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Using historical data for the 1700–1914 period, this paper analyses the nature and direction of technical change in Britain. The evidence in this paper indicates that, over this long period, labour‐saving technology adoption was a major response to changes in relative factor prices, thus supporting the hypothesis that 'induced innovation' was a major driver of technical change during the British industrial revolution. Labour saving was made possible and sustained by capital‐augmenting and energy‐augmenting technical change coupled with continuous capital accumulation and abundant energy supplies. This process placed the British economy on a higher capital–labour ratio equilibrium, and was the primary force driving sustained productivity growth, which further raised wages and living standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Only half of investment by firms is in physical capital, such as buildings and machinery. The other half is in intangible assets, such as branding, software and training. This has been true for the past two decades or more in the UK, but only if you step beyond the measures in the National Accounts, which include only some of the recognised intangible assets. This paper surveys ongoing work at the Office for National Statistics to develop measures of investment in intangible assets, using new insights and innovative approaches. In particular, this paper reviews developments in three areas: in-house branding investments, employer-funded training investments, and in-house investments in organisational capital. We reconsider some of the key assumptions made in the literature and propose alternative approaches to measurement. The paper concludes by considering implications of this work, and identifies some of the remaining gaps in the evidence base for measuring intangible assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for the UK to revisit the legal capital (maintenance of capital) doctrine. Leaving the EU could present an opportunity but to reform legal capital just because Brexit may make it possible to do so would have little merit. Three more substantial reasons for revisiting legal capital are developed: the evidence against legal capital being an effective bulwark against short termist corporate behaviour has continued to stack up; difficulties associated with applying legal rules on distributions in the context of modern financial reporting requirements have persisted; and we have a clearer sense of how creditors' interests are affected by moving away from legal capital to solvency standards. The paper locates the need to revisit legal capital within the broader agenda for a system of effective corporate governance and regulation that supports economically worthwhile and sustainable business activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the involvement of the IMF and World Bank in developing countries and countries in transition help them to attract capital from other sources? Do the multilateral institutions exert a catalytic effect? While there is a strong body of opinion that claims that they do, the catalytic effect has been under-researched. This paper briefly reports the results from a research project financed by the UK Department for International Development. It examines the theory behind catalysis and also investigates the empirical evidence relating to it, drawing on qualitative research, regression analysis based on a large sample of developing countries, and systematic case studies. The analysis shows how the catalytic effect is nuanced and complex but that overall it is weak. The catalyzing role of the IMF and the World Bank remains potentially important, however, and the paper assesses ways in which it may be strengthened. Reforms are discussed in the context of the debate over a new international financial architecture. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I look at a farm that diversified its business and within this process bought a secondhand sausage vacuum filler. I do this in order to question how this machine came to be understood and valued by the farmers who bought it. The themes discussed include the role of the machine in changing the working practices of the farm, as well as factors unknown when buying secondhand--purchasers can only ever truly know the reliability and levels of performance of the machine retrospectively. While much work has considered the secondhand cultures of goods such as clothes, brick-a-brac, or cars, the departure I make here is to consider goods bought and used in commercial contexts. I consider the calculations made when a secondhand commodity is invested with the risks and tensions of expanding a business. There are critical and additional pressures resting on the machine: for example, if the machine fails to work, it may be detrimental to the business. The paper focuses on the appreciations of two farmers and how the machine they bought was used and appreciated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an in-depth, ‘case study’ style analysis of the experiences of two 13-year-old British Asian girls from a larger qualitative study investigating minority ethnic students' aspirations in science. Through the lens of identity as performativity and Bourdieu's notions of habitus and capital, the ways in which two girls engage with the field of science is examined. Samantha is British Indian and Fay is British Bangladeshi and they are both ‘top set’ students in science, but only one aspired to study triple science, while the other desired to be ‘famous’. The experiences of the two girls are explicated in this paper, teasing out their experiences and constructions of science. It is argued that cultural discourses of family, peers and teacher expectations can shape students' perceptions of science and education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to consider the