This thesis makes use of recently collected UK Community Innovation Survey data to investigate 3 areas that allow to characterise and thus understand more clearly the innovation process in the UK. Firstly strategies of innovation used by firms are identified. Next the determinants of innovation, that is factors driving innovation inputs and outputs, are estimated. Thirdly this work examines the effectiveness of financial public support towards innovation. This also allows to establish which firms are more likely to be in receipt of public support and thus whether government innovation policy is in line with its objectives. Furthermore in this thesis a measure of absorptive capacity for the CIS is created, to see whether this proxy contributes in explaining innovative activities and the receipt of public support towards innovation. Similarly a measure of appropriability is generated for use as an explanatory variable in the estimation of the determinants of innovation. Both of these measures permit to find out if their latent variables have nonlinear effects in explaining propensity and extent of innovative spending. All these aspects have not received attention in previous literature, in large part due to the novelty of the data used. Besides the empirical evidence gained on the above, the addition to the literature of this thesis lies in examining several CIS survey rounds together. For one this serves as a robustness check for the conducted applications and on the other hand it allows investigating the comparability of the survey rounds. For this work the CIS 4, the CIS 5 and the CIS 6 are used as they are the most similar and comparable samples of UK businesses to date. Nevertheless it was found that differences in terms of design, wording and exclusion of responses to some question sets in the different surveys impedes their use for trend analysis and panel data analysis. Something the data collecting agencies need to address in the future. Despite these issues the conducted investigation has provided useful insights into innovation as it takes place in the UK. The first empirical chapter has been able to identify two major modes of innovation as captured by the survey. A ‘traditional’ or ‘linear’ strategy aimed at introducing product and process innovations, relying on innovative activities such as R&D and also making use of sources of information, more strongly from market sources then from science sources. Secondly a ‘dynamic’ or ‘systemic’ strategy also involving innovative activities such as R&D but more strongly making use of knowledge sources from science as well as relying on cooperation. The interpretation of this “blue skies strategy” which is not directly linked to achieving technological outputs is that it generates knowledge that helps to keep abreast of market developments and to be ready to spot opportunities in line with the literature on dynamic capabilities thus the identified strategies allow for a plausible interpretation congruent with innovation theory. In this chapter the aforementioned measure of appropriation and absorptive capacity were also successfully generated. These were then shown to play a significant role in explaining innovative activities in the subsequent empirical chapter, both exhibiting decreasing returns to scale. Following the CDM methodology this work has confirmed that knowledge capital as proxied by predicted R&D spending intensity is as important in generating service innovations as it is in stimulating goods innovations for the UK. The results also show that absorptive capacity not only indirectly impacts the likehood of introducing service innovations through its effect on knowledge capital as for goods innovations but also directly. This suggests that services once conceived further have to be tailored to individual customer’s needs. Hence absorptive capacity is specifically important in a developed economy dominated by service sector industries. At the same time the fit of the models confirmed that the CIS could do better at explaining service and process innovations by soliciting more information that are likely to cause these types of innovation. Finally further support for the innovation productivity nexus has been found. The last empirical chapter then established that absorptive capacity is also an important factor explaining the likehood of firms to be in receipt of financial public support towards innovation. This chapter further concluded that the financial public support towards innovation in the UK has in the recent past been effective at stimulating innovative performance besides just R&D spending. The government’s objective of supporting start-ups, that potentially face difficulties in financing their innovative activities, as well as supporting cooperation, vital for the dissemination of knowledge in the economy, is met according to the results. However SMEs could not be shown to be statistically more likely to be in receipt of public support despite facing the same problems as start-ups, though at least they are not less likely to be in receipt of public support then large firms. This finding stipulates that policy objectives are not achieved with regard to specifically targeting SMEs.

This thesis is a contribution towards the macroeconomic and monetary analysis of developing countries. A fully-fledged macroeconometric model is theoretically specified, econometrically estimated and dynamically simulated for policy analysis. The model contains demand side, supply side, balance of payments accounts, government accounts and a financial sector. The model is tested using regional data consisting of seven Asian Developing Countries, namely, Fiji, India, Malayasia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. A regional econometric model for Asian LDCs was lacking in the realm of global econometric models and this study is an attempt to bridge this gap by building a first ever model for this region. In the demand side of the model volume equations for consumption, investment, exports and imports and an equation for export prices are estimated. The supply side is derived from wage and price equations following a production function approach which is neo-classical in spirit. Inflation is modelled as a function of the divergence between demand and supply. Government accounts and the balance of payments accounts are fully specified. Most of the existing macroeconomic models in LDCs context abstract from modelling a financial sector. The implicit reason for this is that the financial sector in these economies is underdeveloped; therefore, little scope exists for monetary policy instruments. We have developed a detailed bank based financial sector model where all the balance sheet flows of the Central Bank and commercial banks are at the centre stage. We show that monetary policy instruments are effective in affecting macro activity. The interlinkage between the financial and the real sector comes not through the cost of capital, rather it arises due to income-expenditure flows and the real financial asset stocks. Such linkages operate even if the financial sector is undeveloped.

