This thesis consists of three studies. The topics discussed are in the area of international trade and economic growth with a reference to the policy issues in East Asia. The study in Chapter 2 presents a model of North-South trade which can explain the observed cross-country variations in factor prices. Intuition and evidence suggest that knowledge is largely non-excludable and hence all countries should have access to broadly similar technology. However, this public-good assumption for technology leads to implausible predictions of factor prices in standard models. The model in this study does not assume any differences in technology but its predictions are consistent with observations. In Chapter 3, the implications of the two vintage models for growth accounting are examined. Growth accounting studies have shown that total factor productivity growth in East Asian economies has been slower than expected. Analysis of the vintages models suggests that this puzzling finding could be due to mismeasurements of capital arising from the particular characteristic of East Asian growth experience. In Chapter 4, it is shown that when asymmetric economies adopt an open regionalism policy, some of them may gain at the expense of others. This result is very different from the commonly held view in the literature. In certain situations, some economies in the bloc achieves a higher welfare level than under global free trade. A policy of open regionalism could therefore turn out to be an obstacle to the process of multilateral trade liberalization.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the impact of corporate control on households' choice on consumption-savings and, as a result, on financial capital accumulation. It attempts to provide an alternative to the managerialist and neoclassical 'orthodoxies' in theory (Part I) and subjects the alternative theories to empirical-econometric testing (Part II). The central theme of the thesis runs as follows. The emergence and growth of the joint-stock company has led to the socialization of the 'ownership' of the means of production. The latter has resulted in the generation of a higher level of aggregate saving being available for investment purposes, than could I-lave been the case in its absence. A preference on the part of the corporate 'controlling group' for higher retention and net inflow to the corporate pension funds ratios than that of the non-controlling shareholders and the latters' inability and/or unwillingness to substitute for increases in corporate savings by sufficiently reducing their net personal savings, has facilitated the achievement of this result. Historical consistency and the existing evidence suggests that it is more plausible to interpret the above as the result of capitalist control of today's corporations, rather than managerial and/or all shareholders' control. Increases in corporate saving and less than perfect substitution between corporate and personal saving will tend to reduce the part of private income devoted to consumption: thus containing the seeds of a realization failure. The Saving Function should be extended to allow for these developments: a proposed 'Monopoly Capitalism Saving Function' appears, closer to describing saving behaviour today. The post-war U.K. evidence does not contradict the above propositions. Our econometric evidence lends support to our proposed form of the saving function, the idea that different forms of saving substitute imperfectly and the other hypotheses advanced in the thesis.

This study is concerned with the impact of the 1986 Stock Market deregulation, or Big Bang, on the efficiency of the United Kingdom government securities market. The main theoretical finding is that the change to dual capacity dealing with negotiated commissions cannot be justified economically without the inclusion of a best execution rule for broker/dealers. The empirical section of the study has three parts. The first part uses established and new autocorrelation techniques to test market efficiency in the traditional weak-form efficient market hypothesis paradigm. The second part tests market efficiency through an analysis of pricing residuals from fitting term structure curves. A new method to fit these curves is developed. The third section tests market efficiency by examining evidence of anomalies in the shape and movements of the term structure. From all three sources, there is strong evidence that the changes introduced by Big Bang improved efficiency in the gilt-edged market.

Between 1980 and 1998, the proportion of British employees who were union members fell from around 52 per cent to around 30 per cent. Was this decline in trade union membership mainly 'structurally determined' by changes to the economic, political and social environment, or was union failure a large part of the reason for union decline? If structural determinants were of more importance, what was the relative importance of economic and business cycle factors compared to legal and political changes, changes to employee attitudes and values and secular changes to economic organisation? This thesis seeks to answer these questions in the light of detailed econometric analysis of the micro-level processes of declining union density at the workplace level (using data from the Workplace Industrial/Employee Relations Surveys) and the individual level (using data from the British Household Panel Survey). The central argument is that environmental changes provide a more compelling explanation for union decline than explanations based on union failure. There is little evidence that changing employee attitudes and values or legal changes or the business cycle directly caused decline. Instead, secular changes to economic organisation which changed the balance of incentives associated with unionisation for firms, organisations and workers seem the most likely cause of declining union membership density. The scale and magnitude of these changes can be attributed to Government policy.