attainment of the corporate objective of the UK Companies Act of 2006 Section 172(1) from the perspective of financial valuations that are reliant on the cost of capital. The cost of capital plays an important role in many of the models and propositions that are routinely used for financial valuation and decision making. Design/methodology/approach -- From the perspective of financial valuations that are used to guide decision making that is in accordance with the corporate objective of the UK Companies Act of 2006 Section 172(1), managers and directors require a valid, reliable, and interpretable cost of capital. The theory, models, and propositions of financial management, whether they be investment, financing, or distributions (Sections 829-853) decisions, are dependent on the cost of capital. This paper has three main tasks. First, the relevant sections of UK corporate statute with regard to the corporate objective need to be identified and presented. Second, a brief review of the function and role of the cost of capital for the valuations upon which investment, financing, and dividend decisions are based, is undertaken to ensure that the role and function of this key financial metric is clearly recognized. Third, since the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is so widely and exclusively used, often without recourse to other approaches to calculation of the cost of capital, an update of CAPM empirical evidence is undertaken to affirm the 2004 findings and subsequent recommendations by Fama and French that the CAPM is not an acceptable way of calculating the cost of capital. Findings -- It is doubtful whether directors, who use an empirically invalid and unreliable valuation model such as the CAPM to calculate the cost of capital, will be able to meaningfully and purposefully make decisions consistent with the "enlightened shareholder value". Managers and directors need to use approaches to the cost of capital that are valid and can be empirically verified. Practical implications -- This paper recommends that directors of public companies who make decisions using financial valuations that embody the cost of capital should ensure that models other than the CAPM are used; otherwise, they may find it difficult unable to defend challenges to their statutory duty of attaining the corporate objective. Originality/value -- An update of CAPM empirical evidence is undertaken to affirm the findings and subsequent recommendations by Fama and French (2004) that the CAPM is not an acceptable way of calculating the cost of capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The paper aims to look at the growth of private equity and to consider the concerns that the public and media have raised, as well as the response to these concerns. Design/methodology/approach -- This article is an opinion piece based on current and recent trends. Findings -- It is difficult to ascertain whether the publics' concerns are real or are media lead. The tax changes have also caused concern in the private equity business with a belief that they will drive investors out of the UK market and reduce the competitiveness and attractiveness of the UK for the private equity investor. Originality/value --The key may involve more transparency in the private equity industry as this may help resolve some of the growing public and political distrust. The paper also suggests that to attain a better understanding in this area, the competitive position of the UK market needs to be recognised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares and contrasts capacity utilisation in the manufacturing sectors of the US, UK and other EU countries over three decades. It argues that corporate governance and the pressures of globalisation have led to a tighter capacity stance in the UK but not generally in the US or Europe. The paper further explores the nature of the UK experience, in particular, the rival theories that efficiency in capital use has increased venus the view that firms have simply tightened their capacity stance in line with higher hurdle rates of return. The evidence of the paper supports the view that UK firms adopted a `submissive' response to the pressures of globalisation by shutting capacity and retreating from new investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the latest developments in the area of discrimination and its effect on pension schemes in the UK. It considers whether we have now reached the final frontier. After a review of recent changes in the areas of part-time workers, fixed-term employees, disability, sexual orientation and religion, it looks at recent case law relating to agency workers and the UK's proposed approach to age discrimination and pensions from 2006. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the relationship between social engagement, particularly civic engagement, and education. It is well known that more highly educated people are more likely to engage in voluntary work in formalized settings. It has been difficult to disentangle the effect of higher education from that of family origin and occupational socialization. This paper examines the effects of tertiary education on the social and civic engagement of young people, using the British Household Panel Study. The social and civic activity of young people is observed in their late teens, before entering the labour market or tertiary education, and compared with that of the same young people in their early 20s, after completing tertiary education courses or gaining labour market experience. It was found that the social and civic engagement of young people who would enter higher education was higher in their late teens than that of their peers who did not enter. However, higher education had a small additional effect on civic engagement, for both young and mature students. The children of professionals were the social grouping most likely to be involved in