<p>This dissertation explores the emergence of Millennium Development and the promise to end poverty by 2015. After exploring the global scale phenomena, the project turns to the implementation of the "end of poverty" in the model Millennium Village of Sauri, Kenya.</p> / Dissertation

This thesis includes four empirical studies on the effects of bank behaviour on bank performance in European and North American countries up to the 2007-08 financial crisis. First, we investigate the effects of non-traditional bank activities, i.e., off-balance-sheet (OBS) items and traditional activities, i.e., loans, on bank performance, and then considering a risk-based capital requirement show an optimal bank portfolio. Second, we examine the impact of interbank lending on bank risk-taking, considering the consequence of “Too big to fail” (TBTF) and show differences in bank activities and risk-taking between large and small banks. We then study the effect of changes in bank behaviour on the determinants of interest margins. Finally, we identify the reasons of individual bank failure towards understanding the mechanism of the recent financial crisis. Our empirical findings provide following results. First, the negative effect of OBSs on bank performance is found and banks prefer moving away from OBSs, given the risk-based capital requirement. Second, interbank lending increases the large banks’ risk level under TBTF. Third, product diversification has a negative impact on interest margins. Finally, the housing price index has a significant impact on the probability of bank failure in the context of the recent financial crisis.

The essence of globalisation has been its influence on every aspect of post-modern social reality. However, little empirical research has considered how globalisation affects people’s perception of their national attachments. This study explores the interrelation between the international business environment and international business travellers’ understanding and construction of their national identity. By using data from 60 qualitative interviews with British (English and Scottish) and Russian business people actively involved in international business travel, the nature of their national belonging is compared and contrasted. The research identifies what constructs are employed in the research participants’ national identity claims and analyses differences and similarities in their articulations of their national belonging. Particular attention is paid to the role of the increasingly globalising international business environment in shaping the respondents’ local and cosmopolitan orientations. The study suggests that globalization affects the international business travellers’ perception of national self in two ways: while becoming more cosmopolitan they also grow more aware of their national belonging.

The focus of this study is centred upon intellectual activity in the period from 1750 to c1840 in Shropshire, an area that for a time was synonymous with change and innovation. It examines the importance of personal development and the influence of intellectual communities and networks in the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge. It adds to understanding of how individuals and communities reflected Enlightenment aspirations or carried the mantle of ‘improvement’ and thereby contributes to the debate on the establishment of regional Enlightenment. The acquisition of philosophical knowledge merged into the cultural ethos of the period and its utilitarian characteristics were to influence the onset of Industrial Revolution but Shropshire was essentially a rural location. The thesis examines how those progressive tendencies manifested themselves in that local setting. The study therefore explores contemporary knowledge acquisition and dissemination, both within and beyond the industrial environment for which the county has become historically known. Comparisons are made with similar processes in other localities and conclusions drawn on local specificity in the context of economic and agricultural improvement and the enhancement of infrastructure. It acknowledges in the process, the cultural change effected in the lives of many individuals across the social spectrum.

This thesis investigated three industries which were largely Birmingham and Black Country trades. Four-fifths of the work is concerned with the brass trades and their trade unions. This work filled the gap of knowledge of the past and present labour conditions in Birmingham and Black Country trades by doing research on written sources and conducting personal enquiry.

Providing access to finance to the poor has been proposed as a tool for economic development and poverty reduction. Our research aims to provide a deep analysis of how to enhance access to finance on a sustainable basis, focussing on rural Vietnam. It analyzes four main areas: (i) why access to financial markets by low-income households is severely constrained; (ii) how policy makers deal with the absence of financial markets for the poor; (iii) who are actually excluded from formal financial system; and (iv) the relationship between access to finance and poverty reduction. It is demonstrated that market imperfections (such as asymmetric information and transaction costs) can explain the lack of access for the poor. However, the development of financial technologies, such as joint-liability group lending or lending through partnership with social/information intermediaries may enhance information availability and reduce transaction costs. The poverty reduction approach that many policy makers have been following has failed to generate finance for the poor on a sustainable basis. We suggest that a mixed approach which combines the poverty reduction with financial systems approach (i.e. recognises a balance between social and financial goals) may be appropriate. This proposition is supported by empirical evidence from rural Vietnam where it is shown that the poverty reduction approach that the government has followed has not enabled financial institutions to achieve financial-self-sufficiency and this has reduced the outreach capacity. Moreover, we find that under the poverty reduction approach, the better-off households, rather than the very poor households, are more likely to gain access to formal financial sector. We also find that having access to finance has a positive impact on poverty reduction; but this impact is very small, suggesting that it may not be cost-effective.

