The role of nineteenth-century industrialists in British imperial expansion and governance has been debated for many years. Major recent interpretations, such as Peter Cain and Tony Hopkins's 'gentlemanly capitalism' and Gary Magee and Andrew Thompson's 'cultural economy', have conceived industrialists' involvement mostly in terms of promoting manufactured exports. Industrialists' reliance on imported raw materials has however been comparatively neglected. Using the case of study of raw cotton, nineteenth-century Britain's most valuable industrial commodity import, this thesis revises how we understand the contribution Lancashire industrialists made to the formation of imperial policy. Analysing examples from the formal and informal empire in India, Egypt, and sub-Saharan Africa, it shows that interactions between technology, business lobbying, and ideas of political economy fostered cotton-growing schemes. Fluctuations in the quantity and, significantly, the quality of cotton supplies fostered interest in reforming or creating new supply chains, promoting the formation of business associations, pre-eminently the Cotton Supply Association and the British Cotton Growing Association. These associations lobbied governments to make supply chains more suited to Lancashire technological systems, and led to the promotion of standardised cotton types through the export of European knowledge and skills, the erection of processing machinery and transportation systems, and the regulation of colonial labour. The main argument is that if the focus is shifted to supplies rather than markets, industrialists, directly and indirectly, were often important influences on imperial governance and overseas economic change. While fiscal and financial considerations often provided the framework for government-backed cotton-growing schemes, because cotton was a complex commodity officials had to implement industrialists' advice to create supply chains that would serve these ends. By providing fresh insights for understanding the relationship between supply chains, business mobilisation, and European imperialism, this thesis lays the foundations for further much-needed work on the 'supply-side' economics of global empires.

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Whilst reading for my first degree at the University of Bristol I became particularly interested in two diverse fields of study. An interest in Regional Economics was motivated by the sparse coverage given to the consideration of the spatial organisation of the economy in most standard works. The other interest was in British Economic History of the inter-war years. I am indebted to Dr, B.W.E. Alford for inspiring and developing my curiosity for this subject. In choosing a subject for research, I endeavoured to combine these two interests. Virtually no work has been done on the formative years of British regional policy. I thought this to be a particularly important gap to fill in that I could closely document regional policy in these years and give some insight into the processes of government policy formulation. In addition, the inter-war years is a unique period in the history of British regional policy. It is the only period when the objective of policy was to move 'workers-to-the-work', rather than 'work-to-the-workers'. Even less information is readily available on policies encouraging labour migration, than on the better known Special Areas policy. Consequently, my own interests and the gap in interpretation suggested the examination of the role of labour migration policies in the inter-war period as the subject for my research. The thesis is set out in three sections. The first section is an introduction. The regional problem is described, the pattern of labour flows documented and the factors influencing these flows is shown. The second section is concerned with regional policies. These are traced from the introduction of transference policy until, and including, the introduction and development of Special Areas policy. The effects of these policies are judged at a regional level and, in Chapter 8, at the micro-economic level. The final section describes the culmination of the inter-war year's experience of regional policies with the appearance of the Barlow Report and the discrediting of transference. The conclusion shows the importance of transference in the inter-war years and the paradox of the post- World War II situation where labour migration has been ignored as a policy tool.

The reelection of Mrs Thatcher's Conservative Government to a third term of office in June 1987 was remarkable and deserves repeated and in depth analysis. The performance of the government, and <i>Thatcherism</i> need to be seen in terms of their success in reversing Britain's relative economic decline. How have its policies sought to break the pattern of decline? Has it adopted a consistent, and distinctive approach? Is the party's unprecedented electoral success a product of its economic policies? What does the future hold? The following elements are crucial. The government has made its most important efforts in two main areas- towards the unions, and towards the fostering of the service sector of the economy. These policies, described in detail, have been important politically, and electorally (two terms which have different meanings and ramifications for the government). They are not, however, policies which are likely to provide the third Thatcher administration with automatic support in years to come. Recent accounts of the third victory have failed to recognize the precariousness of the Conservative government's position, in part exacerbated by the nature of the interests fostered the financial sector may prove to be an electoral liability, instead of an asset as before. The paper suggests that the ability of the government to win successive elections is evidence of the salience of factors which are often overlooked in political economy papers. The importance of expectations particularly in election year, of macro-economic variables controlled, to some extent, by the government, such as tax rates, and the relative unimportance of factors such as unemployment and inflation are also revealed by the Thatcher record. / Master of Arts