civic activities. The relationship of higher education, professional occupations and family socialization is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines firstly the appropriate measure of risk which determines the competitive rate of return on capital: the approach taken is to identify a firm's competitive rate of return on capital with its cost of capital, the relevant risk is therefore the risk on all the firm's securities; this is measured by the risk of the return on the firm's equities adjusted to take account of the risk arising from financial leverage. Secondly, the extent to which differences in the rate of return on capital for 88 UK firms in 12 broadly competitive industries can be attributed to differences in levels of risk: the data show a strong positive relationship between risk and return on capital at both firm and industry level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK's recent productivity performance has been strikingly weak. Output per hour worked, which increased by around 2.1 per cent per year in the decade leading up to the economic downturn, increased by just 0.2 per cent per year in the ten years following the global financial crisis. This paper presents three 'stylised facts' on the UK's recent productivity performance through the lens of official statistics: the weakness of recent productivity growth; the 'gap' in productivity terms between the UK and other leading economies; and the large differences in productivity between businesses. It surveys recent work by ONS to help researchers and policy-makers to understand the UK's productivity performance, including new experimental and official statistics, analysis and research. It concludes by drawing together the key findings of these new statistics, highlighting how further improvements might be made through the greater use of survey and administrative data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interrogates the relationship between working-class participation in higher education ( HE) in England and social and cultural mobility. It argues that embarking on a university education for working-class people has been construed in governmental discourses as an instrumental means of achieving upward mobility, or of aspiring to 'become middle class'. Education in this sense is thus not only understood as having the potential to confer value on individuals, as they pursue different 'forms of capital', or symbolic 'mastery' ( Bourdieu, 1986), but as incurring a form of debt to society. In this sense, the university can be understood as a type of 'creditor' to whom the working-class participants are symbolically indebted, while the middle classes pass through unencumbered. Through the analysis of empirical research conducted with staff from working-class backgrounds employed on a university Widening Participation project in England, the article examines resistance to dominant educational discourses, which understand working-class culture as 'deficient' and working-class participation in HE as an instrumental means of securing upward mobility. Challenging the problematic notion of 'escape' implicit in mobility discourses, this paper concludes by positing the alternative concept of 'fugitivity', to contest the accepted relationship in HE between creditor and debtor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Loic Wacquant, this paper argues that the demise of the Keynesian Welfare State (KWS) and the rise of neo-liberal economic policies in the UK has placed new surveillance technologies at the centre of a reconfigured "crime control field" (Garland, 2001) designed to control the problem populations created by neo-liberal economic policies (Wacquant, 2009a). The paper also suggests that field theory could be usefully deployed in future research to explore how wider global trends or social forces, such as neo-liberalism or bio-power, are refracted through the crime control field in different national jurisdictions. We conclude by showing how this approach provides a bridge between society-wide analysis and micro-sociology by exploring how the operation of new surveillance technologies is mediated by the "habitus" of surveillance agents working in the crime control field and contested by surveillance subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Written in the autumn of 1985, this paper argued that the political economy of Britain under Margaret Thatcher had up until then been discussed largely as a national phenomenon, and one that reflected the subordination of industry to financial interests. The paper proposed that the internationalisation of British capital was in fact a crucial part of the strategy to defeat labour and roll back the state, since Thatcherism welcomed inward investment as well as outward, and was supported by industry as well as finance. A left alternative had not only to challenge this strategy at national level, but also to be resolutely internationalist in its theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the turn of the century, young people’s aspirations have featured prominently in UK education policy and practice. Governments of all sides have espoused a rhetoric and enacted initiatives which have tended to focus on somehow ‘correcting’ the aspirations of students of working-class and minority ethnic origins. This paper applies a Bourdieusian framework to the analysis of the education and career aspirations of British-born young women of Bangladeshi heritage in higher education. In doing so, it advances a theoretically informed understanding of aspirations, which accounts for the multiple factors that contribute to shape them as well as for the relative implications in terms of future pathways. Drawing on interviews with 21 female undergraduate students, and building on Bourdieu’s notions of habitus and capital, I conceptualise aspirations as an aspect of habitus. I argue that this conceptualisation allows