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Lee N., Sissons P. and Jones K. The geography of wage inequality in British cities, Regional Studies. There is widespread concern about the scale and implications of urban inequality in Great Britain, but little evidence about which cities are the most unequal and why. This paper investigates patterns of wage inequality in 60 British cities. It has two principal goals: (1) to describe which cities are most unequal; and (2) to assess the important determinants of inequality. The results show a distinct geography of wage inequality: the most unequal cities tend to be affluent and located in parts of the Greater South East of England. A central determinant of these patterns is the geography of highly skilled workers. Because of this, the geography of urban wage inequality reflects the geography of affluence more generally.

Lee N. Grim down South? The determinants of unemployment increases in British cities in the 2008–2009 recession, Regional Studies. This paper investigates the impact of the 2008–2009 recession on unemployment in the sixty largest cities in Great Britain. The key determinant of changes in unemployment was the skills of the population, with highly skilled cities experiencing smaller increases. Cities with employment in financial services or manufacturing sectors experienced larger increases in unemployment. Whether a city has a specialized or a diverse economy appears less important than the industries in which the city is specialized. The results highlight a problem as the largest unemployment increases were in cities seen as having least potential for future growth.

Innovation is a crucial driver of urban and regional economic success. Innovative cities and regions tend to grow faster and have higher average wages. Little research, however, has considered the potential negative consequences: as a small body of innovators gain relative to others, innovation may lead to inequality. The evidence on this point is fragmented, based on cross-sectional evidence on skill premia rather than overall levels of inequality. This paper provides the first comparative evidence on the link between innovation and inequality in a continental perspective. Using micro data from population surveys for European regions and US Cities, the paper finds, after controlling for other potential factors, good evidence of a link between innovation and inequality in European regions, but only limited evidence of such a relationship in the United States. Less flexible labour markets and lower levels of migration seem to be at the root of the stronger association between innovation and income inequality in Europe than in the US.

Policies to stimulate enterprise in deprived areas typically attempt to remove the specific obstacles faced by firms in deprived locations. Yet there is little evidence that firms in deprived areas actually perceive different problems to those in more affluent places. Alternatively, different types of firms may locate in deprived places. This article uses a sample of 7670 English SMEs to investigate this issue. It asks two questions: Do firms in deprived areas perceive different barriers to success than other firms? And is this because of their location (a ‘place’ effect) or other characteristics (a ‘firm’ effect)? We find only limited evidence that ‘place’ effects are in operation: of nine potential obstacles only a lack of access to finance is significant, controlling for other firm characteristics. However, this finding may be important given that firms in deprived areas are equally likely to be growth orientated.

Studies of the United States have suggested that the most innovative areas are also the most unequal. There are a number of potential processes that might lead to this. Innovation may raise the return of human capital in ways which can lead to localised inequality. Innovative industries may be subject to greater wage polarisation or offer more erratic returns than other industries. Moreover, the affluent may hire others to work in poorly paid personal service employment nearby. However, while there is some evidence for these processes in the US, whether this applies in the European case is less certain. I use the European Community Household Panel and the Eurostat Regio database to test the link between innovation and wage inequality in a panel of European regions for the period 1996–2001. Two measures of innovation are used: employment in knowledge-based industries and the level of patenting in a region. The results are indicative of a positive link between regional innovation, as measured by patenting, and inequality. In contrast, there is little evidence of a link between knowledge-based industries and inequality, with the exception of a positive relationship between employment in knowledge-intensive financial services and inequality.

The UK government faces the biggest economic challenge for two generations. It must reduce public spending by some £60 billion over the next five years while laying the conditions that can help sti...

There are many reasons why cities with diverse populations may grow faster. Ethnic diversity might attract human capital, tourists or firms, increase productivity through diverse approaches to problem-solving or ethnic minority entrepreneurship. Yet there are also reasons to believe that diversity could be harmful, by leading to sub-optimal provision of public goods or reducing trust or social capital. Or it may be irrelevant, being merely a proxy for class. A number of studies have shown both positive and negative relationships between diversity and growth, using a range of different measures for ‘diversity’. This paper asks two questions: have more diverse English cities grown faster? And does measurement matter: is it important to have a multinational population or an ethnically diverse one? To answer these questions, in this paper a range of models are estimated for employment growth for 53 English cities between 1981 and 2001. The evidence suggests that cities with a high proportion of their populations born abroad in 1981 grew faster in the subsequent 10 years. Neither diversity by country of birth nor ethnic diversity is significant in the period 1991—2001. However, when variables accounting for both are included together, it appears that cities with a large number of migrants saw higher employment growth in the 1990s, but that ethnically diverse cities were less successful. The results presented here suggest that considerable attention needs to be paid to the variable used to indicate ‘diversity’ in these studies and that the impact of diversity varies according to nature of the groups any indicator for ‘diversity’ is representing.

