The thesis is composed of four chapters, which investigate different topics in the field of applied urban and spatial economics. The first paper develops an original empirical approach to investigate the role played by labour markets in explaining the pattern of industrial agglomeration in the United States. The methodology allows us to i) obtain an estimate of industrial agglomeration which significantly improves on existing indices, and ii) provide a ranking of industries according to their responsiveness to labour market determinants of agglomeration. Results show that labour market determinants explain around one quarter of the variation in spatial agglomeration across industries. The second paper assesses whether urbanization alleviates rural poverty in surrounding areas in India, using a panel dataset at district level for the period 1981-1999. We find that the effect is substantial and systematic; this is largely attributable to positive spillovers from urbanisation, rather than to the movement of the rural poor to urban areas per se. The third paper investigates an extremely peculiar characteristic of the US patent dataset: there is a large group of inventors who develop one or a few patents during a long period of analysis ("comets"), while a very small group of "stars" inventors develop a huge number of patents. In light of that, the paper first explores the location pattern of comets and stars, and then assesses whether the activity of star inventors is beneficial to the production of comet patents in the same city and technological category. The fourth paper describes the effects of bank liberalization on the geographical penetration of branches in the city of Antwerp (BE). Our results show that, coinciding with the strongest wave of the deregulation and concentration process, banks systematically exit from low income neighbourhoods.

This thesis analyses the motivational and information aspects of reward systems applied to Chinese state enterprises since 1949. It attempts to apply relevant concepts and analytical tools developed utilising the framework of agency and contracting theory in the analysis of the relationship between the State and enterprises in both planning and control. The research is comprised of three parts. The first part critically reviews research in the area of managerial motivation in a centrally planned economy with particular reference to the New Soviet Incentive Model ("bonus literature"). It also presents systematically the relevant concepts and models of agency research. The second part describes and evaluates the reward systems applied to Chinese State enterprises during the period 1949-1989. The systems considered include the prereform system (1949-1978), the profit incentive systems (1979-1986), and the contract system (1987-1989). This description presents both documentary and empirical surveys concerning system design, operational models, and problems of application. The third part sets up the analytical framework, models the Chinese systems, and analyses these models. Firstly, it attempts to establish the feasibility and suitability of using agency tools to analyse the State-firm relationship in central planning environments. It does this by comparing the bonus literature and agency research. Second, theoretical models are presented in a specific setting. A number of assumptions with regard to the elements of the theoretical models relevant to Chinese context are made. Models of various reward systems are then presented and analysed using an agency perspective and some suggestions for reform are made. The analysis also reveals some limitations of agency research and its power as an analytical tool in a Chinese context.

Over the last two decades there have many government interventions to enable ecodesign in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). These interventions occurred worldwide but mainly within European Union member states. The rationales for these interventions have been numerous but broadly speaking they have been developed due to an assumption of market failure in relation to ecodesign in SMEs. This market failure is generally characterised as the cumulative environmental impact of SMEs alongside a low level of ecodesign application. In an effort to rectify this market failure, the interventions have taken many forms including demonstration projects, knowledge and technology transfer, curriculum development. Despite these numerous interventions, there does not appear to be a significant increase in the amount of ecodesign in SMEs, While there is an abundance of literature and research aiming to ecodesign tools, methods and company level barriers, there is much less research focusing on the relationship between policy, government intervention and ecodesign in SMEs, Therefore, this thesis develops a critical approach to understanding this relationship between government intervention and ecodesign practice. This thesis firstly explores the policy rationale for ecodesign intervention and highlights that the policy rationale for ecodesign, based on defined conditions, has not been met. This is because the available evidence suggests that the government has been unable to rectify the problem. In order to understand this, the thesis explores previous interventions for ecodesign to illuminate the characteristics and logic behind these interventions. The literature on ecodesign policy generally and ecodesign interventions specifically is very thin. The thesis therefore explores the innovation and innovation systems literature in order to build a frame through which these interventions can be explored. What this exploration of the literature establishes is that the current understanding of innovation emphasises the systems and interactive aspects of innovation. In doing so, this literature contests and challenges the principles of market failure and the linear logic of innovation. On the basis of these insights, the thesis develops a preliminary analytical framework through which previous ecodesign interventions can be explored from a systems perspective. Using this analytical framework, ten case studies of previous interventions are examined. This preliminary analysis provides insight into the underlying logic of ecodesign intervention while allowing for critical reflection on the preliminary analytical framework. Through this critical reflection and additional interaction with the literature the analytical framework is further developed and then applied to an in-depth case study of an ecodesign intervention, This in-depth case study is an intervention that the researcher was directly involved in the design and delivery of. The insights and conclusions provided by this thesis establish a basis for wider discussion on the design, development and delivery of ecodesign interventions. Broadly the thesis suggests that previous interventions were developed through the logic of market failure and a linear interpretation of innovation, both of which are contested in the literature. The thesis presents a model of ecodesign systems alongside a model of systems failure related to ecodesign. The final analytical framework that is developed provides a basis through which the future design of ecodesign interventions can be explored. While the framework doesn't provide support to the regulatory process it will be of most interest to those policy makers involved in the development of national programmes of intervention. The thesis also provides recommendation for further research in the field of ecodesign interventions from the perspective of systems failures.