light to be shed on the ways in which multiple, intersecting dimensions of social identity and social structures play out in the shaping, re-shaping and possibly fading of aspirations. Additionally, it enables us to examine the mutually informing influences of aspirations and capital on practice. Findings indicate that the valuing of education and social mobility expressed by those of Bangladeshi and other minority ethnic origins are integral to collective constructions of ‘what people like us do’, which are grounded in diasporic discourses. They also illuminate the significance of social and cultural capital for young people’s capacity to aspire and actualise aspirations, as these contribute to delineate their ‘horizons for action’. This suggests that by failing to adequately recognise how structural inequalities inform differential access to valued capital, prevailing policy and practitioners’ approaches attribute excessive responsibility to students and their parents. The notion of ‘known routes’ is in this respect put forward as a way to make sense of aspirations, expectations and pathways, and the role of institutions in forging possible futures is highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities are facing a crisis in providing housing and managing population growth. The author's team has identified sufficient land associated with railway infrastructure to yield more than 250,000 new homes in London built above rail lines, providing around five times the annual minimum needed by the capital. This paper illustrates several feasible scenarios and real-life projects that could serve as guides for providing housing to space-constrained cities around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose |!|#8211; The purpose of this paper is to explore the choices learners have in steering their way through the educational system in the UK. Design/methodology/approach |!|#8211; The paper draws on data from two studies, one conducted in a state secondary school and the other in a Further Education College, both based in the north-west of England. Both used interviews (either individual or focus-group) to collect data, which were then analysed using a grounded approach. Findings |!|#8211; In linking the two studies the authors highlight how the impact of symbolic violence and the relations between groups and classes at school continue into the |!|#34;choices|!|#34; the learners make during adulthood and also into the learner|!|#39;s working life, and that these |!|#34;choices|!|#34; are often a large-scale consequence of many |!|#34;micro-choices|!|#34; arising from day-to-day situations. The acts of symbolic violence described in the college group are not of themselves very different from those described by the school group, though the consequences for the school group cannot yet be known. Research limitations/implications |!|#8211; The participants in the two groups are unconnected in that they attend different institutions and are at very different stages of their education. However the authors contend that there is a connection in terms of the participants|!|#39; experience of symbolic violence. Originality/value |!|#8211; The paper draws attention to the existence of symbolic violence in everyday school life, and highlights how these instances can have significant impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores strategies Polish migrant mothers undertake in order to achieve a state of 'normalcy' as they perceive it themselves, in particular with reference to their children's education and to their future prospects in the UK. 'Normalcy' in this paper denotes a state which is desired, projected and placed in the future rather than seen as everyday reality which surrounds the mothers. This article focuses on various ways the mothers negotiate in order to achieve the desired status and state of well-being and discusses these in the light of Pierre Bourdieu's habitus and capital and with reference to Erving Goffman's notions of normality, stigma and rules of conduct. I look at three aspects through which mothers strive to reach their imagined 'normalcy': (1) a belief in meritocratic values; (2) the feeling of 'classlessness' and (3) management of the 'migrant stigma'. The study is based on qualitative in-depth interviews with 36 Polish migrant mothers mainly from London with children in primary or secondary state schools. Even though it could be said that mothers as a social group represent social heterogeneity, the majority of the mothers in the study are educated to a post-compulsory level, having some sort of post A-level qualifications. Half of the 36 mothers arrived in the UK after Poland's EU accession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theory and evidence on the effects of public investment on growth and productivity are reviewed. It is concluded that, on average, public capital has positive impacts on output and private investment, partly offset by the effects of the taxation needed to finance it. A possible future shortfall in public capital in the UK is highlighted. The paper also reviews the contribution of transport infrastructure to productivity and considers implications for cost–benefit analysis. It is suggested that there is a case for greater UK investment in roads but, ideally, this should be implemented along with an efficient national road-pricing scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the joint role of market feedback and investment constraints on managerial behavior. Using a sample of UK fixed price initial public offerings, we show that underperformance of share returns at the IPO significantly affects managerial investment decisions in the period after the offering. Firms with better investment opportunities and proportionately lower fixed (higher intangible) assets are more sensitive to negative market feedback. Over the longer term, the more responsive firms perform