The launch of the Small Business Service in the United Kingdom stimulated a review of small business policy and support in the United Kingdom. The Service inherited a substantial number of policies and initiatives which have been criticised for their poorly stated aims and overall lack of...

The broad focus of this paper is the divergence of implemented policy from intended policy in UK small business support. The Small Business Service (SBS) is the United Kingdom's most recent attempt to provide coherent support for small business. With its structure of local franchisees and...

Investors in People (IiP) plays a central role in the UK government's policies for workforce development. Small firms have been a particular focus of government support with IiP along with claims that the scheme will enhance the performance of these firms. However, it is argued in this paper...

The authors' concern is with the relationship between household income and property value, within the context of the debate about the fairness of council tax-the property-based system of local taxation in England. Although located within this particular debate, the fundamental issue of the...

The provision of advisory support to small firms is almost ubiquitous in OECD countries, although it is organised in different ways and is justified on slightly different grounds. In England publicly supported advisory services are provided through the Business Link (BL) network. Here, we...

The author challenges common assumptions about the nature of the emerging global economy. Rather than being the product of disembedded market forces, this new global political economy is organized by specialized forms of intelligence gathering and judgment determination inside the new global...

Intense global competition and the advent of a raft of employment regulations (notably, the national minimum wage, or NMW) have placed the UK garment industry under severe pressure. The prospects for a significant segment of this sector-ethnic-minority-owned businesses-appear to be extremely...

CV studies rarely ask willingness to accept (WTA) questions, yet there are a range of environmental projects where there are likely to be potential losers as well as gainers. This paper presents evidence from six biodiversity projects that the inclusion of contingent compensation payments from...

Charges for parking in the countryside pose a particular dilemma in Scotland as they are seen by many outdoor groups as a backdoor approach to restricting the public's newly acquired right of responsible access to the countryside. The issue is particularly sensitive in the case of the Cairngorms...

This paper reports a Contingent Valuation application to estimate the non-market costs and benefits of hydro scheme developments in an Icelandic wilderness area. A deliberative group-based approach, called Market Stall, is compared to a control group consisting of conventional in-person...