Steve Rayner

A dissertation is often a crucial part of a Business and Management degree and can heavily influence the final mark. It can be extremely daunting: it requires a lengthy piece of writing and forms a major component for assessment. In fact, when faced with this task the first word that comes to mind for many students is simply ‘Help!’ This new and updated edition provides the necessary help, covering all the stages from the initial choice of subject through to the final writing. Stephen Rayner joins Brian White in this excellent guide to dissertations, which is equally useful to both undergraduates and postgraduates. It includes support on all aspects of the dissertation, from the student-supervisor relationship to evaluation and analysis of data.

This book considers the social and economic arrangements that would be necessary for rational mechanisms of exchange and distribution to emerge, function, and remain viable if extreme conditions produced an absence or the severe destruction of an institutional infrastructure and of resource endowments. Written by an economist, a sociologist, and an anthropologist, the study confronts such radical circumstances from an interdisciplinary perspective, thereby rethinking and revising some cherished conventional economic and social assumptions.At one level, the book discusses the kinds of market structures that would be viable under different socioeconomic conditions. At another level, the analysis questions monolithic approaches to applied economic analysis and policy based on what works under existing conditions. To illustrate the applicability of theoretical modeling, the authors consider two policy areas: economic recovery from a major societal disaster and economic development. The book will be of particular interest to students of applied economics, but it will also be of interest to those concerned with social ecology, economy and society, economic history, economic anthropology, applied sociology, and developmental studies. It will be especially valuable to scholars in Eastern European and socialist economic systems that are currently seeking to establish market economies.