The study describes and assesses the mathematical-statistical methodology of the contemporary Soviet Family Budget Survey, both in regard to the sample design and in regard to the processing and analysis of the survey data. A wide range of methodological deficiencies are identified, accounting for the widely recognised unreliability of the data produced. The problems of using the survey data in various fields of policy-making, planning and research are explored. It is shown that Soviet data-users where possible avoid relying on data from this survey. The historical and social factors influencing the methodology of the Family Budget Survey are discussed. The most important causes of the deficient methodology are found to be the neglect of mathematical statistics and sampling theory in Soviet socio-economic statistics, originating in the Stalin period, and the bureaucratic inertia of the Central Statistical Administration.

This thesis examines the development and effects of industrialisation on the landscape and people of Oldbury, a nineteenth-century Black Country town. During the Industrial Revolution, the Black Country made a significant contribution to the British economy through its extractive, metal-working and chemical industries. Oldbury has received virtually no attention from historians, yet its experience of industrialisation was distinctive since it industrialised rapidly during a thirty-year period, compared to the much longer time span of the region’s other towns. The thesis provides an in-depth study of the economic and social experiences of a Black Country town before 1900. In particular, it enables investigation of the experience of public health, Nonconformity, local élites and other themes which have received limited attention, such as pollution and occupational illnesses. This micro-history is based on extensive archival research in local and national repositories. It applies various methodologies to examine this information, including the creation of databases, GIS analysis of mapping and demographics, and prosopography. The research draws upon a number of disciplinary approaches for the study of archaeology, geology, geography and environmental studies, public health, religion, sociology and mental health.

This thesis aims to examine the channels of monetary policy transmission relating to the banking sector (mainly the bank lending channel, firm balance sheet channel and the interest rate channel), and also to investigate the effect of financial development on these channels in Thailand. We first examine the bank lending channel by introducing the micro-data based study (bank panel data) and using the panel data estimation (fix effect, 2SLS, and GMM estimation). Our result confirms the theoretical aspect of the bank lending channel and we also found that the higher the banks’ size, liquidity, and capitalization will weaken the bank lending channel. The second study will investigate the firm balance sheet channel by examining the effect of firms’ financial condition on firms’ investment and using the GMM estimation. We also found that the less financial constraint firms will have a weaker effect of monetary policy via the firm balance sheet channel than the more financial constraint ones. The third study will examine the interest rate channel by focusing on the interest rate pass-through and using the VECM cointegration technique. We found the pass-through in both long-run and short-run with a relatively high degree in long-run than short-run. For the effect of financial development, we found that banking sector development, capital market development, financial liberalization, financial innovation, and financial competition will cause a weaker effect of the policy interest rate via the bank lending channel and the firm balance sheet channel. However, all of these different aspects of financial development (except the banking sector development) shown a stronger effect on the interest rate pass-through and hence strengthen the interest channel.

The emergence of FinTech has important implications for regulation and risk management both for FinTech providers and regulators. FinTech denotes the development of innovative financial services or products that are delivered via information communication technologies (ICT) and technological/computerised platforms. In recent years, the emergence of FinTech services and firms have reshaped the financial services and developed new processes and routines in a range of financial services, such as payment, banking, insurance and deposit, by using latest information communication technologies. Particularly in Guangdong province of China, FinTech firms have become an alternative funding source to the mainstream financial service providers. The demand of local SMEs drove the FinTech sector growing, not only nationwide but globally, and overtook developed regions such as the California or London. In order to understand the reason, mechanism, process and evolution of FinTech firms in Guangdong, this thesis was carried out and developed a conceptual framework from analysing 98 grounded interview data. This thesis aims to explore access and use of external sources of loan finance by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with a focus on understanding alternative forms of debt and loan finance provision by FinTech lenders using new business models and related routines. The focus on debt and loan finance is designed to generate understanding of the exclusion of many Chinese SMEs from mainstream finance but inclusion into FinTech platforms. This thesis will identify and analyse the different business routines, processes, products and embeddedness that have been developed by FinTech firms in Guangdong.