There has been considerable interest in time varying performance particularly that related to business cycles in recent years. This topic has been a persistent focus from the end of the last century, as evidenced by the quotes above, continuing through much of economics since the 1930's, when the peculiarities of pricing behaviour, particularly in the United States, during the depression years were the driving force behind interest in the topic. Since then, there has been an ongoing debate on the effects of the business cycle upon pricing and profitability. In recent years this debate has intensified having been fuelled both by technical factors and politico-economic developments. On a politico-economic level the ending of the "Golden Age" of capitalism, which had been characterised by steady growth, low unemployment and relatively small cyclical fluctuations, in the 1970's can be seen as a prime reason for a resurgence of interest in such issues. On a technical level within the economics discipline two aspects have promoted increased interest in this issue. Firstly there has been a mushrooming of theoretical approaches to the question driven by the growing dominance of game theory in particular in trying to explain the prevalence of collusion during the business cycle. At the same time, but we would argue not In parallel, there has been an expansion of empirical testing of the question of time varying performance at a microeconomic level. This expansion can be largely attributed to the advent of improved techniques and computing capability for dealing with panel data which facilitates the examination of these issues. This thesis seeks to examine one aspect of this question, the relative performance of large and small firms, a subject which has been largely overlooked within the main body of the literature on time varying performance but which can add to, and point to, useful insights for that literature.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:533382 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Lúkacs, Peter Zoltan |
| Publisher | University of Warwick |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/4329/ |
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