The 1980s and 1990s are historical periods of economic reforms in both China and the former Soviet Union. Comparative study of principal proposals of economic reform and transformation in the two countries in this period is the subject of this thesis. There are five main chapters excluding the introduction. Chapter 2 is the theoretical framework of the thesis which is based on essential concepts of Comparative Economic System. Before the main theme began, primary economic problems and difficulties in pre-reform periods in China and the former Soviet Union were discussed in Chapter 3. So was a brief review of reform efforts in the past in the two countries. In Chapter 4, major proposals of economic reform in Chinese economy from late 1978 till 1992 were studied. These included reform measures in the rural economy, the opening up policy, state-owned enterprises reform, new policy for non-state sector and comprehensive plans after 1985. Chapter 5 discussed the 1987 reform package, the 1990 reform plans including Presidential Plan and Shatalin Plan. A brief summary of the Russian reform plan in 1991 was also done in this chapter. Chapter 6 is the concluding part of the thesis. The author compared in detail the two cases and drew conclusions as the following: (a) Both Chinese and Soviet reformers designed the transformation from centralised planning control to decentralised market-oriented economy; (b) The structures of the existing economic system, i.e., decision--making, information, motivation and ownership structures, required various degrees of alteration in the two countries. Soviet reformers called for massive destatisation and privatisation of the state-owned undertakings, while China insisted on a structure with predominant state-owned enterprises; (c) The economic reforms strategies in the two countries are different.

Economic policies are often suggested as mechanisms for promoting rainforest conservation in developing countries. To help decide whether international resources should be used to protect specific rainforcsts, the calculation of a "rainforest supply price" (RSP) is proposed. If protection is warranted, then empirical analyses explore the conditions under which selected policies within developing countries might be effective in protecting rainforests. Korup National Park in Cameroon contains the oldest rainforest in Africa and - as a haven for important endangered species- it is the subject of active international conservation efforts. A cost-bencfit analysis of a conservation project to protect Korup from increased land-use pressures suggests that it is not in Cameroon's interest unless a 5.4 million ECU inducement is transferred to Cameroon. Given the protection afforded, the transfer is equivalent to a RSP of 1060 ECU per km2 per year. Evaluations of six other tropical rainforest projects suggests that international donors made transfers having values ranging from 15 to 1575ECU per km2 per year. It is thus concluded that the inducements required are within a range which conservation interests are apparently willing to mobilise. To target inducements the provision of incentives in a "buffer zone" around a park is often believed to promote conservation. This is based on the hypothesis that increased incomes will draw individuals out of the park and will give them something better to do than exploit the park. A survey of 341 households around Korup was analysed in detail to test this hypothesis. Evidence suggests that economic development in the buffer zone would increase pressures on the park because: a) higher incomes would reduce emigration from the region and would thus cause greater population pressure on the Park; and, b) hunting effort increases as non-hunting income increases.

This thesis aims to investigate the reasons for the variation in China’s oil diplomacy performance in Africa and South America in the period 2000-2010. Lacking sound experience in pursuing oil security overseas and enjoying strong financial muscle, China’s oil diplomacy is largely rooted in the extension of soft loans for infrastructure to oil-rich countries in exchange for steady oil supply and favoured access to oil acreage. Taking Angola and Brazil as case studies this thesis argues that differences in the institutional structure of the oil industry in each country, determined different outcomes regarding Beijing’s oil security goals. This thesis has found that although this template fitted well with the more centralised institutional environment in Angola, it was highly unsuitable for the more liberal and regulated Brazil setting. Furthermore, the advent of the recent global economic crisis (2008-2009) caused China to adjust its approach to the institutional particulars of Brazil becoming more efficient in that country regarding its oil security goals. Building on foreign policy analysis tools and concepts, an empirical analysis of the interplay between Chinese infrastructure-for-oil loans (hereby regarded as positive economic statecraft) and the institutional structure it met in each country, is presented. Through the case studies, this thesis aims to uncover to what extent the institutional context constrained Chinese oil diplomacy efficiency in Brazil for most of the past decade, and how innovation has surfaced in the context of the global financial crisis. This analysis thus gives interesting insights not only into the dynamics of China’s oil diplomacy in Africa and South America, but also into Chinese economic statecraft in general and how constraints that surface at the implementation level feedback into foreign policy formulation.

