This study examines the productivity performance of Balkan firms within and outside the European Union (EU), including the influence of loans. A multiple treatment model is used to compare the effects on productivity of membership and loans both separately and collectively, which in the case of loans allows a separate analysis of their influence on firms in non-member states. The use of conditional quantile regressions measures the effect on productivity of membership and loans separately as treatment variables. This provides an analysis of where the treatment influence is greatest across the distribution curve and identifies the significance of selected control variables on the outcome. In the full sample, the findings indicate that EU membership and loans have a positive effect on productivity, with membership being more important than loans. Outside the EU, firms in receipt of loans are more productive than those without. However, the significance of both membership and loans is restricted to the lower end of the productivity distribution curve. The manufacturing sample shows that EU membership has a significant positive effect across 70% of the deciles measured, whilst the influence of loans is restricted to the lower deciles, with rental capital (leasing) also positively significant in the lower four deciles. In the services sector, however, membership is significant up to 90% of the distribution, with loans at 60%.

The neoliberal agenda has polarised societies and in consequence, the choices facing the UK electorate range from neoliberalism to left wing socialism. Empirical evidence already exists on the measurable effect of the increasing dominance of the neoliberal wing of the Conservative party, indicating the continuation of laissez faire, migration control, increasing inequality, a low tax low wage economy, stagnating income and deteriorating public services. The competing ideology will result in the nationalisation of the utilities and the railway system, the regulation of capital, necessitating some element of control to prevent flight, the deregulation of labour, increased taxation, particularly on corporations to repair the damage to infrastructure and public services, and provisions enacted to improve wealth distribution. Both these alternatives should be unappealing to the majority of the electorate. However, allied to the "first past the post" electoral system, in a post Brexit world, what has become the tribal nature of UK society will oscillate between two competing ideologies to the detriment of national welfare. The rationale for this phenomenon is little understood or accepted by the political elite. A plausible explanation is the cultural shift in progressive values towards a post industrial, technological, socially inclusive, multicultural society, built on increasing opportunities for tertiary education, which has threatened the perceived superiority of privilege enjoyed by the older post war generation of primarily white men.

This research explores the effectiveness of the Washington Consensus (WC) programme as a mechanism for improving national welfare in transition and emerging economies, using its internalisation by the European Union (EU) as a proxy. The results indicate that there is a positive benefit to firms with accession to the EU, leading to greater productivity improvement and performance advantages than in non-member states. Foreign direct investment directly benefitted those firms that became investees, with little evidence of spillovers to domestic companies. The vertical nature of the investment, with an emphasis on international production networks that utilise significant levels of foreign inputs, infers protection of intellectual property and a reduction in value added, with results indicating a failure to achieve an export multiplier. There is evidence of substantial benefits accruing to firms in receipt of loans, but the apparent paucity of their availability may imply market failure. The gains made by innovative firms do not appear to do justice to the initiatives undertaken and may indicate a dilution of national innovative capacity.