significantly better than their non-responsive counterparts. The findings contribute to the debate on the informational advantage of managers over investors and present strong evidence that the market, on aggregate, can provide a superior assessment of a firm's opportunities. Managers who are able to respond to negative market feedback can significantly improve their firm's future prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the late eighteenth century in Britain to the late twentieth century in predominantly rural societies in the global south, most descriptions of peasants provided by government planners or economists have been remarkably similar. These descriptions focus on five alleged elements of peasant life: (1) peasants are backward and uncivilised - one aspect of that backwardness is their inability to control their sexual urges and thus their tendency to have too many children, (2) peasants are not sufficiently enamoured with consumption and their too easily met needs stifle economic development - this is often considered to be a function of laziness and thus peasants need to be compelled to labour harder, (3) peasants are inefficient and do not use land effectively and thus need to be compelled to labour more efficiently, (4) peasants get in the way of the necessary process of allowing capital to be applied to the land and thus need to be swept from the land, (5) peasants are dangerous and difficult to incorporate into states as responsible citizens. This paper provides examples of the rhetoric used to describe peasants in four different periods and places: during the enclosures and the consolidation of capitalism in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Irish potato famine in the middle of the nineteenth century, the spread of colonialism and a type of modernity in other than European locales in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the rise of development practice and national consolidation in what was then called the third world after the second world war. The paper argues that these descriptions were both the result of faulty imaginings of peasants and deemed necessary as a way to sell economic and social policies that worked to expel peasants from the land and turn them into wage labourers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to establish the role of absorptive capacity in technology transfer from acquisition FDI in U.K. manufacturing. It finds that the rate of productivity change following a foreign take-over is higher the higher the pre-acquisition productivity level of the acquired firm, indicating the importance of absorptive capacity. However, beyond some critical level of initial productivity, the rate of technology transfer due to foreign acquisition starts to decline. It seems that U.K. acquisition targets that had been operating nearer the domestic technology frontier have less to gain from their association with foreign multinationals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the determination and consequences of organizational changes (OC) in a panel of British and French establishments. Organizational changes include the decentralization of authority, delayering of managerial functions, and increased multitasking. We argue that OC and skills are complements. We offer support for the hypothesis of ‘skill-biased’ organizational change with three empirical findings. First, organizational changes reduce the demand for unskilled workers in both countries. Second, OC is negatively associated with increases in regional skill price differentials (a measure of the relative supply of skill). Third, OC leads to greater productivity increases in establishments with larger initial skill endowments. Technical change is also complementary with human capital, but the effects of OC is not simply due to its correlation with technological change but has an independent role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the simple hypothesis that when companies issue more capital, they have a tendency to select the type of capital, all other things being equal, which results in the higher short-term earnings per share (eps). The methodology employs probit analysis to test the hypothesis that the form of issue selected was that which gave the higher eps after controlling for other factors such as leverage and industry classification. The results lead us to conclude that there is evidence in capital issues of functional fixation on eps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the changes to pollution intensities (SO2, NOx, CO and CO2) of the United Kingdom, by using the Divisia index decomposition technique. The paper decomposes the drivers of the changes in pollution intensities into not only technology contribution and composition contribution but also into physical capital intensity contribution. This is because an increase in physical capital will lead to further use of energy and resources, which will further impact the environment. Compared to past studies, this paper extends the analysis to each industrial sector and includes more focused policy implications. The results find that the aggregate pollution intensity has declined during the period examined. As for SO2and NOx, the technology effect was the largest contributor for the decline in aggregate pollution intensity, during a period where economic instruments such as pollution taxes were not yet effectively applied to combat environmental issues, but major environmental statutory frameworks to regulate air pollution were developed along with voluntary measures such as environment management systems. On the other hand, concerning CO and CO2over the same time period observed, the contribution of technology effect for the aggregate intensity was small, compared with SO2, and NOx, which implies that economic instruments such as emission trading may be necessary for these pollutant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the