For many years Libya suffered from economic and political exclusion from the outside world. This isolation was a result of both Libyan governmental policies (under the Gaddafi regime, which was almost entirely against economic liberalisation) as well as sanctions placed on Libya by the international community, led by the United States. This situation prevented Libya’s integration into the contemporary global economy, and continued for over 30 years from Gaddafi’s rise to power in 1969. However, by the late 1990s Libya began to relax its policies against economic liberalisation and by 2003 it had resolved many of the political disputes with the international community that prevented Libya’s global integration. Consequently, Libya opened its borders and its economy, especially to the oil international corporations (MNOCs) and foreign direct investment (FDI). Since then MNOCs from around the world, including from the United States and Europe, returned to work in the Libyan oil sector signalling a new moment in Libya’s economic development. This thesis investigates these changes and the impact of globalisation on the development of the Libyan oil sector. This study uses a mixed method approach drawing on quantitative and qualitative methods to collect, analyse and present evidence in order to understand and explain how processes of globalisation have impacted on the nature of the Libyan oil sector and the role this plays in the global hydrocarbons market. Determining and interpreting the impact of the globalisation phenomenon requires the engagement with people’s views and their experiences (in particular the opinions of decision-makers in Libya). Therefore, interviews were conducted with individuals who have adequate understanding and experience regarding the environment of the studied topic, which fulfils the criteria for the qualitative approach. Interviews were also designed in order to answer the research questions by inserting the research questions within the interviews questions. The interviews have been conducted in Libya with key policy- and decision-makers and experts of the targeted institutions which included MNOCs and Libyan national bodies. Regression modelling was applied in order to test the validity of the hypothesis. This thesis finds that the performance of the Libyan oil sector was impacted positively by the post-2003 processes of integration (globalisation) and when compared to the period of relative isolation from the early 1970s to the early 2000s, the sector developed rapidly as a result of economic liberalisation. The results of analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data, however, this thesis also shows that the Libyan oil sector and the broader Libyan economy (given the central role of hydrocarbons in Libya) have become more susceptible to external processes well out of the control of the Libyan authorities.

The development of competent technical staff for industrial companies is vital for a sustainable economy in Libya and is one of the key factors that will enable the industrial sector to grow. Thus, Libyan industrial companies (LICs) are able toidentify training needs for the preparation of training programmes for technicians. This study focuses on the verification of practice of Training Needs Analysis (TNA). According to the researcher's knowledge, no significant research has been conducted in Libya regarding TNA, although some studies have focused on training and development, technical and vocational education. Therefore, this study can be considered as the first of its kind and a contribution to existing knowledge in this field. The main purpose of this study is to understand the TNA process in LICs and to investigate how TNA is applied in practice. It aims to assess whether the concept of TNA can be applied to these companies' activities, and explores the application of TNA at the Libyan Iron and Steel Company (LISCO) and National Cement Company (NCC). This study employs a descriptive methodology, with two data collection methods used (qualitative and quantitative). The qualitative method involved a semistructured, face-to-face interview with managers responsible for training. Quantitative data collection used three forms of questionnaires to collect data from three key groups in the selected companies: technical staff, line managers and those responsible for training. Findings drawn from the interviews and questionnaires indicated that all respondents held similar views on the importance of TNA and its methods, and that the identification and analysis of training needs is an important requirement for success in any training programme. Participants also disclosed that these companies do not have a formal TNA system, and instead implemented it on a piecemeal basis rather than through a systematic long-term policy to address individual and tasks' needs. There is no comprehensive framework for all stages of the TNA process. The study's findings support a holistic approach to TNA. One of its key contributions was the development of a theoretical TNA framework in a Libyan context, which was based on western models (Blanchard and Thacker's, 2003 model and Goldstein and Ford's, 2002 model). This suggested framework details the critical factors that can enhance or hinder the success of the TNA process. Therefore, this study contributes to the development of TNA in the LICs and demonstrates that it has implications for both managers and practitioners, such as identifying training needs, nominating for training, and the selection of training programmes. Also, this research forms a basis upon which future research studies can be conducted.

