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CEP Insights

Insights: condensed

The Insights series is an introduction to the work of the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP). Each Insight highlights the contribution of CEP researchers to both academic understanding and policymaking in one area of ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Regional productivity differences in the UK and France: From the micro to the macro

We propose a new data resource that attempts to overcome limitations of standard firm-level datasets for the UK (like the ARD/ABS) by building on administrative data covering the population of UK firms with at least one ...Read more...

Blog

What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth:

What are spatial disparities?

Henry Overman explains what spatial disparities are, why we need to consider them when thinking about local economic growth policies and whether we should try to reduce them....Read more...

Blog

Centre for Cities City Talks:

City talks: what are the signs that the UK is levelling up? (Podcast)

Henry Overman speaks to Chief Executive Andrew Carter about how to measure the scale of the underperformance of cities in the UK and search for evidence that could point us towards the right solutions, in this podcast ep...Read more...

CEP Insights

Cities and regions

Economic prosperity is very unevenly distributed across space. What causes some places to be richer and some poorer? Why do these spatial disparities matter - and what can policy do to reduce them? Economists studying ur...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Regional differences in UK transport BCRs: an empirical assessment

The UK government uses a Value for Money (VfM) framework to help allocate infrastructure expenditure. At the core of this framework is a benefit to cost ratio (BCR) that is calculated using a set of established monetised...Read more...

CentrePiece article

People, places and politics: the challenge of 'levelling up' the UK

As has been much discussed since the election, economic performance varies widely among the towns, cities and regions of the UK. Henry Overman argues that policies to address these spatial disparities should be judged on...Read more...

CEP election analysis

People, places and politics

Economic performance varies widely between the towns, cities and regions of the UK. On some measures, this variation has widened since the financial crisis. These disparities have already proved to be a key theme in the ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Industry in Britain: an atlas

The UK’s financial services industry is not nearly as London-centric as the creative industries. Rather than the South East of England being the country’s productivity engine, it is a band stretching west from the capita...Read more...

CEP report

Industry in Britain - an atlas

Living near a productive company can have considerable economic benefits. It means the chance of well-paid jobs, creates opportunities for suppliers of goods and services, and can be a boost to local retailers. This comm...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Powerhouse of cards?

It is not yet clear whether the UK government’s commitment to a ‘Northern Powerhouse’ will survive the change of personnel at the top. But as Neil Lee explains, the idea of seeking to reduce regional disparities via spat...Read more...

CEP election analysis

The Economic Performance of UK Cities: Can Urban and Regional Policy Make a Difference to the North-South Divide

There are large variations in economic performance across UK cities and on some measures, they have widened since the global financial crisis. All main parties promise action to reduce them, but there is little differenc...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Unequal Britain: how real are regional disparities?

Average earnings vary widely across the regions of Britain, a fact that has prompted many decades of policies aimed at reducing regional disparities. But as Henry Overman and Steve Gibbons demonstrate, such variation rev...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

In Search of the 'Economic Dividend' of Devolution: Spatial Disparities, Spatial Economic Policy and Decentralisation in the UK

After a decade of devolution and amid uncertainties about its effects, it is timely to assess and reflect upon the evidence and enduring meaning of any ‘economic dividend’ of devolution in the UK. Taking a multi-discipli...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Wage Disparities in Britain: People or Place?

This paper investigates wage disparities across sub-national labour markets in Britain using a newly available microdata set. The findings show that wage disparity across areas is very persistent over time. While area ef...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Does Decentralization Matter for Regional Disparities? A Cross-Country Analysis

This paper looks at the relationship between fiscal and political decentralization and the evolution of regional inequalities in a panel of 26 countries – 19 developed and 7 developing – for the period between 1990 and 2...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Spatial Determinants of Productivity: Analysis for the Regions of Great Britain

This paper uses NUTS3 sub-regional data for Great Britain to analyse the determinants of spatial variations in income and productivity. We decompose the spatial variation of earnings into a productivity effect and an occ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Spatial Disparities in Developing Countries: Cities, Regions and International Trade

Spatial inequality in developing countries is due to the natural advantages of some regions relative to others and to the presence of agglomeration forces, leading to clustering of activity. This paper reviews and develo...Read more...