Drawing mainly from the Tazanian experience this study attempts to review the principal issues in the legal regulation of prices, by identifying both the general and specific importance of law in this respect. The position I shall present is that legal control is both necessary and desirable for the welfare and social development of the people. The key issue is whether the market-place will perform its function satisfactory: Will it produce socially desirable results? If it will not, why will it not? And will legal regulation help to do the job a little better? In an attempt to answer some of these questions, first of all, outline the basic issues raised by the study in the first Chapter. Then I examine the general case for price controls - the theory about the controls, the motives and reasons for their imposition and the manner in which they are effected in different economic systems. This is done in Chapter Two. Relying most on the available literature on the regulatory process, this Chapter also looks at the relationship between law and economic regulation and concludes that the effectiveness of law depends on the existence of a conducive socio-economic environment. In Chapter Three I describe the past record of price control laws in Tanzania. I conclude that despite the failure in the past, the controls still constitute an important policy instrument in the transition to socialism. In Chapters Four and Five I describe the manner in which the current regulations are implemented and the problems encountered. I conclude that the operational performance of the controls is constrained by internal and external influences on the economic and political life of the country. In the concluding Chapter I assess the impact of the controls: Do the controls work? Do people buy goods at the controlled prices? Why today the controls are almost popularly accepted as worthwhile? I conclude that while there may be no measurable economic gains derived by consumers, the controls have a stabilising effect on the social and political front. In the final section I argue that the future success of the legislation depends on creating a correspondence between the economic structures and the control system. What makes the controls ineffective is not so much defects in the law but the contradictions between the orientation of and functioning of the economic system and the ideological commitment.

The objective of this work is to theoretically evaluate an important aspect of a Newly Industrializing Country (NICs): Korea. Namely, the behaviour of firms in Korea competing with firms in an industrialized country after all Government intervention of the former is withdrawn. This aspect is considered in the main part while a descriptive introductory part introduces the Korean economy as a NIC. We construct a simple asymmetric duopoly model where firms conjectures play an important role in deriving the Perfect Equilibrium for a two stage game. Different costs of production and first mover advantage form the basis of the asymmetry. We find that under Cournot conjectures assumption for the marketing stage and certain cost conditions, it is profitable for the incumbent firm to stay a leader and the follower to remain a follower. For some cost conditions and a credible threat at the disposal of the follower, the incumbent firm may be forced to stay a leader even though it is more profitable to became a follower. We examine possible licensing rules the leader may propose to the follower. The dominant strategy, we find, is a licence fee that is a function of the quality difference between the top quality of the market leader and the level of quality it is selling to the follower. There will be a cost to the leader in terms of a lower licence fee to prevent possible leap forgging. Once we allow for free copying, we find that the follower will copy closely the new product of the leadership. Under Bertrand conjectures assumption, we find that unless the firm with higher production cost remains the leader offering a higher quality product, it will be driven out of the market, i. e., either it has to innovate or-die.

This thesis explores the way economic behaviour responds to taxation both theoretically and empirically. Chapter 1 studies the impact of transation taxes on the housing market, using UK administrative data and quasi-experimental variation created by notches, tax reforms, and stimulus. Transaction taxes have large effects on house prices and purchases, and adjustments to tax changes are fast. A temporary elimination of transaction taxes stimulated housing market activity by 20% in the short run (timing and extensive responses) followed by a smaller slump in activity after the policy was withdrawn (timing response). The success of this stimulus program stems from the large distortions created by the tax in the first place. Chapter 2 presents evidence on three ways in which firms affect workers’ earnings responses in Pakistan. First, third-party reporting of salaries by employers reduces evasion. Second, firms’ equilibrium salary-hours offers are tailored to aggregate worker preferences in response to adjustment costs in the labour market. Third, workers learn about the tax schedule from firms and become more responsive to taxation both contemporaneously (by 130%) and in subsequent years (by 100%). Third-party reporting does not eliminate misreporting: 19% of workers underreport their salaries, creating a loss of 5% of tax revenue, and indicating high returns to investments in improving enforcement. Chapter 3 develops a theory of optimal income taxation allowing for career effects of current work effort on future wages. Such effects are empirically important, but have been ignored by the optimal tax literature. We provide analytical characterizations that depend on estimable entities, including the elasticity of future wages to current work effort. We explore the magnitude of this “career elasticity” in a meta-analysis of the empirical literature on the returns to work experience and tenure, and provide numerical simulations calibrated to US micro-data. Our results show that career effects have important qualitative and quantitative implications for optimal tax design.

