30-31 August 2001. In particular it focuses on growth in the SME sector. Differences in the profile for each country's SME sector are considered and a number of variables that may affect SME growth are looked at. These variables include organisational age, institutional support services, various barriers to growth, effects of initial capital requirements, characteristics of successful entrepreneurs and the possible effects of the informal sector. The characteristics of Polish firms that are likely to succeed in a future EU environment are also considered.
Innovation is found to be significantly related to an organisations size.
Factors affecting the level of innovation are considered. Motivated by the model of dynamic distribution, a transition matrix is derived from a panel of ratios of provincial real incomes to national averages across 30 provinces over 1978-1998. The transition matrix is used not only to reveal the transitions of provinces between the states of income over time, but also to predict whether there is a tendency across provinces to converge in real income per worker in the long run. This study finds evidence of a slight reduction of income dispersion across Chinese provinces over 1978-1998. But the slight reduction of income dispersion is not strong enough for the provinces to converge to mean income.