This research is an empirical analysis of trade led growth of Libya during 1963-2008. Overall objective of this research is to investigate the role of international trade on Libya’s economy through reviewing various phases of economic growth in Libya starting from 1963. During this period, Libyan economy has undergone various structural changes. Not only has oil been one of its main exporting commodities, but also earnings from this sector of the Libyan economy have been credited with high growth rates experienced in the country. The research comprise of five specific objectives of which four require empirical justification. The non-empirical objective of the research is to obtain a trade profile of Libya. The empirical objectives include the analysis of relationship between trade and economic growth of Libya with and without incorporating the role of trade partners and the development of import demand in Libya with and without incorporating expenditure component. Results of the research showed that Libya is significantly dependent on international trade with countries of European Union; however, feedback effect from these countries is low. Mostly, Libya depends on the trade partners to cover the import demand. Import demand of the country is determined via price level instead of the income of the country. The only expenditure in Libya out of household consumption, government consumption, and investment, investment has sing incant effect on the price level. Therefore, for Libya to receive tread led growth, the country should employ such policies that favour total investment.

This thesis discusses many vital issues related to the Libyan economy in general and the privatization programme in particular. The current study has adopted a triangulation strategy to achieve its objectives including descriptive-analytical and field study approaches. It has relied upon a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews to acquire the necessary data. The most important reason for relying on these two methods was primarily due to lack of information on the subject of this study. The study addresses the main barriers that impede the successful progress of the privatization programme in Libya. In this regard, the 21 factories of the Libyan National Textile Company (LNTC) were selected as a case study, through which the disadvantages inherent in the privatization programme have been exposed. Moreover, in a comparative analysis, the field survey included 40 New Private Firms (NPFs) initially owned by the private sector. In this context, the hedonic technique has been applied in order to make comparison between the two groups of firms in terms of their performance and profit maximization. This study specifically addresses both the administrative and the economic aspects of privatization, raising the following three main questions concerning the status of privatization in the context examined, and the factors influencing the outcomes observed: (1) Has the privatization programme been a success or a failure and what have been the main underlying reasons? (2) To what extent were the attitudes of managers and workers in privatized factories a barrier to the smooth implementation of privatization? (3) What are the main prerequisites for a successful privatization programme in Libya? Among the major findings of this study are that privatization in Libya had been negatively influenced by many fundamental problems prevailing at both the micro and macro economic levels. In particular, as found from the application of the hedonic technique, the NPFs have been more successful in attaining profit- maximization than the LNTC. This is particularly worrying as the latter group were privatized well over 15 years ago with a resulting much larger share of the market.

