Trade in creative services: relatedness and regional specialization in the UK

Creative services have become an important, but understudied, part of global trade. This paper presents new evidence on the transformation, geography and industrial relatedness of creative service exports in the UK, using the Inquiry in International Trade in Services (ITIS) database. Creative services exports have grown over the past decade, but there are pronounced patterns of geographical specialization in the export of creative and non-creative services. We develop a measure of relatedness between exports of creative and non-creative services and of manufacturing goods. We argue that creative services are economically significant because of their interrelationship with other local sectors.</p

sj-docx-1-usj-10.1177_00420980221148388 – Supplemental material for Progressive cities: Urban–rural polarisation of social values and economic development around the world

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-usj-10.1177_00420980221148388 for Progressive cities: Urban–rural polarisation of social values and economic development around the world by Davide Luca, Javier Terrero-Davila, Jonas Stein and Neil Lee in Urban Studies</p

Level best? The levelling up agenda and UK regional inequality

‘Levelling up’ – a policy agenda focused on reducing regional inequalities – has become the new mantra in British politics. This paper critiques the policy programme from its emergence in 2019 to the publication of the 2022 levelling up White Paper. While it is a welcome recognition of gross regional inequality, local institutions lack capacity to deliver, there has been little genuine devolution and our analysis shows that little new funding has been committed. ‘Levelling up’ could simply become the latest in a list of politically useful but empty slogans which are used as a substitute for resources and devolution.</p