law of value has a very tenuous hold over the healthcare industry, whether the US market-based form or the state form of the National Health Service developed in the UK. It also argues that the dominant form of medicine, biomedicine, acts as a powerful ideological and material support mechanism, in forming an elective affinity with market-based healthcare under circumstances where the law of value has only an external presence. The implications of this are drawn out through an analysis of the imperial tendencies of biomedicine towards other forms of medicine and the elective affinity between medicalisation and the commodification of social maladies as disease and illness. It is explained that the beneficiaries of this imperial expansion are the state, capital in general and global pharmaceutical capital in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Polish Journal of Management Studies is the property of Czestochowa University of Technology, Faculty of Management and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

• We propose a two-sector growth model inspired by unified growth theory, which captures the crucial phenomena of structural change and changes in adult survival rate along the Industrial Revolution. • We estimate the individual contribution of technological progress, adult mortality, workforce, and the accumulation of fixed and human capital to the overall growth of Great Britain's economy during the period 1541–1914. • We find a U-shaped relationship between adult survival and income per worker. • We find a crucial and complex role of adult survival on the transition between regimes. • We find that the accumulation of fixed capital is the driving force behind the transition from a Malthusian to a pre-modern regime. This paper proposes a framework inspired by the Unified Growth Theory and by the literature on structural change to assess the contribution of technology, adult mortality, workforce, and physical and human capital accumulation to the transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern growth. A calibrated version of the model is capable of reproducing the dynamics of Great Britain's (i.e. England, Wales and Scotland) economy during the period 1541–1914, matching both the timing of transition and the pattern of the main macroeconomic and demographic variables. Technological progress emerges as the prime mover until 1850, while thereafter the reduction in adult mortality and factors accumulation play the major role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary & Nonprofit Organizations is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the implementation of replacement cost accounting as a result of British standard that can not lead to an improvement in accounting, unless followed by more realistic life estimates. The fixed asset value closes on what should be on a replacement cost basis, if replacement cost accounting for fixed assets will be implemented by means of appraisals. The fixed asset values will be closer to replacement cost, if replacement cost accounting is implemented by price indicators applied to historic cost data.

This paper examines the concept of open innovation within the context of corporate social responsibility. It demonstrates how the practice of open innovation unfolds in inter-organizational collaborations that involve the voluntary or charitable sector, outlining the findings of an explorative collective case study of eight voluntary dyadic partnerships between corporate and nonprofit organizations in the United Kingdom, which have resulted in innovation outcomes. Two generic approaches to open innovation were witnessed: firstly, a more exploratory approach to dyadic engagement activities that resulted in an emergent innovation process, and secondly, a focused and pre-determined search activity to exploit the resources of the nonprofit partner that demonstrated a more planned innovation process. Two distinct boundary-spanning roles were identified: in dyads exhibiting few organizational linkages, the role was associated with formal responsibilities from senior management to ‘manage’ innovation opportunities and outcomes. In dyads exhibiting high linkages, there was no such formality; the role was a ‘conduit’ to facilitate search and exploration to locate opportunities for innovation through idea exchange. Overall, this research demonstrates the value of an open innovation approach driven by the need to address societal and social issues (rather than those purely economic). Such practice broadens a firm's ‘search’ activities and delivers innovations in exchange for enhanced social legitimacy – acting innovation capital for future enterprising activities and market advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The original genuine savings (GS) model started from a concern mainly with unchanged capital: if the stocks of all forms of capital decline through time, welfare will decline, too, eventually leading to unsustainability. In other words, negative GS rates indicate unsustainability. In the context of sustainable development evaluation, however, income distribution and change of per capita welfare are two significant dimensions that the GS model has totally ignored and that need to be aptly incorporated into the model. This is because, behind a positive GS ratio, a country still faces other factors such as current income inequality and population growth, which may undermine the enjoyable sustainable welfare. This paper therefore adjusts the GS framework for these reflections and tests its application to the United Kingdom and Taiwan between 1970 and 1998. Our result shows that the United Kingdom has more depressed GS rates and more eminent sustainable welfare loss than Taiwan over the years. This result has been accordant with some prior research claims: many resource-rich countries have achieved slow or no long-term improvements in their standards of living. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the agency explanation for the cross-sectional variation of corporate dividend policy in the UK by looking at the managerial entrenchment hypothesis drawn from the agency literature. Consistent with predictions, a significant U-shaped relationship between dividend payout ratios and insider ownership is observed for a large (exceeding 600 firms) sample of UK companies and two distinct periods. These results strongly suggest the possibility of managerial entrenchment when insider ownership reaches a threshold of around 30%. Evidence is also presented that non-beneficial holdings by insiders can lead to entrenchment in conjunction with shares held beneficially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a study of 3500 unquoted, UK small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The objectives of the research were to test various hypotheses concerning the determinants of SME capital structure and to establish whether and how the relationship of these determinants to long- and short-term debt varied between industries. Long-term debt was found to be related positively to asset structure and company size and negatively to age; short-term debt was related negatively to profitability, asset structure, size and age and positively to growth. Significant variation across industries was found in most of the explanatory variables. The effect of growth on short-term debt, however, was consistent across industries whilst profitability had no effect on long-term borrowing in any industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human capital theory provides the generally accepted interpretation of the relationship between earnings and labour market experience, namely that general human capital tends to increase with experience. However, there are other plausible interpretations. Search models, for example, generally predict that more time in the labour market increases the chance of finding a better match and hence tends to he associated with higher earnings. This paper shows how a simple search model can be used to predict the amount of earnings growth that can be assigned to search with the residual being assigned to the human capital model. A substantial if not the larger part of the rise in earnings over the life-cycle in Britain can be explained by a simple search model, and virtually all the earnings gap between men and women can be explained in this way. Overall, the evidence suggests that we do need to reinterpret the returns to experience in earnings functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the introduction of the post-1992 university, various, and ongoing, higher education (HE) policy reforms have fuelled academic, political, media and anecdotal discussions of the trajectories of UK university students. An outcome of this has been the dualistic classification of students as being from either ‘traditional’ or ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds. An extensive corpus of literature has sought to critically discuss how students experience their transition into university, questioning specifically the notion that all students follow a linear transition through university. Moreover, there is far more complexity involved in the student experience than can be derived from just employing these monolithic terms. This research proposes incorporating students’ residential circumstances into these debates to encourage more critical discussions of this complex demographic. Drawing upon the experiences of a sample of students from a UK ‘post-1992’ university this research will develop a profile for each accommodation type to highlight the key characteristics of the ‘type’ of student most likely to belong to each group. In doing so this establishes a more detailed understanding of how a ‘student’ habitus might affect the mechanisms which are put in place to assist students in their transitions into and through university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of technological change and productivity in the construction industry requires the development of some measure of the fixed capital stock available to the industry. There are serious theoretical and methodological weaknesses in the traditional neo-classical approaches to valuation of the capital stock. This paper is intended to overcome some of those problems in solar as they affect the construction industry and to present a suitable method of measurement using readily available published statistics. The paper also considers a method of deriving the average age of the capital stock from the estimated value of capital so calculated. This will help to facilitate empirical checks on the assumptions used and will also provide another dimension of technical change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the life and works of British economist Nicholas Kaldor. Kaldor resembled economist John Maynard Keynes more than any other twentieth-century economist because of the breadth of his interests, his wide-ranging contributions to theory, his insistence that theory must serve policy, his periods as an adviser to governments, his fellowship at King's and, of course, his membership of the House of Lords. There were three stages of Kaldor's career. First, there was the young orthodox theorist at the London School of Economics who made seminal contributions to the theory of the firm, the emerging theory of imperfect competition, welfare economics and capital theory. Second, there was the enthusiastic Keynesian, who absorbed Keynes's message very thoroughly indeed and added significantly to the corpus of Keynesian thought in at least two directions: his model of the trade cycle and what is probably his greatest theoretical article, "Speculation and Economic Stability," together with its sequel on Keynes's theory of the own-rates of interest which was written but not published at the time.