It is widely recognised that the construction industry has a positive role to accelerate the wheel of economic growth in any country. This research is concerned with the Libyan construction industry (LCI). Libya is a developing country which suffered from a big loss in its infrastructures and its unemployment rate increased to 30% in the middle of 2013. Regarding the importance of the construction industry through the role it has in providing infrastructure and creating employment and the poor economic condition of Libya, the rationale of this research follows the example of other nations such as Turkey, Singapore, Malaysia , and Middle East countries where the construction industry was evolved with a target to further boost up the process of economic development. The case of Libya in this regard is valid for the financial stability in the country given its oil reserves and the capacity of the country to absorb migrated skilled labour. This situation is expected to follow the fall of Gaddafi’s regime. The approach of selecting construction as providing input to economic growth follows the strong evidence of the significant role that the construction industry plays in economic growth of the country. The construction industry contributes to economic growth from the demand side and in the traditional Keynesian economy, sustainable short-run economic growth is dependent on the increased demand. For example, in the UK, construction’s 2.5% growth in the third quarter of 2013 helped the overall economy grow by 0.8% over the same period. In comparison with the other industries that contribute to the economic growth of developing countries, the construction industry is more labour-intensive while the developing countries are mostly labour-abundant. The main aim of this research is to investigate the contribution of the construction industry to economic development in order to establish a comprehensive list of recommendations and a guideline for achieving an efficient construction industry to accelerate the process of economic growth. For this aim, the first objective is to examine the causal relationship between the construction industry and gross domestic product (GDP) as a measure of the economic growth and between the construction industry and other economic sectors. To achieve the aim of this research, Granger causality tests have been conducted. The financial data about the expenditure on the construction industry in Libya and its share in the GDP of the country and the share of the other economic sectors in the GDP during 1986-2009 was provided by an authority from the Libyan construction industry. First, The Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) and the Philip Perron (PP) unit root tests were conducted to confirm that the tested time series are stationary. After that, to determine the existence of the long-run causal relationship between the CI and GDP, Engle-Granger co-integration test was used and, finally, vector error correction (VER) model was employed to detect the direction of the causal relationship between the two variables. The study found that in Libya, like in other countries, the relationship between the construction industry and GDP is bi-directional: GDP produces a short-term impact on the investment in the construction industry while investment in the construction industry produces a long-term impact on GDP. However, except for trade, no economic sector was found to have a causal relationship with the construction industry. According to these findings, another objective was established in this research: to identify safety and total quality management (TQM) which can play an important role in growing the efficiency of the Libyan construction industry. To achieve this objective, telephone conversations were conducted with the officials of the largest construction company in the city of Benghazi. The findings indicated that the TQM does not exist in the construction company and, although the safety department does exist, it works via strict procedures. Thus, opportunity to increase the performance of the CI in order to increase its contribution to economic growth does exist through implementation of the safety and TQM implementation in Licccbyan construction companies. The previous studies used the causal relationship just to prove specific hypotheses. The novelty of this research is to obtain benefits from the existence of the causal relationship from the CI to GDP in the long term through suggesting major issues as safety and TQM implementation to raise the performance of the CI in the current period in order to increase its contribution to the economic growth in the future.

Given the significance of financial liberalization and the key role of financial development in economic growth, according to the financial liberalization theory, liberalizing the financial sector is a route to increasing savings, investment and growth. However, the recent studies have shown that a number of developing countries do not demonstrate this kind of relationship and have, rather, recorded relatively low growth. The primary purpose of this research is to explore the potential economic impacts on the Libyan economy of economic liberalization in general, and liberalization of the financial services sector in particular, in the event of Libya‟s accession to full membership of the WTO. In order to ascertain and to quantify this impact, the study used a mixed methodology. The existing theoretical arguments have been critically reviewed in order to develop the research idea. In line with the research objectives, the methodology used include a quantitative and qualitative approach. First, the quantitative aspect is based on an empirical assessment of the impact of financial liberalization using time-series econometric techniques from 1978 to 2011 for secondary data analysis; and second, the qualitative approach, based on semistructured interviews directly related to the research aims and objectives. The empirical findings achieved the aim of the research. The results obtained show that despite the reforms and liberalization in the financial sector, there is a negative relationship between financial liberalization in Libya and economic growth during this period. This disproves the theory of financial liberalization that claims a positive co-relation between financial liberalization and economic growth. The research outcomes include a set of recommendations based on the findings of the study, which are potentially useful for policy makers and further research.

