Public Sector Spending and Regional Economic Development: Crowding Out or Adding Value?

No abstract available

A tale of two nationalisations: experiences of post 1945 public ownership in the UK and France compared

As public ownership comes back into fashion following the failings and growing contradictions of neoliberal processes of marketisation and privatisation, it is important to learn the lessons for public policy from earlier processes of nationalisation. In this article, I compare the post 1945 experiences of nationalisation in the UK and France. Both countries underwent sweeping processes of nationalisation in the aftermath of the Second World War amidst a broader international shift towards a more state driven model of economic development under capitalism. However, the two experiences of nationalisation diverged considerably, reflecting underlying differences in past forms of economic development, the different balance of class forces and the integration of each country into the broader global economy. The article suggests that these experiences remind us of the importance of a variegated perspective on the evolution of capitalism, distinctive political-economic trajectories and situating major policy shifts in time and space

Revisiting the Old Industrial Region: Adaptation and Adjustment in an Integrating Europe

The position of old industrial regions (OIRs) has been neglected in recent regional development research, partly as a result of dominant discourses concerned with concepts such as the knowledge economy, learning regions and the new regionalism. One outcome of this conceptual overload is that empirical research has typically been confined to all too familiar case studies of regional success that tell a rather partial story. Yet the extension of the European integration project eastwards alongside growing competition from the urban and regional ‘hotspots’ of the global south prompts a series of largely unconsidered questions about the ability of OIRs to achieve sustainable economic development and social cohesion in the years ahead. Lacking the capital, technological and labour assets of more dynamic cities and regions, and with the historic legacy of deindustrialisation and the decline of traditional sectors, OIRs face some important dilemmas of adjustment and adaptation. In this paper our purpose is to engage with these issues through some preliminary empirical research into the recent fortunes of OIRs in Western Europe’s largest economies: France, Germany, Spain and the UK. Drawing upon material from the Eurostat database, our results hint at interesting patterns of divergence in the performance of OIRs in terms of processes of economic restructuring, employment change and social cohesion. In particular some important variations emerge in the trajectory of regions within different national contexts. Drawing upon recent thinking relating to commodity chains and global production networks, our results lead us to pose a series of questions that relate to the way regions are being repositioned within broader political and economic networks as part of unfolding processes of uneven development and changing spatial divisions of labour

Beyond Aspiration: Young People And Decent Work In The De-Industrialised City

No abstract available

A new definition of economic democracy – and what it means for inequality

How democratic is an economy? And which countries are best at engaging the population in economic decision making? To answer these questions, writes Andrew Cumbers (University of Glasgow), the Democratising the Economy project has developed a new index of economic democracy, which incorporates a broad range of measures and reassess its relationship with inequality. The index shows that, though there is no single model for increasing economic democracy, Scandinavian countries perform particularly well in terms of economic participation, inequality and productivity

The restructuring of an employment system: the experience of north sea oil in the north east of England

The concern of this thesis is the impact of incoming oil related activities (in the form of rig fabrication) upon the existing industrial work force in the North East of England. It examines how the interrelationship of two processes (the increasing centralisation of the international oil industry and the historical development of the labour force in the North East) has shaped the precise pattern of labour relations within the fabrication sector in the North East. In particular it notes how a mixture of political indecision in the 1970s and ideological dogma in the 1980s has allowed the international oil industry to dictate the terms of North Sea oil developments. As a consequence, fabrication firms have been forced to marginalise large elements of the work force. It is this process, set in the context of past industrial development that is the principle focus of this thesis

The work of community gardens: reclaiming place for community in the city

The growth of community gardens has become the source of much academic debate regarding their role in community empowerment in the contemporary city. In this article, we focus upon the work being done in community gardens, using gardening in Glasgow as a case study. We argue that while community gardening cannot be divorced from more regressive underlying economic and social processes accompanying neoliberal austerity policies, it does provide space for important forms of work that address social needs and advance community empowerment. In developing this argument we use recent geographical scholarship concerning the generative role of place in bringing together individuals and communities in new collective forms of working. Community gardens are places that facilitate the recovery of individual agency, construction of new forms of knowledge and participation, and renewal of reflexive and proactive communities that provide broader lessons for building more progressive forms of work in cities

Evolution in Economic Geography: Institutions, Regional Adaptation and Political Economy

Economic geography has, over the last decade or so, drawn upon ideas from evolutionary economics in trying to understand processes of regional growth and change, with the concept of path dependence assuming particular prominence. Recently, some prominent researchers have sought to delimit and develop an evolutionary economic geography (EEG) as a distinct approach, aiming to create a more coherent and systematic theoretical framework for research. This paper contributes to debates on the nature and development of EEG. It has two main aims. First, we seek to restore a broader conception of social institutions and agency to EEG, informed by the recent writings of institutional economists like Geoffrey Hodgson. Second, we link evolutionary concepts to political economy approaches, arguing that the evolution of the economic landscape must be related to the broader dynamics of capital accumulation, centred upon the creation, realisation and geographical transfer of value. As such, we favour the utilisation of evolutionary and institutional concepts within a geographical political economy approach rather than the construction of a separate and theoretically ‘pure’ EEG; evolution in economic geography, not an evolutionary economic geography

Sine praejudicio? Economics and the 2014 Scottish independence referendum

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the contribution of expert economic opinion to the 2014 referendum campaigns on Scottish independence. We argue that the input from economics to both sides of the debate, as well as to independent analysis, was constrained by a mainstream economics framing. The result was a focus on calculable outcomes predicated on unchanging institutions and behaviour, and the question of currency arrangements that assumes the status quo is an optimal currency area. As the consequences of constitutional change for institutions and behaviour are uncertain, an equilibrium framework treats anything beyond calculable prediction as a shock, inducing fear of the unknown. In contrast, a political economy approach is tailored to analysing uncertain developments and encompassing the broader issues relating to values, democracy and power, and is thus better suited to the analysis of constitutional change

Rethinking path creation: a geographical political economy approach

A burgeoning strand of evolutionary economic geography (EEG) research is addressing questions of regional path creation, based on the idea that place-specific legacies and conditions play a critical role in supporting the emergence of new economic activities. Yet there has been little effort thus far to take stock of this emerging body of research. In response, the aims of this article are to offer a fresh synthesis of recent work and to develop a broader theoretical framework to inform future research. First, it presents a critical appraisal of the state of the art in path creation research. In an effort to address identified gaps in EEG research, this incorporates insights from sociological perspectives, the global production networks approach, and transition studies. Second, the article’s development of a systematic theoretical framework is based on the identification of key dimensions of path creation and their constitutive interrelations. This contribution is underpinned by a geographical political economy (GPE) approach that provides the ontological basis for the integration of the five key dimensions of path creation within an overarching framework and the positioning of regional processes in relation to the broader dynamics of uneven development. Informed by GPE, the argument is that knowledgeable actors, operating within multiscalar institutional environments, create paths through the strategic coupling of regional and extraregional assets to mechanisms of path creation and associated markets. To inform further research, the article outlines four concrete propositions regarding the operation of path creation processes in different types of regions and explores these through case studies of Berlin and Pittsburgh