There is no doubt that in recent years Corporate Environmental Disclosure (CED) by corporations has received much attention among accounting academic researchers. However, reviewing previous studies has identified the following existing gaps which have given an impetus for this study and need to be bridged namely: (1) the need for a new approach of analysis namely, a three-dimensional analysis that includes the intra-country (external) factors, inter-organisational (internal) factors and content analysis; (2) the requirement for investigating other available means of CED such as internal reports and stand alone environmental reports; and (3) the call for examining CED practice in Libya where there was no previous attention given to this country. This study aims to examine the various aspects of CED in Libya with a view to testing the applicability of Environmental Determinism Theory. It did this initially by providing the first detailed and longitudinal description of the extent of practices of CED which were made by the all the largest industrial companies quoted on the Libyan Industrial Production Administration for the years 1998-2001. It then endeavoured to explain and understand this evidence of CED practice (or non-practice) by utilising (1) the perspectives of a sample of corporate managers of such companies regarding the nature of corporate environmental responsibility and CED; and (2) the political, economic and social contexts in which the CED is being made. To achieve this, three methods (triangulation approach) were utilised in this study, namely, content analysis, questionnaire and historiography. The results of content analysis showed that CED has yet to develop in Libya. There is no evidence of environmental disclosure either in terms of its quantity or quality, especially if the health and safety category is excluded. Libyan companies provide some statements in their annual reports, and, in some cases, other external reports (specific forms) or internal reports related to only one category of CED namely health and safety information. Apart from health and safety disclosed, the companies studied have disclosed no other environmental information. They still have a long way to go in order to reach the level reached by their counterparts in developed countries. An interesting point was that Libyan companies, by contrast with their counterparts even in developing countries, have given more attention to negative news. The perceptions of managers were investigated by using a questionnaire survey. Fifty three questionnaires were used with a rate of response of 62%. The results suggest that the vast majority of them accept that Libyan companies should recognise their environmental responsibility and provide environmental disclosure to the central authorities. However, most managers felt that a scarcity of legal and professional standards and guidelines, along with their lack of expertise, qualification and training in the field of CED have prevented them from engaging in CED. Therefore CED has not been put in the agenda of many Libyan companies. The analysis of the environmental influence on CED practice in Libya indicates that the social context including religion seems to be having to some extent an influence upon CED practice in Libya. However, the country's unique political and economic contexts along with the managers' attitudes and qualifications were the fundamental CED disclosure determinants. Therefore, this study has concluded that CED practices in Libya are shaped not only by one single factor but by the external and internal factors. The impact of the political, economic and social (external) factors reflects the indirect influence on the disclosure environment. Whereas, the internal factors (perception and cognition) reflect the direct impact of those involved in the disclosure process, namely the managers, as they are the ones who decide what information to be disclosed.

This thesis comprises three essays. The first two make use of individual-level data on British workers from the British Household Panel Survey to study different aspects of nonstandard employment. The first essay, co-authored with Mark Bryan, presents estimates of the implicit monetary value that workers attach to non-standard work. We employ and compare two alternative methods to measure workers’ willingness to pay for four non-standard working arrangements: flexitime, part-time, night work, and rotating shifts. The first method is based on job-to-job transitions within a job search framework, while the second is based on estimating the determinants of subjective well-being. We find that the results of the two methods differ, and relate them to conceptual differences between utility and subjective wellbeing proposed recently in the happiness literature. The second essay builds on economic theories of consumption and saving choices to investigate whether workers expect temporary work to be a stepping stone towards better jobs, or a source of uncertainty and insecurity. The evidence provided shows that temporary work entails both expected improvements in future earnings, and uncertainty. Households’ consumption and saving choices are used to assess which of these two effects is prevailing, providing an alternative empirical approach to measure the consequences of temporary work for workers’ welfare. The results suggest that a stepping stone effect towards better jobs is present and, more importantly, is perceived by individuals and internalized in their behaviour. Finally, the last essay has a specific focus on econometric methods. A Monte Carlo experiment is used to investigate the extent to with the Poisson RE estimator is likely to produce results similar to ones obtained using the Poisson FE estimator when the random effects assumption is violated. The first order conditions of the two estimators differ by a term that tends to zero when the number of time periods (T), or the variance of the time-constant unobserved heterogeneity (V), tend to infinity. Different data generating processes are employed to understand if this result is likely to apply in common panel data where both characteristics are finite. As expected, the bias of RE estimates decreases with T and V. However, the same does not hold for the estimated coefficient on the time invariant dummy variable embedded in the conditional mean, which remains substantially biased. This raises a note of caution for practitioners.

