This note is concerned with the role of cities and urban policy in growth. Decentralisation from central to local government may help city leaders raise economic performance. It also generates new policy choices for central government – especially in policy areas where local leaders are...

This paper estimates the impact of road improvements on firm employment and productivity using plant level longitudinal data for Britain. Exposure to transport improvements is measured by changes in employment accessibility along the road network. These changes are constructed using data on...

This policy paper is concerned with rural policy. It spells out the lessons for rural policy that emerge from recent SERC research.

This paper is concerned with the urban wage premium and addresses two central issues about which the field has not yet reached a consensus. First, the extent to which sorting of high ability individuals into urban areas explains the urban wage premium. Second, whether workers receive this wage...

We analyze the impact of the establishment of a GBP 380 million basic scientific research facility in the UK on the geographical distribution of related research. We investigate whether the siting of the Diamond Light Source, a 3rd generation synchrotron light source, in Oxfordshire induced a...

In most countries economic prosperity is very unevenly distributed across space: regions, cities and neighbourhoods seem to be very unequal, whether we look at average earnings, employment, education or almost any other socio-economic outcome. Regional, urban and neighbourhood policies are often...

Since 1997, the Labour government has spent considerable sums trying to narrow the gap between poor areas - neighbourhoods, cities and regions - and the rest. The latest CEP Election Analysis from the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) considers the evidence on the effects of some of these...

This note considers the impact of land use planning on economic performance. Specifically, we discuss some of the economic and social costs of the current English system, some of which have been underplayed in public debate. Our aim is to provide evidence to better inform discussions of the...

Henry Overman sketches the evolution of CEP research on why prosperity is so unevenly distributed across cities, regions and nations.

All governments are concerned with tackling the problems of areas that experience sustained decline and underperformance. In the UK, several factors have combined to raise profound questions about future government policy in this area. First, it is becoming increasingly clear that the recession...