Very little is known about the small firms sector and the new firm formation process in the Welsh economy. This study attempts to bridge this gap in Knowledge and adds to the growing body of information on new firm formation and development in the U.K. and its regions. The approach adopts a largely microeconomic perspective within a business policy strategy. Data is obtained from interviews with the founders of some 61 new independent firms in South Wales. Further information is derived from interviews with representatives of the major banks and support agencies in the Principality. The study, therefore, provides data which allows a comprehensive comparison with studies of other areas and an assessment of the new firm formation process in Wales. Information is provided on both the initial start-up and the development of new and independent firms. This study also makes a contribution to knowledge in several other areas:- 1. It outlines a method to estimate the importance of new firms in employment generation in Wales. This method could usefully be extended to other regions and indeed to the U.K. as a whole. 2. It provides statistics on the size distribution of firms in the private manufacturing sector of Industrial South Wales which can also be classified according to ownership status. A potentially important factor in the new firm formation process. 3. It shows that existing theories of price determination are largely inadequate at describing methods of new firm pricing. Data are presented on the pricing practices of firms when they first enter a market and a representative model of pricing methods in new firms is suggested. 4. It attempts to relate various microeconomic concepts to the very specialised situation found in new firms,both at the time of start-up and during the infant stage of business development. Barriers to entry, scale and location decisions and limits to firm growth are considered in this context.

Provincial competitiveness is strategically and imperatively important for China to achieve and sustain its economic leadership in the global economy. Albeit recent attention of scholars and government officials, the studies to date have produced limited empirical evidence that could aid policy makers to understand the contributing factors and development strategies for provincial competitiveness. Hence, this thesis develops a production approach to decompose Chinese provincial competitiveness index into two productive-efficiency-based components, so as to uncover development strategies hidden in the index. The resulting model fully retains the information embodied in the original index and implements a mechanism to generate development strategies. Applying the proposed model to China’s provincial data of competitiveness for the period 2005-2008, the thesis finds that coastal provinces can adopt an unbalanced development strategy by expanding their relatively uncompetitive sectors. For western provinces, however, what is better for them is to take the balanced development strategy through simultaneous enhancement of every aspect of the competitiveness index. Moreover, a combination of the two strategies would better match the specific circumstances of some particular provinces. Besides that, the results show that reducing provincial disparity in terms of competitiveness would firstly require focusing on narrowing the regional gap. In addition, this thesis attempts to seek a set of benchmark weights for dimensions of provincial competitiveness.

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M.Comm. / For twenty years Uganda suffered the disastrous consequences of a system of rule in which there were no limits to the exercise of power. During this period the country went through no less than seven different regimes, all of which ignored the rule of law and left people without a sense of personal security or power. Many Ugandans were forced into exile and those staying on withdrew from politics, leaving politicians to conduct their business without any accountability. The National Resistance Movement (NRM) Government, led by President Y oweri Museveni, came to power in early 1986. This brought an end to the political instability and economic decline, which had plagued the country hitherto. Under his leadership, the nation embarked on an ambitious economic recovery program, supported by the IMF, the World Bank, and other donors. The key elements of this successful program have been the restoration of fiscal and monetary discipline; the improvement of the incentive structure and investment climate for exports and other production activities; the rehabilitation of the country's social, economic and institutional infrastructure; and the promotion of increased savings and investment. The economic reforms implemented by the present government in Uganda since 1986, coupled with political stability, have contributed to economic growth rates averaging 6% per annum in the last decade. This has made Uganda one of the fastest growing countries in Africa. Inflation is under control and has been maintained below 10% per annum for the last four years. Most economic activities are fully liberalized and open to foreign investment. There are no restrictions to 100% foreign ownership of investments and no barriers to remittance of dividends. Uganda's shilling is fully convertible and has remained stable over the last years. The foreign exchange market is now wholly liberalized following a move by government, effective July 1997 to liberalize capital account transactions. Uganda is now one of about only five countries in the whole of Africa that have no restrictions on capital amount transfers. Within Africa and the emerging markets, Uganda enjoys a high status with donors and lenders. For the future, it is important to ensure that economic policy does not ignore social expenditure or the poverty dimension. In addition, President Museveni himself has repeatedly stressed the importance of attracting more private investment to Uganda in order to replace the foreign aid which can only be regarded as temporary. Other sectors needing attention are industrialization and privatization. As a landlocked country, Uganda needs to look to markets among its immediate neighbours. The new strategy should further include development of more linkages between agriculture and industry. It also needs to respond to people's basic needs and small-scale industries must be developed further. Only thus can industrialization contribute to economic welfare and sustainable development in Uganda. Privatization also needs to be reconsidered. It has contributed to the country's record rate of economic growth of 7-8 per cent, but so far it has not increased employment opportunities at all significantly. Nor has it enlarged the number of Ugandan entrepreneurs. Poverty, too, has not been reduced so far by privatization. There remams substantial room for development in most sectors of the Ugandan economy, creating opportunities for further and increased foreign investment. These sectors include food processmg and packing, construction equipment and electrical power systems, telecommunications equipment and services, travel and tourism services, light manufacturing, household consumer goods, footwear, furniture and textile fabrics, mining, mining industry equipment, non-ferrous metals, marine fisheries products and agriculture, including traditional crops such as coffee, cotton, tea and tobacco, fruit and vegetable processing, edible oil production, staple food crops processing, flowers and livestock. The vehicles for the facilitation of foreign investment are in place, the investment climate is open and friendly towards foreign investors, with an established investment code and incentive regime, offering generous capital recovery terms, particularly for investors whose projects entail significant investment in plant and machinery and whose investments are medium to long term. Uganda offers a predictable environment having achieved macro-economic stability at a time when clouds of uncertainty rock many regions in the world.

