It explains how these statisticians underestimated the already strong growth of capitalist production in China and Vietnam. Through a disaggregation of various key physical indicators; steel, electricity, aluminium, hydraulic cement, and automobiles and official national income estimates, alternative measures of the growth of real national income during the transition period are developed, through the separation of centrally planned output from market output. This disaggregation demonstrates that the expansion of the market into the former centrally planned economies was indeed a growth of market production and was capable of being measured by national income. Finally this thesis considers the implications of these new higher estimates of national income during the transition on the three areas of debate; firstly, the dispute within the neo-classical theorists around the applicability or otherwise of national income measures to a non-market economy, secondly, on the Marxist theory of State Capitalism and thirdly and finally on the various contemporary theories of globalisation predicated on a notion of the stagnation of capitalism. It presents an alternative conception based on Ernest Mandel’s idea of long waves.

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