The Libyan economy relies heavily on increasing oil revenues, which may deteriorate with a future oil price decline. The Libyan economy performed as well as resource poor countries over the past few decades. The oil booms of 1973 and 1979 brought unprecedented income to Libya but, despite the substantial oil revenues, much of the potential benefit of the windfall has been dissipated. Libya relies heavily on oil receipts, the price of which tends to fluctuate widely in the international market. Also, the Libyan economy is dominated by hydrocarbons and the public sector. Sizeable oil wealth has supported a decent living standard for Libya's population, and socio-economic development compares favourably with standards in other Middle Eastern and North African countries. Libya has the potential to raise oil production and revenues significantly in coming years, given its large reserve. The reliance of public finance on a single sector means that shocks threaten the economy's fiscal balance and stability. Libya has over-consumed in response to windfalls from surges in world prices. Libyan government spending has outstripped the gain in revenues. These sharp increases in government spending are difficult to reverse when the boom ends and often lead to large fiscal deficits rather than surplus. However, the main challenge for Libya is to promote growth of the non-oil sector and spur diversification of its economy. Non-hydrocarbon GDP growth has been weak and oil revenue volatility has been transmitted to non-hydrocarbon GDP. Weak non-oil GDP growth reflects both insufficient private investment and low productivity of capital importing efficiency. Productivity growth is a precondition for faster growth and greater investment effort. Strong productivity growth is also a prerequisite for competitive diversification out of hydrocarbon. Projected high oil revenue will provide the finance for growth but will not necessarily spur sustained growth in the non-oil sector. Overoptimistic predictions of future oil revenues are shown to have seriously adverse consequences, particularly if the non-oil economy adjusts to falling demand through underdevelopment and capital flight is provoked. Policy options for protecting the economy from volatility in oil revenues, without eliminating the benefits from rising prices include the formation of a stabilization fund and hedging strategies in the international markets. The stabilization fund would smooth consumption and reduce the costs associated with volatile spending. Libya needs sound economic management and to address the problems associated with oil windfalls. Market processes are required to help allocate public resources, and governments and others responsible must take account of risk and uncertainty when selecting projects, and formulating plans for development. Consequently, there is a macroeconomic need to diversify the economy to avoid the pitfalls which so often plague developing countries with vast natural resources. The decisions concerning public investment in a social economic infrastructure would be better if unconnected to the presence of hydrocarbon windfalls. To speed up non-oil growth and job creation, the oil windfalls should be used strategically, with the aim of facilitating the transition to a competitive, market-led economy. Over the long-term, the intermediation of hydrocarbon windfalls through the household and business sectors might produce superior long-term growth, but it should go in tandem with considerable strengthening of the investment climate. Enhancing the quality of Libya's human resources will also be essential to improve productivity and diversify out of oil - especially into services - and compete in the global economy. Improving the quality of governance deserves particular attention, because it underlies the development reform agenda. Libya would probably have seen a larger benefit from its windfalls had it saved a higher proportion abroad and limited domestic investment through applying market criteria more rigorously. Quite clearly, good fiscal control of periodic boom episodes enables the boom to temporarily accelerate the rate of economic development. In addition, such questions as the magnitude of the windfalls, how Libya has used them and their impact on non-oil a sector have been addressed in this research. The adoption of sound economic policies and the good management of oil windfall gains will allow Libya to continuously manage growth and become one of the greatest success stories of all developing countries.

In a developing oil-based economy like Libya the availability of finance is largely affected by the availability of oil revenues which are subjected to disturbances and shocks. Therefore, the decision to save and invest a certain ratio of the country's aggregate output is, to large extent, determined (and affected) by the shocks in the oil markets rather than the requirements of economic development. In this study an attempt is made to determine the optimal rate of saving and investment, both defined as a ratio of the aggregate output, according to the requirements of economic development. For this purpose, a neo-classical Ramsey-type model for Libya is constructed and applied to obtain theoretically and empirically the optimal saving and investment rate during the period (1965-1991). The results reveal that Libya was investing over the optimal level during the oil boom of 1970s and less than the optimal level during the oil crisis of 1980s. In addition, an econometric investigation of the determinants of actual investment by sector (agriculture, non-oil industry, and services) is carried out in order to shed lights on how possible it is for Libya to adjust actual investment towards its optimal level. It is found that, as expected, the most important factor which can be used in this respect is the oil revenues or, generally, the availability of finance. In addition, the study reveals that investment in agriculture is associated, during the period of study, with a very low marginal productivity of capital whereas marginal productivity was higher in both non-oil industry and services. Finally, the study investigates also the future potential saving and investment rates and concludes that the economy, which has already reached its steady state, can be pushed out towards further growth if the economy can be able to increase the level of per worker human capital, proxied by the secondary school enrolment as a percentage of population.