Magister Legum - LLM / Safeguards are among the most controversial of all trade remedies, due to the fact that they are contrary to the general principles of international fair trade as articulated in the various ageements governing the relationship between Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Thus, deeloping countries, least developed countries (LDC), South Africa, and other Sub-Saharan African countries, are hard-pressed to deploy and consider safeguards as an option. This thesis rests upon two central interlinked propositions, in essence a two-pronged argument and overarching statement of policy. First, the legal constraints on safeguards, many of which evolve out of the strict Appellate Body decicions, are reasonable on legal and policy grounds even though such controlling measures are applied likewise to fairly-traded and not just to unfairly-traded merchandise. Secondly, developing countries like South Africa should properly be accorded special and differential treatment to apply safeguards. / South Africa

The cyclical nature of the automotive industry has been blamed for many dealership closures as well as thousands of retrenchments. Macro environmental changes like the recent spike in oil prices and the sub-prime debacle can have a detrimental effect on the automotive retailers and be partially blamed for the closures and retrenchments. This results in a continuously changing external environment which might necessitate subsequent internal changes. These changes might involve physical resources like people, demographics, products and materials or non-tangible resources like policies, procedures and the way business is conducted and personnel are treated. The management style and methodologies of automotive retail are predominantly based on control of annual budgets and are therefore not pro-active and unable to cope with sudden and drastic changes like the recent global economic decline. The primary aim of this research is to do an explanatory study to determine whether senior managers in the automotive retail sector has identified their key resources and if they can leverage the application thereof to enable a sustainable competitive advantage. The secondary aim is to determine if these resources or the application thereof change during an economic decline. The research was conducted by means of multiple and in-depth semi-structured case studies of twelve dealers in the Gauteng area. This method is generally accepted as a technique to properly diagnose the current scenario and to evaluate the situation according to relevant theory. The results of this research shows that the automotive retail sector has not yet embraced the resource based view, can not recognise all their key resources, and do not actively cultivate resources for future utilisation. By creating resource awareness the recognition and application of resources might become more dynamic which can make the industry more resilient in future economic downturns which might result in less closures and retrenchments during future economic declines. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

