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The aim of this research is to provide analysis of the rural non-farm sector in Nigeria by investigating inter-linkages between farm and non-farm activities. By critical analysis using quantitative and qualitative research methods to investigate farm and non-farm sectors, the research attempts to reveal the complex linkages between these activities undertaken by rural households. The analysis employs household surveys aimed at collecting primary data undertaken to investigate various aspects of rural livelihoods including sources of income, employment, diversification and determinants of household income. The research provides analysis of Rural Micro and Small Enterprises (RMSEs) in the non-farm sector. It investigates the sources of rural livelihoods, which are primarily based on farming activities. However, farming in this area is still carried out by about 80 percent of households in a traditional subsistence system with crude implements and in scattered plots of about 2.0 hectares or less. This subsistence farming system has resulted in increasing changes in decision making, along with dynamic processes of socio-economic and cultural changes including assets and resources which households depend on for their survival. Diversification of income activities has become an important aspect of rural livelihoods due to continued low agricultural income and output. Non-farm income activities have the potential to reduce rising rural unemployment, providing more income opportunities for young people, women and other vulnerable groups. It can provide capital for investment in child education, home improvement, asset formation and on-farm innovation or expansion. This research argues for an integrated approach towards rural development and poverty reduction through the promotion of both agriculture and non-agricultural sectors. Analysis of household income structure and determinants indicate that non-farm income accounts for about 44% of total household income and non-farm income has become an important source of capital for on-farm and off-farm investment. Ownership of non-farm enterprise, household labour force, level of education, age, farm size (land), financial capital (level of savings) and access to basic infrastructure are the main determinants of household income. Using disaggregated and distributional data the study found variations in effect of the various factors on household income on different groups of households.

This work represents a socio-legal inquiry into the development of KSA SMEs and their interconnections with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreements, examining on one level, KSA SMEs within the Saudi economy in relation to relevant KSA legislative, administrative and organisational affairs. The study found the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a positive attitude towards supporting and developing SMEs through public and private initiatives.  However, shortcomings, mainly in the form of burdensome financial technicalities, were identified in the country’s efforts to promote SMEs. On another level, 93 KSA exporting SMEs were surveyed, by quantitatively evaluating the effects on the sector caused by the Kingdom’s accession to the WTO and qualitatively examining the actual effects of WTO rules on such firms. It was found that although the SMEs that were surveyed with regard to the Kingdom’s accession to the WTO have generally agreed that such accession was beneficial, a majority recognised that certain WTO related obstacles exist, while another high percentage of surveyed SMEs raised concerns about standards and specification issues within international trade. Moreover, the thesis attempted a classification and hypothetical analysis of identified standards issues discovered while the survey was conducted in relation to the WTO standards Agreements and relevant dispute resolution cases. The work concludes by providing possible suggestions in the form of legal remedies to help KSA exporting SMEs to overcome their difficulties.  This consists mainly in the harmonisation of standards and technical regulations and their mutual recognition through the application of the equivalence principle in Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) and in particular within the Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA) Agreement.

This thesis focuses on an analysis of the survival and growth of new start-up firms in Vietnam covering the period 2000-2005. In particular, the thesis investigates three main dimensions: i) the effect of growth and other determinants on firm survival; ii) the survival of state, domestic private and foreign firms; iii) the determinants of the growth of firms, and job creation and destruction of firms in Vietnam. In addition, the findings of the thesis have implications for policy makers responsible for new firm development in Vietnam. The learning model of Jovanovic (1982) is used in this thesis to study the dynamics of firms in terms of their survival and growth. The empirical study of firm survival using hazard models, and of job flow analysis of firms in Vietnam is relatively new. Furthermore, a new and unique panel dataset is used in this thesis to analyse the survival and growth of firms in Vietnam. The main findings are as follows: The first important finding is that the effect of previous growth (both in terms of employment and assets) on firm survival is positive, and also that this relationship is nonlinear. The effect of growth on survival decreases as growth increases. Moreover, domestic private and foreign firms are more positively associated with the probability of survival compared to state firms. Firms with larger initial size are more likely to survive, and firms able to access funds at the time of start-up have a greater likelihood of surviving. The productivity of a firm in year t-1 has a positive relationship with the survival probability of a firm in year t. Firms with a higher return on assets in year t-1 are more likely to survive in year t. At the same time, leverage in year t-1 is negatively associated with the probability of survival in year t. Differences in the probability of survival of state, domestic private and foreign firms are identified in both non-parametric and semi-parametric approaches. State firms take more advantages of support and preferential treatment from the government to achieve the highest probability of survival in the non-parametric approach, but they experience the lowest probability of survival when the effects of factors such as growth, initial founding conditions, productivity, financial ratios and leverage are considered in the semi-parametric approach. This means that when considering the effects of the other factors, the advantages for state firms disappear. Hence, the basis of performance and survival of state firms is 2 mainly dependent on assistance from the government. Firm survival rate seems to be more sensitive to return on sales for state firms as opposed to domestic private and foreign firms. At the same time, a rise in the initial capital intensive has stronger positive effects on the survival chances of domestic private firms than foreign and state firms. The determinants of firm survival are not the same for state, domestic private and foreign firms, but the return on assets in year t-1 is a significant positive effect on survival in year t for all three types of firms. The result from the Oaxaca – Blinder decomposition extended for the nonlinear version shows that most of the difference in exit rates between state and non-state firms cannot be explained by the included covariates, but is almost explained by the effects of differences in coefficients of covariates. This may be due to the government discrimination against non-state firms. Growth in employment rates is faster in younger firms than older ones and small firms have a faster asset growth than their larger counterparts. These results are consistent with the learning model of Jovanovic (1982) and show that Gibrat’s Law fails to hold true. The determinants of firm growth are sensitive to definitions of growth (firm growth in this thesis is measured in terms of employment or assets). When separately analysing growth of younger and older firms, the determinants of the growth in younger firms are different to those for older firms, and factors affecting employment and asset growth are considerably different in both younger and older firms. Using the Davis and Haltiwanger method of job flow analysis it is found that job creation and loss, or reductions, are almost the same in the period 2000-2005, and that the restructuring of the market during this period was high due to the transition process in new developing country. There are negative relationships between firm size and job flow, and small firms play a more significant role in job creation and destruction, and exhibit higher levels of job turnover and the restructuring process than medium or large firms in Vietnam. This result is the similar to the explanation given by the model of Jovanovic (1982). Domestic private firms display the most flexibility in hiring and firing workers, and the highest job turnover in the Vietnamese labour market because they experience the highest rates of job flow compared to both state and foreign firms. Industrial sector firms play the most important role in employment flexibility, creation and the restructuring of the economy compared to firms in the service and agricultural sectors. Finally, the findings in each chapter recommend some policy implications to improve the growth and the probability of survival of firms in Vietnam.