Differences in agglomeration externalities and industrial regimes between locations generate performance differentials for their localized economic activities. For more than two decades, scholars have debated which externality is dominant for growth and under which regime. The present study aims to resolve this debate by analysing the influence of agglomeration economies on the growth of five-digit manufacturing sectors and firms in Indonesia between 2000 and 2009 discriminating cities and regencies. Specialization, competition, population density, human capital, and a set of varieties are employed. This is conducted shedding the light on policy implications of economic variety sectoral decomposition functional to revitalize Indonesian manufacturing growth after the Asian Financial Crisis, which substantially hits the Indonesian economy and manufacturing. Empirical evidence reveals that Indonesian policymakers should develop initiatives to support the competitiveness of key labour-intensive industries and manufacturing transformation towards knowledge-based productions. This can be achieved through promoting key specialised clusters characterized by large sectoral interconnectivity favouring inter and intra-industry knowledge spillovers, which allow underpinning the competitiveness of clusters and overcoming the two typical drawbacks of highly specialized locations (lock-in and lack of resilience). The formation of human capital, and the development of technologically advanced industries come to light as crucial drivers to construct a more conductive innovative environment and reduce manufacturing exposure to external industry-specific shocks. Population density and industrial diversity antithetically influence manufacturing growth in cities and regencies due to their economic heterogeneities.

For more than two decades, monetary policy of countries around the world has undergone significant transformation. The long-term stabilization and lowering of inflation is the primary target of central banks founded on the principles of transparency and credibility. The achievement of inflation targeting and control is ultimately judged by the public’s expectations about future inflation. This objective has focused central bank policy making on modern monetary principles and the adoption of one of its core principles, the monetary policy rule. The central bank of the United Kingdom officially adopted an explicit inflating targeting monetary policy in October 1992 following its operational independence in May 1997. In this study, we attempt to investigate the behaviour of the Central Bank of England under an inflation targeting framework. In other words, whether Taylor-type policy rules can be used to describe the behaviour of the Central Bank of England. We specifically attempt to shed light on the question does Taylor's rule (Taylor, 1993) adequately describes central bank behaviour? And whether the existence of formal targets has induced nonlinearity in this behaviour, beginning in October 1992 until December 2014. The study uses time series estimations of Taylor-type reactions functions to characterise monetary policy conduct in the UK, we use time series data, because all the other studies in this area are using the time series method and recommended it, Osterholm (2005), Nelson (2000), Adam et al (2003), Clarida et al (2000) amongst others. In addition, this study uses a long database which is useful for time series analysis. The analysis uses a modified cointegration and error correction model that is robust to the stationary properties of the data as well as vector autoregression techniques; therefore, our methodology in this study employed three types of econometric tests namely: unit root tests, cointegration tests and error correction models. We used monthly data for the UK over the period October 1992 to December 2014, and we estimate Taylor-type policy rules for the UK in order to find answers to these questions. Our results indicate that the Central Bank of England has not been following the Taylor rule. In other words, the regression results clearly indicated that the Central Bank of England did not follow the Taylor rule in the period 1992-2014. This is because all coefficients of inflation gap and the output gap were statistically insignificant. In addition, we conclude these results link with the New Consensus Macroeconomics, criticism of inflation targeting and endogenous money theory. The main contribution in this study is an up-to-date analysis, and evidence that Bank of England policy does not work with Taylor rules. In addition, on the methodological level most previous studies reviewed in the literature have measured the interest rate, inflation and the output gap using one dependent variable, to measure the behaviour of the Central Bank of England, to assess whether the Taylor rule is effective or not. However, this study fills this gap by using two measure for interest rate, three measure for inflation and two variables to measure the output gap, using The Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filter and moving averages, to assess whether the Taylor rule is effective or not effective by using more than one dependent variable.

Economic theories of fertility transition were the dominant paradigm during the second half of the twentieth century, but in more recent years their relevance has been questioned and sociological or cultural explanations have become more popular in the demographic literature. In many cases theoretical perspectives have been abandoned all together in favour of an empirical approach leaving economists and demographers isolated from each other. Using data collected in Nepal as part of the World Bank‟s Living Standards Measurement Study, which includes large amounts of economic information at the household and individual level, the feasibility of the economic approach to fertility transition is tested in the context of rural Nepal. In order to do this it was necessary to check the quality of the Nepali fertility data. This was done and it was concluded that higher parity births tend to be underreported, while childlessness tends to be over-reported. It was also found that the quality of urban fertility data is suspect – rural fertility is focussed on throughout since it relates to economic variables in a substantively different way to urban fertility. The relationships between fertility and the main components of income in rural Nepal – agriculture and remittances – are studied. It is hypothesised that fertility and landholding are related through the land-security hypothesis and the land-labour hypothesis. The land-security hypothesis holds that owned landholding and children are substitutes because they are both forms of security, while the land-labour hypothesis holds that cultivated landholding and fertility are complements since children can assist in tilling the land. Remittances are purported to affect fertility through increasing son preference. This is because remittances provide security and sons send remittances. Support is found for all the hypothesised relationships. This implies that the people of rural Nepal value children for the economic benefits they can bring. The economic value of sons vastly outweighs that of daughters and the findings of this thesis indicate that increasing remittances and high levels of functionally landless households mean that son preference is unlikely to disappear soon. Overall, this research highlights that economic theories of fertility transition have been unjustly neglected and are important for our understanding of fertility determinants – they are therefore extremely relevant for both demographers and policy makers