In 1997, the UK's Labour government introduced several health policy changes, including plans for greater collaboration with private providers. Building on previous cross-sectional research, we explore longitudinal inequities in physician access as these policy changes were materializing. Using GEE models we examine the effect of income and private health insurance (PHI) coverage on access to physicians in the general UK population from 1997 to 2003. The study finds no income inequities in GP access. In contrast, those in the highest income quintile are more likely to access consultants overall (OR:1.10, CI: 1.01,1.19), particularly private consultants (OR:2.49, CI:1.80,3.44). Not surprisingly, PHI is a strong predictor of private consultant access (OR:8.72 CI: 7.04,10.82), but a weak predictor of overall consultant access (OR:1.09, CI:1.01, 1.17). None of these findings exhibited significant time trends across the years of study, thus indicating that the existing inequities remained stable in the UK, despite the aforementioned reforms.

Transport systems are essential to trade, globalisation, communication and other forms of interaction between people and societies (Banister, 2013). Yet they can also have negative impacts including decreased quality of life or health impacts arising from pollutants, environmental damage including climate change and a range of wider socio-economic effects (Glanz et al., 1990). Given that most car journeys are short however (57% of UK trips are under five miles), there is particular potential for active travel (i.e. walking and cycling) to both reduce the environmental externalities of modern transport systems and stimulate improved quality of life and societal wellbeing (Banister, 2013; Martin et al., 2014). Unfortunately, there is a paucity of robust evidence that examines how infrastructural interventions (i.e. those aimed at making the physical environment more conducive to active travel) actually impact on active travel levels in specific communities. In addition, there is very limited evidence of the wider effects that such interventions have on wellbeing and levels of happiness overtime. This thesis details mixed-method research undertaken in Cardiff, UK, during 2011/2012, which examined the impacts of a new piece of infrastructure - the Pont-y-Werin walking and cycling bridge - on the local community's levels of active travel and subjective wellbeing. It provides insights into the nature of constraints preventing travel behaviour change from taking place, and - through the use of the novel, 'Day Reconstruction Method' - into the consequences that different modes of travel can have for travel and wellbeing, including on moment-to-moment moods and emotions. Overall by contextualising and measuring and evaluating wellbeing, the research suggests that people experience less pleasant emotions during travel than when undertaking everyday activities, and also that for certain modes there is a decrease in happiness before and after travel compared to everyday activities. Additionally greater monitoring, evaluation and promotion of combined hard and soft measures - focusing on travel behaviour change - is needed alongside providing travellers with accessible information on the wellbeing impacts of different modes (Elvik, 2009).

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The central hypothesis of this study was that the allocation system for NHS hospital and community health services between 1997 and 2003 was not meeting key principles of compensating for differences in the need for services and unavoidable costs. The review and analyses in this study indicate that the underpinning assumptions used when formulating the need adjustment were not robust and that this led to the selection of inappropriate proxies for need. In addition it is concluded that the age adjustment underestimated the costs of elderly care. This study has concluded that the pay adjustment, which was the largest in the formula, did not reflect actual unavoidable differences in cost because the Warwick studies that were used to set the adjustment ignored the monopsonistic nature of the NHS. As a consequence the pay adjustment was based on the assumption that NHS salaries should be related to local salaries. This study identified unavoidable additional costs of providing healthcare in rural areas. These findings were consistent with other comprehensive studies on healthcare costs in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This study concludes that the exclusion of a market forces adjustment for rurality was inconsistent with all other comparable allocation formulae in the Home Countries. The absence of a rurality adjustment resulted in rural areas receiving a lower proportion of NHS funding than was justified and this is referred to as the Inverse Share Law. This study concludes that the central hypothesis was correct and that a rurality adjustment was justified, but that the principal determinant of service quality was an adequate focus on efficiency.