The purpose of this research was to enrich our understanding of why large organisations have not performed in low-income markets relative to middle- to high-income markets through an understanding of their market orientation in these markets. The research sought to establish whether an organisation can have more than one instance of market orientation in its chosen markets. The literature asserts that the bottom-of-the-pyramid approach to earning corporate profits has gained considerable attention and has awakened managers to the potential of serving an underserved market and alleviating the level of global poverty while still earning a profit (Pitta et al. 2008). South African companies have heeded the call to play a role and have targeted low-income markets, but, disappointingly, have achieved limited success. Contrary to the situation in relation to low-income markets, South African firms serving middle- to high-income markets have achieved market success through effective business models and orientation towards their markets. The qualitative study showed that an organisation indeed can have more than one instance of market orientation, as managers responsible for low-income markets experience challenges across all market orientation activities, relative to their middle- to high-income market counterparts. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This Thesis investigates "short-run" economic cycles in Canadian regions over the period 1919-1973. There are a number of readily available monthly and quarterly time-series which represent the essential aspects of "general economic activity" in the various regions (British Columbia, the Prairies, Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes). These data are used to describe the pattern of cyclical behaviour in Canada's regions and to analyze the regional mechanism by which United States business cycles are transmitted into Canada. Two quantitative methods are used - the "episodic" method (fashioned after the approach of the National Bureau of Economic Research) and the spectral analytic method. These areas of investigation are directed at two characteristics of Canadian development with which Canadian economists have long been concerned. The first is the persistence of regional disparities; the application in this study of the seldom-used monthly and quarterly time-series provides new insight to the short-run stability, and changes in stability over time, of Canada's regional economies. The second characteristic is that at least until World War I there has existed a very strong tendency for specific regions to play central roles as locations for the production of nationally-important export goods at different periods of time, suggesting an economic sensitivity between foreign, regional and national economies which is summarized by the staple theory of Canadian economic growth. However, since the First World War there has been for various reasons a considerable although gradual evolution in regional economic structure which may have altered the mechanism of cyclical transmission among regions. Moreover, modern treatments of fluctuations in the national economy over the period 1919-1973 suggest that in many ways Canadian cyclical behaviour is but a function of corresponding behaviour in the United States. When the postwar period is compared with the interwar period a decline can be observed in Canada's sensitivity to fluctuations in the general economic activity of the United States but this decline has remained largely unexplained because of the obvious complexity of the economic linkages between the two countries. By examining the evolution of sensitivity among Canada's heterogeneous regions much light is shed upon the question of declining Canadian sensitivity. The overall evidence from the regional time-series suggests that in a broad sense disparities in regional fluctuations are rather large. On balance, the Canadian regions adhere to a common, basic pattern in economic fluctuations in that episodes, found in the national indicators are usually found in the regional indicators and tend to have a similar average duration. However, there the similarity ends although there was a surprisingly uniform strength in the shorter "subcycle", especially in the postwar period. The ability of business cycles to explain the total variation in economic indicators is markedly different among regions - in British Columbia and Ontario the cycle is stronger than the regional average and in the Maritimes and Prairies it is weaker. Also, within the common regional-national pattern in fluctuations significant differences in timing are apparent; certain regions seem to consistently lead or lag the national economy. Indeed, there are significant differences between the cyclical behaviours of Ontario and Quebec even though the economic linkages which transmit cycles between the two regions are strong. During the interwar period Canadian regions were generally sensitive to business cycle fluctuations in the United States, although British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec were more closely attuned to the United States economy than either the Prairies or Maritimes. The varying levels of regional-USA correspondence indicate that the transmission of cycles from the United States does not occur similarly in all regions, although in each case the volatility in regional business cycles is less than that of the United States. The evidence for the interwar period suggests that the mechanism by which United States business cycles are transmitted into Canada is characterized by a tendency for Ontario to be sensitive to both the Rest-of-Canada and the United States; Ontario also appears to be the most volatile region, particularly during the 1930s. This result is consistent with the view that because Ontario is likely a net exporter of capital goods and consumer durables to the other regions then a cyclical instability in the marginal propensity to import in the other regions might stabilize these regions while at the same time destabilizing the Ontario economy. When the postwar and interwar periods are compared, several important changes are observed in the transmission mechanism. While cycles are still transmitted from the United States to the Canadian regions there is a noticeable decline in the significance of this sensitivity, with the largest reductions occurring in Quebec and B.C., and a smaller reduction occurring in Ontario. There have also been declines in regional correspondence to the Rest-of-Canada, which have been of approximately the same order of magnitude in each region. To some extent the weakened interregional correspondence may have resulted from weakened regional sensitivity to the United States but, nevertheless, the reduction in regional-USA sensitivities in the postwar period suggests a change in the regional mechanism of cyclical transmission, particularly in that Ontario is a stronger transmitter of United States fluctuations than formerly. Thus, the traditional view that economic cycles are transmitted from "staple-producing" regions to Central Canada, especially Ontario, has apparently become less appropriate since World War II. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

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