This Thesis has two themes: (1) political economy of international trade and factor mobility policy; (2) the robustness of strategic trade and industrial policy. Chapter 1 is a non-technical introduction of my research. In Chapter 2, Double-edged incentive competition for FDI, we study the impact of special interest lobbying on competition between two countries for a multinational in a common agency framework. \Ve address the following questions. On the positive side, is special interest lobbying a determinant of competition for FDI? If so, how does it work? How does it affect the equilibrium price for attracting FDI? On the normative side, what are the welfare effects of FDI competition when special interest lobbying is present? Is allocative efficiency always achieved? We argue that special interest lobbying provides an extra political incentive for a government to attract FDI. We show that compared to the benchmark case when governments maximize national welfare, now (1) an economically disadvantageous country has a chance to win the competition; (2) the equilibrium price for attracting FDI is higher than in the benchmark case; (3) allocative efficiency cannot be always achieved. In Chapter 3, Advertising in a differentiated duopoly and its policy implications for an open economy, we develop a model of advertising in a differentiated duopoly in which firms first decide how much to invest in cooperative or predatory advertising and then engage in product market competition (Cournot or Bertrand). We then use this model, with the type of advertising endogenously determined, to explore the policy implications in the context of a Brander-Spencer third-country model of strategic trade. Among results derived from this model, most interestingly we show that for a range of parameter values we get robust trade policy in which governments always use a trade subsidy irrespective of the type of advertising or form of market competition. In Chapter 4, Is export subsidy a robust trade policy recommendation towards a unionized duopoly, we argue that although previous researches imply that the robust trade policy recommendation towards a unionized duopoly is an export subsidy, we cannot get such a result even in the linear case if the opportunity cost of public funds is sufficiently high. However, if we consider the case where the domestic firm and the trade union lobby the government to set their favorable trade policies by giving the government political contributions (modeled in a common agency setting), then the result of robustness will be restored if the government cares about the political contributions sufficiently relative to national welfare. See Chapter 5 for some technical proofs.

No description available.

One of the top priorities of any policymaker is to ensure long-term economic growth, where one of the main components is technology. A major driver for technology advancements is innovation that increases productivity and promotes economic growth. This dissertation serves as further understanding of the innovation process. Specifically, this thesis focuses on three different aspects: i) how to incentive re- search (Chapter 1 and 2), how to organise it (Chapter 3 and 4), and how decision making occurs (Chapter 5). In Chapters 1 and 2, I examine how research responds to different incentives. I analyse whether university research is more basic than the one of the private firms. Using a unique patent database using GM crops technology, where I can track the development of the technology since I identify the first patent issued in this field. One significant finding is that university patents generate broader use at the beginning of the technology cycle, while private firms research is as complement later. In Chapter 3 and 4, I study how research is organised within a firm, focusing on the degree of third-party involvement in new product development. I use the aircraft industry where each firm has a different innovation path due to the inherent structure of each one. One main result is that major involvement of third agents in the R&D process can save time and money, but requires effective monitoring and coordination to avoid delays and unexpected costs. In Chapter 4, I provide a unique case study using empirical evidence of the different innovation attitudes of Boeing and Airbus by tracking the careers of the inventors that have been present in at least one patent owned by any of these firms. I use a unique database where I can track the patent profile of the inventors and make inferences of each company’s innovation attitude. In Chapter 5, I use real options analysis to provide a tool to decision-makers where businesses in a duopoly face uncertainty in the outcome of the R&D phase. This chapter provides a broader approach to the real options analysis under strategic competition, and I find that a higher probability of success does not mean higher value for the firm since the preemption behaviour lowers the value of the investment opportunity.

No description available.

This Thesis contains four original essays that have been devoted to the study of different elements of the hypothesis of endogeneity of the natural rate of growth. The theoretical framework of the Thesis is presented in Chapter 1. In it, we explore various elements that are of utmost importance in order to understand the hypothesis of endogeneity and that have been generally overlooked by the literature. The four empirical essays presented in Chapters 2 to 5 explore different aspects of the endogeneity of the natural rate of growth in a sample of thirteen Latin American countries during the period 1981-2011. The first two empirical essays test the hypothesis of endogeneity using new specifications and various econometric techniques. The results indicate that the natural rate of growth is endogenous to the actual rate of growth, so that the long-run economic growth rate presents sensitivity both in the upward and downward directions in the majority of countries of study. We also find evidence that suggests that expansions are more important than recessions in the sample of Latin American countries. Chapter 4 tries to: 1) estimate a time-varying natural rate of growth; and 2) measure the sensitivity of the latter with respect to its individual components: the rate of growth of labour productivity and the rate of growth of labour force. The results show that the natural rate of growth is more sensitive to labour force growth in the sample of Latin American countries. Finally, the fifth essay studies the interactions between the individual components of the natural rate of growth and the individual components of the rate of growth of aggregate demand. The empirical results show that the rate of growth of labour productivity is more sensitive to the different components of the rate of growth of aggregate demand. However, we find mixed evidence regarding which component of the rate of growth of aggregate demand is more relevant, so that it is not possible to derive a single conclusion that encompasses all the Latin American countries of study. All in all, the present research finds both theoretical elements and empirical evidence that support the hypothesis of endogeneity of the natural rate of growth in Latin America during the period 1981-2011.