The main questions of this thesis are how a period of in utero malnutrition can impact the health of young children and their later development, and how job promotions can affect health. In the first chapter I analyse to what extent the South-East Asian financial crisis affected the height of Indonesian children who had in utero exposure to the crisis. I find that they are significantly shorter than children who were exposed at later ages. There is a large difference in effect for urban and rural children. This finding helps attribute the detrimental health effects to the crisis and not other events which occurred during the period of analysis. The second chapter exploits the exogenous shock of the crisis to analyse how early childhood height causes later cognitive development. I argue that this question should be analysed using instrumental variables. The results show a large and significant effect of early childhood height on cognitive ability and the use of instrumental variables changes the results significantly compared to OLS with or without fixed effects. Lastly, I analyse how on the job promotions of British civil servants affect health. In a cross-section, the direction of causality is almost certainly two-way. I argue that the use of individual fixed effects will alleviate this concern. The results show a large, positive effect of a job promotion on health in the subsequent survey phase.

Policy failure has been a concern for social scientists during the past four decades, yet there are no clear answers as to why certain policies are not put into practice as intended. Ineffective policy implementation in the health sector may result in poor services with consequences affecting the population’s wellbeing. This thesis addresses the success or failure in translating policy into practice and the issues that contribute to it. In Mexico, two groundbreaking reforms in the health sector were implemented in the first decade of the 2000s: the Popular Health Insurance (PHI) programme and the termination of pregnancy law or interrupción legal del embarazo (ILE). The thesis uses these policies as case studies to understand how different factors influence policy implementation, particularly in Mexico City. Four factors are observed: actors involved and their beliefs, service delivery arrangements, managerial practices, and citizen participation and accountability. Most of these are frequently cited in the literature as key factors in public policy and service delivery. Qualitative methods were used to collect and analyse the data. The main sources of evidence were in-depth interviews, newspaper articles, official documents and other online news services and publications. It was found that the ideas, values and beliefs of actors are relevant throughout the implementation process, beyond agenda-setting and policy design processes. A decentralised service delivery implies relationships between federal and local level health authorities. The two case studies showed that personal values and beliefs of those in strategic positions determined these relationships which, in turn, influenced the implementation of both federal and local health policies. The engagement of citizen and CSOs in the implementation of these policies was also determined by their ideas and beliefs. However, no significant managerial practices were found within implementing agencies. Implementers’ ideas and beliefs seemed to be more relevant in contexts with weak managerial and accountability mechanisms.

This thesis examines the specificities of Late-industrialisation, focussing on Korea and Brazil. The growth and development experience of both economies between the mid-1950s and the mid-2000s is explained in terms of their pattern of integration into the international division of labour. Challenging conventional accounts, the thesis does not consider these patterns as resulting simply from economic policies and institutions, but rather determined by global economy developments and their interaction with local structural factors that affect the conditions of valorisation of capital in different productive sectors. This thesis argues that the Brazilian process of capitalist development revolved around the appropriation of land rent – i.e. extraordinary profits available due to the monopoly of an irreproducible means of production, land. Industrial capital was able to maximise profits despite producing for domestic markets at relatively small scale. Capital compensated for its high production costs by appropriating a portion of the abundant land rent. Since the late-1960s, industrial capital in Korea maximised profits through the production for world markets, taking advantage of relatively cheap and disciplined labour. Due to skill-replacing technological changes associated with computerisation and electronics-based automation, and its own historical origins and characteristics, Korean labour became particularly productive when performing simplified, though increasingly complex, activities as an appendage of machinery or in the manual assembly of components. The analysis and findings are supported by a three-pronged methodology. First, a model that measures intersectoral income transfers and assesses the value of land rent that supported the process of capital accumulation in each country. Secondly, an analysis of the global steel, motor-vehicles and semiconductors industries, and their development in Korea and Brazil. Thirdly, an appraisal of the historical development of social and political processes in the two countries and their role in shaping the evolution of economic, welfare and labour policies and political institutions. The research shows the intrinsic unity of these three factors, revealing specific transformations in Korea and Brazil as part of the realisation of the global process of capitalist development.

