Regional Productivity Differentials: Explaining the Gap

Issues of productivity and competitiveness at a regional level have increasingly been a focus for both academic and policy concern. Significant and persistent differences in productivity are evident both in the UK and across Europe as a whole. This paper uses data relating to individual business units to examine the determinants of regional productivity differentials across British regions. It demonstrates that the substantial differences in regional productivity can be explained by a fairly limited set of variables. These include industry mix, the capital employed by the firm, business ownership and the skills of the local labour force. Also important are location-specific factors including travel-time from London and population density. Taken together, these factors largely explain regional productivity differentials. The analysis extends those studies that have identified but not quantified the role of different ‘productivity drivers’ in a systematic fashion or that have focused on only a limited set of drivers. It has important policy implications particular in relation to the role of travel time and possible effects of density and agglomeration.Regional competitiveness; Productivity; UK; Regional development; business-data analysis;

Country-level Business Performance and Policy Asymmetries in Great Britain

The HM Treasury identifies key ‘drivers’ of business performance and productivity differentials, which include skills, investment and competition. This paper presents an empirical investigation into the effects of these drivers on business-level productivity per employee across England, Scotland and Wales in order to identify whether spatial differences in the influence of these drivers exist. We adopt the Cobb-Douglas production function approach and our results suggest that, after taking account of sector specific effects, productivity differentials do exist between businesses across Great Britain and that policy instruments do potentially enhance productivity. The results indicate that these key drivers are equally applicable across countries of Great Britain. However, there is evidence to suggest that scale effects for labour and capital do differ across England, Wales and Scotland and that policy makers should be aware of these asymmetries.Productivity per employee; HM Treasury’s key drivers; scale effects

Student entrepreneurial propensities in the individual-organisational-environmental nexus

While there is a consensus that universities contribute to entrepreneurship and innovation, it is not clear how different educational environments contribute to different students’ desires to start up a business, and it is even less clear how different universities contribute to entrepreneurship activities in a particular place. This study improves understanding of entrepreneurship education and the university-based entrepreneurship ecosystem at the individual, organisational and environmental levels by examining organisational contexts and individual students’ social contexts, including motivations towards and perceptions of graduate start-ups. Applications of logit and ordered logit regression analyses to a unique student-level dataset across two universities in one city-region demonstrates the importance of the university, gender and a series of home and employment experiences as determinants of the propensity to start up a business, while economic factors change attitudes towards setting up a business

Building connections: Golden key local evaluation phase 2 report

This report summarises findings from Phase 2 of the UWE Local Evaluation of Golden Key (GK) in Bristol (March 2016 to Feb 2017). GK is one of 12 Big Lottery funded Fulfilling Lives partnerships across the UK, where local organisations are working together to improve services for people with multiple and complex needs. This is a formative evaluation that will inform learning about how, when and why change happens for individuals, groups and organisations across the City. We will be supporting the initiative throughout its 8-year duration, engaging with different stakeholders to capture a diverse range of perspectives and experiences to produce a multi-faceted understanding of the issues and to stimulate reflection and learning amongst partners.This phase of the evaluation has focused primarily on the client experience pathway, including the experiences of GK clients, Service Co-ordinators, and members of the Independent Futures (IF) Group (experts by experience). Within this report, the ‘Key findings’ sections include insights from our evaluation research, as well as our analysis of client demographics and assessment scores. ‘Activity progress summary’ sections provide a brief update on other aspects of GK’s work, such as the systems change strategy and approach, and are informed by GK documents and meetings.Findings from this phase of the evaluation will be shared with key stakeholders and used to inform the next phase of GK activity. We anticipate that the next phase of the local evaluation will involve exploring how GK is facilitating and enabling systems change (including the role of PIE and innovation pilots), capturing evidence of impact (including economic and social return on investment), and engaging with partner organisations (police, health, council, voluntary sector, etc.) to gain their perspectives on the contribution of GK

Reaching out: Golden Key local evaluation phase 1 summary report

This report summarises the findings from Phase 1 of the local evaluation of Golden Key though the first 18 months of initial development, progress towards delivery and operational services delivery from Autumn 2014 to Spring 2016.Bristol Golden Key is one of 12 programmes across the UK to have received funding from the Big Lottery Fund Fulfilling Lives programme to support the development and provision of services for people with multiple complex needs

Reaching out: Golden Key local evaluation phase 1 full report

This report presents a preliminary analysis of the evidence collated for Phase 1 of the local evaluation of Bristol Golden Key. Evidence has been collected between November 2014 and March 2016 through a variety of means, including interviews with around 40 key stakeholders, observation at over 25 key meetings and events, and review of documentation.Golden Key is a long-term, complex initiative and at this relatively early stage the evaluation is primarily formative in focus – providing observations and reflections on how Golden Key has developed since inception and emerging indicators of how it is perceived and experienced by different stakeholders. The main aim of this report is to ‘capture the learning’ so far and to raise issues and questions that should inform further development as Golden Key progresses. It does not purport to give an objective assessment of progress against project aims given the paucity of quantitative data to support such an analysis at this stage.The report is informed by the evaluation framework developed to support this investigation, which uses a realist approach to identifying how behaviours, processes, outcomes and impacts develop in relation to three main pathways: client engagement; the Golden Key partnership and processes; and citywide engagement and systems change. Chapters are presented for each of these areas, concluding with a set of key learning points and discussion questions

The impact of new sustainable technologies in the rural areas in the UK: Performance, policy and governance

The rural economies in many areas of the UK have undergone deep structural changes in recent years which have resulted in the disappearance of many traditional agriculture supply chain business and the arrival or emergence of an eclectic range of new businesses and activities. It is difficult to track these changes, in part because of problems in defining “rural” and in part because of poor data coverage of small businesses. Policy has often amounted to little more than “rural proofing” policies largely conceived with urban areas in mind. It is very likely that further significant changes will occur over the next few years associated with new technologies and the impact of demographic and resource scarcity factors on commodity markets at the global level. New challenges will face authorities and policy makers and a new set of metrics will be needed to gui