How can Bangladesh enhance its competitiveness as an outsourcing country for British retailers of ready-made clothing?

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would first like to express my gratitude for my research supervisor, colleagues, and peers and family whose immense and constant support has been a source of continuous guidance and inspiration.

DECLARATION

I [type your full first names & surname here], declare that the following dissertation/thesis and its entire content has been an individual, unaided effort and has not been submitted or published before. Furthermore, it reflects my opinion and take on the topic and is does not represent the opinion of the University.

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ABSTRACT

This dissertation elaborates and estimates a modified form of the gravity trade model derived from a conventional model to apprise trade flows of a single commodity of T&C trade separately. The purpose of this study is to evaluate, analyse, and classify the significant determinants affecting T&C trade at the national, regional and global levels for the period from 1980 to 2008. The models for T&C trade are estimated based on the panel data estimation approach with fixed effect for all three levels. Apart from the fundamental gravity variables, a more comprehensive set of variables is developed in this study, such as industry-specific factors being added to capture the industry features of the T&C sectors. Moreover, special consideration is also given in investigating the impact of logistics performance as well as socio--political and cultural factors that have shaped T&C trade patterns during the trade restriction era and the dynamic situation of global T&C trade. Moreover, this study explains the endogeneity of Bangladeshi T&C exports by applying instrumental variables with country fixed effects in the gravity trade model to examine the ways that their growth of Bangladesh's T&C exports has displaced that of the other selected Asian economies over the period of 1990 to 2008. Furthermore, the elasticity test is applied to see whether the displacement effect varies across the selected Asian countries. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is conducted so as to provide an opportunity to examine the robustness of the results with respect to changes in the underlying parameters.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTI

DECLARATIONII

ABSTRACTIII

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY1

Research Approach1

Research Instrument1

Research Strategy2

Data Collection Methods3

Reliability4

Validity4

Ethical Considerations6

Limitations7

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS8

Bangladesh's T&C Export Performance8

Impact of Bangladesh's T&C exports on its neighbours10

Analysis of T&C Trade Flows for Bangladesh and the UK14

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION25

Conclusion25

Summary of the Major Findings29

CHAPTER 6: RECOMMENDATIONS34

Recommendations for Future Research34

Implications of the Results36

REFERENCES38

APPENDIX A43

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

Research Approach

This research aims to examine determinants and thoroughly analyses their impacts on T&C trade based on Bangladesh's trade data from 1980-2008 with the gravity trade model. Determinants that are considered include the basic determinants in additional to political, institutional, social, countries' production efficiency, logistics performance and cultural factors in different levels. Furthermore, this current study will explain the endogeneity of Bangladeshi T&C exports by applying instrumental variables with country in the gravity trade model to examine the ways that the increase of Bangladesh's T&C exports has had a displacement effect on other selected Asian countries over the period of 1990-2008 (Meister, 2008, ...