The paper investigates to what extent the convergence of banks over risk-adjusted capital standards set by the new Basel Capital Accord may affect the way in which they screen innovative firms. It also gives an overview of the existing forms of credit support to R&D activities. The study is...

A small proportion of high growth firms create the majority of all new jobs. For policymakers, it is important to know (1) the obstacles faced by high growth firms are and (2) the obstacles faced by firms with the potential to achieve high growth, but which are yet to achieve this. This...

Two recent electoral results - Donald Trump’s election as US president and the UK’s Brexit vote - have re-ignited debate on the psychological factors underlying voting behavior. Both campaigns promoted themes of fear, lost pride, and loss aversion, which are relevant to the personality...

The creative industries have long been seen as an innovative sector. More recent research posits that creative occupations are also a fundamental, but overlooked, driver of innovation. Theory also suggests cities are important for both creative industries and occupations, with urban environments...

It is a widely held perception, although empirically contentious, that credit rationing is an important phenomenon in the UK small business sector. In response to this perception the UK government initiated a loan guarantee scheme (SFLGS) in 1981. In this paper we use a unique dataset comprised...

There is increasing evidence of a widening in the cross-country dispersion in general working hours. More recently, however, there has been considerable attention given to the “long hours culture” phenomenon identified in certain segments of the labour market, in particular amongst...

Whilst there is a volume of literature mapping out the evolution, causes and implications of income inequality across countries, there is little in-depth evidence concerning the desire of populations for income equality. This paper tackles this gap by presenting UK evidence from a large-scale...

A simple model of the firms’ decision to pay workers performance related pay (PRP) is tested using company level data for 1,001 UK private sector businesses. From the basic sample statistics we observe that, on average, 26.5% of workers are covered by PRP systems. Yet this hides the fact that...