This thesis addresses the theoretical and legal foundations for choice of corporate law in the European Union. In particular, it evaluates the contractarian approach to choice of law, which has become the dominant paradigm. When contractual principle is viewed in its fullest form, it is found that corporate choice of law could be restricted for similar reasons to those which justify limitations to party autonomy in contractual choice of law. What is more, economic arguments for party autonomy should be refined in view of the fact that corporate legal theory is unsettled. Indeed, different views about the economic nature of companies are accounted for in State practice. Having rejected dogmatic approaches to the private international law of companies, it is then found that the EU Treaties contain contradictory signals about the place of party autonomy in choice of corporate law. The lack of clarity in the Treaties and lack of legislative progress has necessitated recourse to the European Court of Justice. The Court has, generally, adopted an interpretation of the Treaty which furthered economic integration. However, the judgments reveal numerous inconsistencies, and the law is in a constant state of flux. Added to the fact that the EU’s legislation is less permissive than the Court’s judgments, the law lacks clarity. Legislation is therefore needed. It is suggested that future legislation should entrench a degree of autonomy, but should also account for the fact that States differ on the goals of companies. While the law of the State of incorporation should govern all matters relating to the company’s internal law, European law should bind the Member State in which a company is established to require pseudo-foreign companies to incorporate norms of the State of its real seat in their statutes. This could be supported through the use of information technology solutions which have been pioneered in other fora.

M.Com. (Business Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

After two civil wars and a health epidemic destroyed most of Liberia’s economy, paths to the country’s recovery and growth have seldom been studied in the economics literature. This dissertation contains three chapters on topics around a particular factor of growth: the private sector. The first two chapters address the freight transport sector in Liberia. Understanding how and at what cost commodities are transported intra-nationally is key to promote sustainable growth. The third chapter explores the tender process, and how it can be made more efficient. In Chapter 1, I study the introduction of a new technology in Liberia’s transport sector. While standard economic theory predicts that the introduction of a monitoring device should increase the productivity of the worker, I show that this is not necessarily the case. I use an experiment where I introduce a monitoring technology on trucks to measure the impact of the technology on the worker. I find three main results. First, the technology had an overall positive effect on the drivers who received the technology. Second, the managers choose to install the technology only on the drivers they trust the least. Third, the technology had an adverse effect on the drivers at the margin. These results are consistent with a theory of intrinsic motivation. The key insight of the model is that monitoring workers crowds out their intrinsic motivation to work hard. If a driver is intrinsically motivated, monitoring him may have adverse effects on the effort he provides. This chapter is the first evidence from the field of the adverse effect of a monitoring device. The results provide evidence that a blind application of monitoring devices to the entire worker-base may produce suboptimal effects and that managers seem on average to be able to identify the workers who are not intrinsically motivated. In Chapter 2, I propose an estimation of Liberia’s intra-national trade costs, and shed light on why these estimates are so high. Using data on Liberia’s commodity prices, I estimate how trade costs vary with distance. I find that estimated trade costs per distance are significantly bigger in Liberia than they are in other countries. I then use data from a survey of transport companies to estimate travel times. Trade costs per travel time — and not per distance – are still bigger in Liberia than they are in other countries, but to a lower extent than trade costs per distance. I conclude that the speed of vehicles, which captures road-specific characteristics such as road quality, explains a significant share of the difference in trade costs between Liberia and other countries. Chapter 3 evaluates the effect of a training program that teaches firms how to apply to tenders. We show that firms who took such a training increased the number of contracts won as well the quality of those contracts. However the impact of this training is heterogenous across firms. In particular, we explore this heterogeneity along expected discrimination. Firms who believe that they are being discriminated against often have lower chances of winning tenders. These firms also accumulate less experience in applying to contracts, and could therefore benefit more from the training. Results show that the effect of the training is a non-monotonic function of expected discrimination. For firms in the low ranges of expected discrimination, the effect of the training counter-balances the effect of higher expected discrimination. In higher ranges of expected discrimination, the effect of higher expected discrimination dominates and more discriminated firms are less likely to provide additional effort in response to the training. We conclude that the firms who benefit from the program are not the most discriminated firms but the ones in the middle of the distribution.

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