This thesis seeks to provide an assessment of women’s work, their participation in the trade union movement and the extent of women’s strike activity n Scotland in the period 1919-1939. It will highlight the position of women in the labour market, their continuing confinement to a narrow range of industries and occupations and the low paid and low status nature of their work. The weakness of trade union organisation among women workers in the inter-war period will be an important consideration. It will be shown that despite the massive influx of women in to the trade unions in the First World War and the attempts by trade unions and the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) to encourage greater numbers of women into the trade union movement, organisation among women in most industries remained weak throughout the entirety of the inter-war period. Therefore, this thesis will seek to offer a number of explanations for the lack of extensive trade union organisation among women during this period. These will include the occupational and industrial distribution of women workers, their low earnings, the impact of the depression, high unemployment and the failure of the General Strike. However, it will also be suggested that one of the reasons for the low level of trade union organisation among women may have been related to trade union policies and practices. The argument to be developed is that despite recruitment drives undertaken by trade unions and the STUC, trade unions themselves could often be very hostile to women workers and the failure to address issues of importance to women and the remoteness of the movement from the needs of potential women members could mean that there was very often little incentive for women to join trade unions. In order to support this argument, it will be shown that trade unions employed exclusionary tactics either by limiting the entry of women into certain areas of work, attempting to exclude women from work altogether, via agreements with employers, or by excluding women from trade union membership.

The two centuries from 1818 to 2004 cover profound social and economic changes in what was, for much of the period, the most powerful country in the world. Britain led the way in moving capital and labour out of agriculture and into newer industries, such as coal-mining, textiles and transportation. The changes were accompanied by deep institutional changes, especially in the franchise. The rate of change is remarkable: within seventy years Britain was almost completely democratic, in contrast to the 'rotten boroughs' and virtual feudalism of the pre- 1832 unreformed Parliaments. The changes are mirrored in the role given to agriculture within society, and in particular the amount and type of economic rent transferred from the consumer and the taxpayer to the farmer. This thesis uses two centuries of data and 'survival analysis' statistical techniques to show that Olson's celebrated theory of collective action can be substantiated in a dynamic context. I show that as the share of farmers in the workforce diminishes, and their relative wealth shrinks, the probability of the Cabinet increasing protection grows. The reverse is also the case, showing that the Cabinet responds positively to pressures from a group whose utility was diminishing.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1929. / Vita. Published also as Studies in history, economics, and public law, ed. by the Faculty of political science of Columbia University, no. 309. Includes bibliographical references (p. 180-184). Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1929. / Vita. Published also as Studies in history, economics, and public law, ed. by the Faculty of political science of Columbia University, no. 309. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 180-184).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1923. / Vita. Published also as Studies in history, economics, and public law, v. 108, no. 1, whole no. 243.

The central concern of this thesis is with the degree of freedom of action which peripheral areas retain in directing their own development. The evolution of regional policy in Norway is described in detail, with close attention being paid to the continued existence of residual marginal areas. These areas are mostly comprised of rural communities, and these residual areas are very well represented within the West Norwegian county of Sogn og Fjordane. Theoretical perspectives are drawn from regional economics, and the relationship between centre and periphery. A relational definition of centre and periphery is proposed: that the periphery is a region differentiated from another region, the centre, because it is disadvantaged in an asymeetrical interaction relationship. Examples are taken from the economic geography of Sogn og Fjordane which illustrate this proposal. The scale of the processes which are described is given by an analysis of Population and Agricultural census information for Indre Sogn, an area of the county. The discussion of the relationship between centre and periphery is closely focussed on the development of one village, Fjaerland, which is shown to have been blocked by the external orientation of its economic units.