The underperformance of Italy’s macroeconomy is common knowledge, yet empirical evidence has shown that a high quality segment of Italian export oriented firms has outperformed international competitors although the country lacks practically all attributes of a coordinated market economy. This thesis shows that the ability of firms to produce high quality goods in Italy is linked to the practice of "capital skill asset pooling" within a novel model of production organisation, "disintegrated hierarchy". "Capital-skill asset pooling" follows from the vertical disintegration of production functions across firms and entails the sharing of production assets between firms governed by heterogeneous institutional frameworks. Through the comparisons of firm-level case studies across three industries, the thesis shows that two simultaneous conditions are necessary for "capitalskill asset pooling" to develop: 1) the presence of lead firms endowed with patient capital, and 2) the presence small suppliers endowed with firm-, industry- and product-specific skills. This finding complements the Varieties of Capitalism literature by showing that firms can produce high or diversified quality goods in the absence of the necessary institutional preconditions by developing functional substitutes to coordinated market economy assets through "capital-skill asset pooling".

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.

The aim of this thesis is to reassess Cain and Hopkins’ gentlemanly capitalist explanation of British imperialism in Asia during the first half of the nineteenth century through examining the lobbying activities of provincial mercantile and manufacturing interests against the renewal of the East India Company’s charter during the periods 1812-1813 and 1829-1833. This thesis particularly has focused on Glasgow’s lobbying activities although Liverpool and Manchester’s cases have also been examined. In Cain and Hopkins’ model, the position of provincial manufacturing interests was outside from the gentlemanly capitalists’ circle consisting of non-industrial capitalists based in London and South-east England, such as the landed aristocracy, the merchants and bankers of the City and professions. Economically, there was a split between these gentlemanly capitalists and the provincial manufacturing interests, and politically, the provincial interests could exercise minor influence on the national politics. This thesis has contributed to three issues related to Cain and Hopkins’ gentlemanly capitalist thesis. The firs issue is the degree of influence of provincial commercial and manufacturing interests on the formation of Britain’s imperial policy. The second issue is the relationship between the gentlemanly capitalists in London and the provincial mercantile and manufacturing interests. The third issue is the Scots contribution to the formation of the British Empire, to which they failed to give their attention. Regarding the first issue, this thesis has demonstrated that the provincial mercantile and manufacturing interests organised effective lobbying activities for the opening of the East India and China trades and succeeded in exerting undeniable influence over the state’s decisions in both the first and second campaigns through well-organised lobbying strategies, powerful lobbing means, and their access to the centre of the national politics through their influential parliamentary supporters. In this thesis, the provincial lobbyists’ economic interests and political backgrounds have closely been examined. Although the provincial lobbyists’ economic and political interests were varied and they split up over some economic and political issues, these did not affect their unity in their challenge against the London merchants’ dominance in the East India trade. This contrasts with Cain and Hopkins’ argument on the gentlemanly capitalists’ superior influence on the national politics. In terms of the second issue, this thesis has shown that there is no evidence for the collaboration between the provincial interests and the London merchants during the 1812-1813 campaign. Nevertheless, as the connection between the provincial manufacturing interests and the London agency houses grew after the opening of the India trade, in the 1829-1833 campaign, the provincial lobbyists and some of the London mercantile interests showed their collaboration. Therefore, this thesis supports the application of Webster’s more complex model than Cain and Hopkins’ original model to British imperialism in Asia during this period. Finally, in respect of the Scots contribution to the formation of British Empire, during these two national campaigns for the opening of the East India trade, the Glasgow lobbyists were very active and the GEIA played a significant role in their lobbying activities.

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.