This unique Handbook examines the impacts on, and responses to, economic geography explicitly from the perspective of the behaviour, mechanics, systems and experiences of different firms in various types of industries. The industry studies approach allows the authors to explain why the economic...

The imminent large-scale EU enlargement raises important questions regarding the success of Phare as one of the Pre-Accession Funds in preparing candidate countries' institutions for Structural Funding, the need to reform EU regional policy itself, and to what extent the Commission is using...

When comparisons in terms of industrial policy lessons to be learned have taken place, it has tended to be solely vis-a-vis the 'development state' East Asian experience. This paper broadens the analysis and considers lessons which African countries can learn fro other so-called 'tiger'...

Picking up on one of Hymer's key contributions, this paper examines the impact that inward foreign direct investment (FDI) into the UK has on the patterns of development, both within and across regions. Using a panel of data for the manufacturing sector, the paper illustrates that even where one...

This paper provides a critical macro-level evaluation of the Lisbon process and Sapir report, through the lens of examining the Irish experience. Our assessment of the performance of the Irish economy depicts a picture of catch-up and convergence with average EU productivity and GNP levels,...

It is now widely known that most economic time series of nominal and real exchange rates, money supplies, nominal and real interest rates, price levels and annual rates of inflation possess the property of unit root non-stationarity (stochastic trends). The objective of this paper is to consider...

In this study, we consider 15 countries and examine the relationship between exchange rate volatility and macroeconomic volatility. We show that, in general, empirical support for the existence of a link between exchange rates and macroeconomic fundamentals is very weak and that other factors...

This paper explores the nature of the co-called 'private equity business model' (PEBM) and assesses its shortcomings, using the illustrative example of the role of private equity in structuring the finance and subsequent collapse of MG Rover, as the automotive industry has been a significant...