Economists have long recognized that the Euro-dollar market plays an important role in the mechanism by which monetary disturbances are transmitted among countries. Nevertheless, little is known about either the portfolio behavior that gives rise to the mechanism, or the speed with which monetary changes originating in one country are transmitted internationally. The present study attempts to furnish some tentative answers to these questions. While there is now a growing literature on the subject of Euro-currencies (Black, 1971; Bryant and Hendershott, 1970; Freedman, 1973; Hendershott, 1967; Levin, 1974; Rich, 1972), most studies employ equilibrium models of portfolio selection in which forward exchange premiums are taken as given, thus excluding the problems of disequilibrium adjustment and forward market behaviour which are considered here. Although this paper analyses a single international asset market, the estimation results have broader significance as well. In particular, they bear upon two fundamental questions of international finance: the degree of international capital mobility, and the determinants of the forward exchange rate. Both of these topics have implications for the theory of the balance of payments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK electricity supply industry appears to have experienced an increasing capital to labor ratio in the post-war period. Whilst it is important to analyse the nature of the substitution process between these two factors of production, this paper proceeds on the basis that capital and labor substitutability cannot be considered in isolation from the impact of the energy input in the production process. The increase in the real price of energy which the UK has recently experienced has had many consequences upon the British economy, not least the fact that the importance of energy as a factor input is now recognized.
This paper reports some empirical estimates of factor substitutability in the electricity industry taking full account of energy as a separate input. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact on the commercial property markets of supply-side policies introduced by the UK Government between 1979 and 1990. It focuses on the structural changes made to the capital and land markets and investigates the long-term implications of these changes for the supply of commercial space. Supply-side policies implemented during the 1980s are examined and market evidence in the form of planning, construction and rental data is used to establish market fluctuations over the same period. The research clarifies the distinction between the short-term impacts and the long-term structural changes in the land and capital markets arising from those supply-side strategies. It examines in greater detail the significance of the structural changes to the future performance of the commercial property markets. The conclusions relate to the importance of these structural changes to any analysis or monitoring of activity within the commercial property markets from the 1990s onward. The potential impact on the commercial property markets of any further structural changes to the captial and land markets needs thorough investigation and should not be underestimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores inequalities in using the Internet by investigating several digital activities that require different levels of digital capital. Data collected in the U.K. through an online survey of a national representative sample (868 respondents) shows that levels of digital capital and type and quality of online activities are intertwined. The analysis shows that digital capital, conceived and measured as a specific capital, is entangled with the frequency/intensity of social, economic/financial means, ordinary/daily entertainment, and political activities, but not with learning-related activities. This work contributes to the literature in both empirical and theoretical terms by testing the reliability of digital capital and expanding its use to investigate digital inequalities. From a policy-making point of view, the awareness of citizens' level of digital capital may help tailor initiatives to support citizens in using ICTs on a wide array of fields, such as job seeking, sociability, savings, familial relationships, and several online activities. Finally, this paper highlights that digital inequalities cannot be tackled by considering access and competence separately. By contrast, the adoption of measures that synthesise the two dimensions might help simplify policy-making's initiatives to tackle digital inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]