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Purpose: The literature mostly investigates the business cycle transmission of the United Kingdom (UK) and France as a part of a wider group (e.g. European Exchange Rate Mechanism or G7), despite their historical links and regional significance. Thus, herein paper aims to analyse the inter-dependence of these economies and how a shock from one of them affects the other for the data since 1978 to 2019. Design/methodology/approach: In this paper, first, preliminary statistics were calculated in order to describe the historical relationship between these countries. The econometric part estimates the vector auto-regression model (VAR) to assess the inter-dependence of the economies. VAR model allows further to inspect the impulse response functions that shows the shock dynamics from one country to another. In order to verify if a shock from one of the economies is important to another, the study uses granger causality test. Findings: The study establishes a strong link between these countries. A business cycle is transmitted significantly between the economies of France and UK, with a single standard deviation shock from France resulting in a long term effect of 0.4% change in gross domestic product (GDP) of UK and 1% vice versa. Additionally changes in GDP of both of the countries significantly Granger-cause change to GDP of the corresponding economy. Originality/value: This is the first empirical study investigating the business cycle transmission between France and UK and providing a quantitative assessment of their inter-dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critical commentary on area-based fiscal incentives and regeneration in Europe, focusing on Enterprise Zones (EZs) in Britain and zones franches urbaines (ZFUs) in France. It, thus, counters the trans-Atlantic comparative bias of much of the extant literature. The paper provides a qualitative account of the development trajectory of four zones in Britain and France. It, thus, also counters the bias for evaluating short-term quantitative outputs (e.g. leverage ratios, cost per job) over long-term qualitative spatial outcomes. We consider how four variables (the objectives and ideological foundations of the EZ and ZFU programmes, the nature and scope of policy instruments deployed, the heterogeneous geography of the zones and local implementation) influence process and outcomes locally and the extent to which they engender ‘sustainable’ regeneration; the (re)embedding of zone development locally so that perpetual public investment and intervention is unnecessary. We conclude that, notwithstanding their potential to stimulate development and employment gains, area-based fiscal incentives are (given their propensity to produce unanticipated outcomes andpost hocchallenges) an imperfect platform to promote sustainable regeneration. This is, in part, due to an intrinsic flaw of the model; the limited effective public control over private investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though the concept of 'culture clash' has been widely discussed and written about in the context of mergers and acquisitions, the literature has been relatively silent about how to empirically measure this phenomenon. Given the difficulties associated with developing and testing such a measure — especially gaining access to sufficient numbers of firms which have recently experienced a merger it is not surprising that little has been done. In this paper, we present a post-hoc analysis of a cultural compatibility index that was developed as part of a multi-study survey that we conducted. In addition, we provide evidence of the measure's integrity in two different national cultures. The analysis is based on a survey of executives of acquired British and French firms as to their perceptions of compatibility with the organizational values of the buying firms. We found evidence to suggest that the measure is a reliable and valid congruence index within and across national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One might expect governments to react to deepening European integration since the mid-1980s by updating national school curricula in social science subjects such as history and geography so as to reflect the new realities. France has done so, whereas England has not. This study asks how one explains this variation in outcome. Established explanations for why Britain has been a more reluctant European than France on other issues provide a useful starting point. However, a more thorough explanation for the outcome on this issue is gained by instead looking at the role of historical legacies in education ("laissez-faire" and decentralization in England and "faire" and centralization in France) that date back to the beginnings of the spread of mass education in the 19th century. These unique national legacies served as a prism through which Europeanization was filtered, and this contributes to an understanding for the variation in contemporary curricula content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years both Britain and France have initiated major reforms of the organization of urban policy which have followed the introduction of new mechanisms for the allocation of resources to urban regeneration schemes. In the case of City Challenge, local partnerships were invited to engage in a competitive bidding exercise while the Contrat de Ville was based on a process of negotiation between the state and the different tiers of local government. The perceived success of these approaches led them to become central features of new national policies. Against the background of specific political and administrative traditions of the two countries, the article compares the rationale for each approach, the developments leading up to their introduction, the form and content of the programmes, and the mechanisms by which they were prepared and implemented. The underlying differences in philosophy are outlined through a series of comparative themes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]