This thesis explores the factors associated with eastern European entrepreneurship in the UK. Stanworth and Curran (1976) presented the concept of social marginality which describes perceived incongruity between individual personality attributes and the role they hold in society or organisations. Their hypothesis suggests that individuals may respond to social marginality by a determination to succeed. Our hypothesis is that the eastern European entrepreneurs engage in entrepreneurial activity as a result of failure to gain employment that meet their expected earnings. In this research a questionnaire is utilised to collect research data from a sample size of one hundred and five east European entrepreneurship in England. Evidence from this research sufficiently address three fundamental questions about the research population, which are: what are the drivers of engaging in entrepreneurial activity; what are the personal characteristics that define these entrepreneurs; and what sources of business finance does entrepreneurs have access to. It is essential to note that this research was carried out prior to the in/out referendum held on the 23rd June 2016 which resulted in a vote for UK to leave the EU in what has become commonly known as ‘Brexit’.

Using newly derived panel data from NUTS 2 regions in Europe, the role of creative workers is systematically evaluated in this Ph.D. thesis. First of all, a Growth Accounting model is used together with two empirical models for testing the economic impact of creative workers and ICT. It appears that the development level of the creative economy is unbalanced across the main European regions. However, there is a complementary relationship between ICT and creative skills in explaining output and productivity growth. This thesis then develops an empirical model to investigate how creative workers are distributed across different European regions. The findings suggest that Florida’s (2013) theoretical framework has explanatory power in larger regions. In contrast, how well a local government performs has a substantial impact on the influx of creative workers among small-sized regions, and the overall quality of political institutions appears to enhance this process. Finally, this thesis briefly discusses the possible factors that could determine the outcome of creative jobs. The results imply that education background is generally consistent with creative job outcomes, but it is difficult to identify a clear boundary regarding creative jobs among occupations that require and use higher education.

This thesis presents three papers in the field of banking. The first paper considers ‘asset encumbrance’ which refers to the existence of bank balance sheet assets being subject to arrangements that restrict the bank’s ability to freely transfer or realise them. Asset encumbrance has recently become a much discussed subject and policymakers have been actively addressing what some consider to be excessive levels of asset encumbrance. Despite its importance, the phenomenon of asset encumbrance remains poorly understood. I build a novel dataset of asset encumbrance metrics based on information provided in the banks’ public disclosures for the very first time throughout 2015. The study then provides descriptive evidence of asset encumbrance levels by country, credit quality, and business model using different encumbrance metrics. The empirical results point to the existence of an association between CDS premia and asset encumbrance that is negative, not positive. That is, on average encumbrance is perceived to be beneficial. Still, certain bank-level variables play a mediating role in this relationship. For banks that have high exposures to the central bank, high leverage ratio, and/or are located in southern Europe, asset encumbrance is less beneficial and could even be detrimental in absolute terms. The second paper investigates the size distribution of the whole population of Spanish commercial, savings and cooperative banks from a dynamic perspective over the 1970-2006 period. To investigate the evolution of the size distribution, the study determines whether the data is in line with the Law of Proportionate Effect (LPE) using panel unit root tests. A key finding is that the size-growth relationship is not stable over time but changes depending on the competitive environment of banks (liberalization, deregulation and integration). When Spanish banking was highly regulated we find that smaller banks grew faster than their larger counterparts. In recent years, however, we find that larger banks grow at the same rate or faster than smaller banks, a result that lend towards LPE acceptance. Thus, the study corroborates the conditioned nature of the size-growth relationship and the size distribution of banks, as emphasized by studies of the US banking system. Finally, the third paper investigates, from a theoretical perspective, the roles of banks and markets when both are active, there is limited participation in markets, and there exists liquidity and technology risk in the economy. In a model where banks and markets co-exist and banks are subject to runs, we show that the levels of aggregate risk and limited participation jointly determine the superiority of the mixed (market and bank deposits) economy over pure equity contracts. The study finds that if aggregate risk exceeds a certain threshold then markets may perform better than banks even for low or null levels of market participation, and it is shown that markets may perform better than banks the lower the market participation under some circumstances. The results imply that the level of bank risk taking cannot be considered in isolation, but in conjunction with the availability and access of banking and non-banking options.

Due to the limitations of the extant literature on the impact of microfinance funding on performance, with particular regard to a cross-country analysis and case study of Vietnam, this thesis has been written in an effort to fill this major gap by conducting an empirical investigation into the link between funding and the performance of microfinance institutions. It also employs the most common indicators for microfinance performance and introduces new evidence and possible explanations from an explicit perspective that might be relevant in the context of scale of operation, profit status, regulated status and legal status. First, the link between funding and microfinance performance varies with the heterogeneity of microfinance institution’ characteristics. Second, profitable and regulated microfinance institutions which take on considerably more commercial funds are therefore shown to have higher sustainability, efficiency and outreach. Third, a large scale of operation helps microfinance institutions achieve higher efficiency, profitability, sustainability and outreach (breadth and depth). Fourth, there is no trade-off between the breadth of outreach and efficiency. Fifth, larger loan sizes are associated with higher loan costs. Sixth, the global financial crisis has had a minor impact on the performance of microfinance institutions since they have a low level of self-sufficiency, associated with a low degree of financial integration.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (April 26, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.