Forecasting models for application in a competitive environment have not attracted much academic attention despite the importance of the area for most private sector companies. The situation is particularly acute for organisations competing in high technology markets, because of the high levels of technological and market uncertainty. This uncertainty is associated with short product life cycles, dynamic market structures due to high rates of firm entry and exit and imprecise industry definition, because of the introduction of new technologies. Survey evidence suggested that organisations paid little attention to their competitors, let alone potential entrants, while fewer still employed any formal methods of analysis. Typically, competitive forces were handled informally, usually based on the opinions of managers closest to the market. Despite the dominance of managerial judgement in the analysis of competition, formal models have been proposed as an alternative in the economics and marketing science literatures. This thesis proposes to evaluate critically the usefulness of two specific classes of model, namely those of innovation diffusion and discrete choice. Diffusion models, although useful for retrospectively describing the historical development of a market, their predominant application has been forecasting. Consequently, simple timedependent models have tended to dominate the literature which have assumed that the diffusion of an innovation is not influenced by firms' marketing strategies. To relax this assumption, theoretical models have been developed to derive normative propositions concerning the evolution of marketing mix variables over the adoption life cycle, typically under the assumption of monopoly. Whilst analytically elegant, these models lack empirical validation. This thesis aims to empirically analyse the alternative model specifications for incorporating price effects into diffusion models and evaluate the forecasting capability of these and other diffusion models. In the context of telecommunications, discrete choice models have been successfully used to examine North American households' demand for access, as distinct from network usage and more recently, the choice of supplier of long distance telecommunications services. This thesis evaluates the applicability of such models in business telecommunications markets. This is illustrated by examining firms' choice of supplier in the recently liberalised mobile communications markets. The limitations and advantages of the two distinct approaches will be highlighted and recommendations made as to the suitability and potential uses of these modelling approaches. Finally, the possibilities for integrating the two in the development of "micro" based diffusion models and the implications of this for modelling competition in high-technology markets are discussed.

The importance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to the economy is widely accepted. In addition to this, their characteristics of flexibility, lower costs, specialist products, responsiveness, innovation, localisation and high quality of services have been widely acknowledged. Nowadays, "Electronic procurement (e-procurement) has a far greater potential for cost savings and business improvement than online retailing or enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), and will permanently and fundamentally reform the way we do business in the future" (Neef, 2001). However, the adoption of e-procurement in SMEs is far behind their counterparts - the large corporations. As a result, it is essential to assist SMEs with the adoption of e-procurement to reach their full potential. In order to improve e-procurement adoptions in SMEs, several obstacles have been identified from the SME perspective, including limited expertise in procurement improvements and supply chain management, limited resources (e.g. skilled personnel, financial and technical capabilities, etc.), less business channels and opportunities, and lack of strategic frameworks for e-procurement implementations. In this respect, when SMEs attempt to deploy e-procurement technologies, it is fundamental for them to obtain adequate and effective external support from both their supply chain partners (i.e. buyers and suppliers) and intermediate organisations (e.g. governments, consultant companies, distributors, wholesalers, retailers, banks, academic institutes, etc.). In this research, case study method is utilised on the basis of qualitative research. Four case studies are deeply investigated. In the end, a holistic framework is established with a new way of thinking about how SMEs can obtain effective external support for efficient implementation of e-procurement applications across their relevant supply chains. To implement the framework, a new approach is applied and includes the identification of key players, their characters, roles, responsibilities required and relationships fonned based upon e-procurement projects. Meanwhile, the challenges have been identified when SMEs fonn relevant collaboration networks upon related eprocurement projects.

The destruction of existing industries as a consequence of discontinuous technological change is a central theme in organisational literature. Incumbents are challenged by 'competence-destroying' or 'disruptive' innovations which render their business model and/or knowledge base obsolete, leaving them vulnerable to attacks from new entrants. However, the latter years of the 20th century also saw incumbents in the developed economies challenged by a politically driven trend to introduce competition into many industries previously regarded as natural monopolies. In an era when the rate of attrition amongst large firms appears to be increasing, the question of how mature, established organisations can innovate and sustain their competitiveness is of critical importance to governments, the financial community, shareholders, customers and employees. As befits organisations established in the 19th century and operating as monopolies for the majority of the time since then, the telecommunications incumbents possess distinctive organisational legacies, demonstrated by their size, age, complexity and cultures rooted in engineering excellence. Compared to mobile telecom operators, cable operators and other new entrants, telecommunications incumbents face greater organisational transformations because of their historical 'heritage'.

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This thesis consists of four essays on three topics in industrial organization with an emphasis on consumer behavior. Chapter 1: Introduction. This chapter is a non-technical summary of this thesis. Chapter 2: Reference Dependence and Market Competition. This chapter examines the implications of reference dependence with loss aversion in a competitive market where consumers consider products sequentially and regard the first product they have considered as the reference point. We find that consumer reference dependence can induce firms to randomize prices, to differentiate their advertising intensities even if firms are ex ante identical, and to differentiate their product qualities even if improving quality is costless. Chapter 3: Prominence and Consumer Search. This chapter examines the pricing and welfare implications of prominence in a search model where firms compete in price and consumers are "biased" to consider the prominent product first. We find that the prominent product will be cheaper than others, and making one product prominent will usually increase industry profit but lower consumer surplus and total welfare. Chapter 4: Prominence in Search Markets: Competitive Pricing vs Central Pricing. This chapter develops Chapter 3 by considering multiple prominent products and compares it with a central-pricing model where a multi-product firm chooses the prices of all products. The implications of prominence are almost reversed in the central-pricing case: prominent products are now more expensive than others, and making some products prominent can improve all market players’ surplus. Chapter 5: Advertising, Misperceived Preferences, And Product Design. This chapter studies a kind of advertising which highlights one (or few) attribute(s) of a multi-attribute product. We propose that this kind of advertising can mislead some naive consumers to overestimate the relative importance of the advertised attribute. In a monopoly market where naive consumers coexist with sophisticated consumers, we investigate how the firm can take advantage of consumers through advertising and product design, and how naive consumers can impose negative externalities on sophisticated consumers.

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