Creative cities are seen as important sites for the generation of new ideas, products and processes. Yet, beyond case studies of a few high-profile cities, there is little empirical evidence on the link between local creative industries concentration and innovation. This paper addresses this gap with an analysis of around 1,300 UK small- and medium-sized enterprises. The results suggest that firms in local economies with high shares of creative industries employment are significantly more likely to introduce entirely new products and processes than firms elsewhere, but not innovations which are simply new to the firm. This effect is not exclusive to creative industries firms and seems to be largely due to firms in medium-sized, rather than large, cities. The results imply that creative cities may have functional specialisations in new content creation and so firms are more innovative in them.

How do we ensure that companies with the potential to grow do so? Does a lack of finance prevent firms from growing and benefiting the wider economy? These are important questions if we are looking for economic growth. There has been much focus and debate on the funding issues affecting small and medium sized entities (SMEs), but this report takes that debate a stage further by investigating ‘high growth SMEs’. One of the 14 published policies of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in the UK is ‘Making it easier to set up and grow a business’. This report aims to provide evidence for the debate on how this policy can be achieved and covers both supply and demand issues for high growth SMEs. It does so by a review of the existing literature, an analysis of the Small Business Survey, undertaken by BIS, and a series of in-depth interviews with a small number of high growth SMEs. The study finds that although high growth SMEs are 9% more likely to apply for finance than other SMEs, they are no more or less likely to be successful. Importantly, these firms are identified as highly ‘reluctant borrowers’ rather than ‘discouraged borrowers’ – that is they are just unwilling to borrow, even to fund growth. This reluctance stems from a lack of trust of banks and a resistance to any dilution in their own autonomy. A number of policy implications are drawn from this research by the authors, with recommendations for both the supply and the often neglected demand-side of funding. Most importantly, though, there is a need to consider how ‘reluctant borrowers’ may be transformed into ‘willing borrowers’ and how demand for finance may be stimulated in the future.

Cities are drivers of economic growth, but how does growth affect poverty? This report explores the connection between growth and poverty in UK cities, and examines how strategies for economic growth and poverty reduction can be aligned. The report finds that: - There is no guarantee that economic growth will reduce poverty – in some economically expanding cities poverty has stayed the same or increased; - Employment growth has the greatest impact on poverty, but if jobs are low-paid or go to workers living outside the area, the impact is minimal; - Increased output risks worsening poverty because it can lead to increases in the cost of living; - Some cities are tackling this by promoting employment in expanding sectors or providing training for disadvantaged groups so they can access opportunities associated with major infrastructure projects.

Reducing poverty is important for those affected, for society and the economy. Poverty remains entrenched in the UK, despite considerable research efforts to understand its causes and possible solutions. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, with the Centre for Science and Policy at the University of Cambridge, ran a democratic, transparent, consensual exercise involving 45 participants from government, non-governmental organisations, academia and research to identify 100 important research questions that, if answered, would help to reduce or prevent poverty. The list includes questions across a number of important themes, including attitudes, education, family, employment, heath, wellbeing, inclusion, markets, housing, taxes, inequality and power.

Growing cultural diversity is seen as important for innovation. Research has focused on two potential mechanisms: a firm effect, with diversity at the firm level improving knowledge sourcing or ideas generation, and a city effect, where diverse cities helping firms innovate. This paper uses a dataset of over 2,000 UK SMEs to test between these two. Controlling for firm characteristics, city characteristics and firm and city diversity, there is strong evidence for the firm effect. Firms with a greater share of migrant owners or partners are more likely to introduce new products and processes. This effect has diminishing returns, suggesting that it is a ‘diversity’ effect rather than simply the benefits of migrant run firms. However, there is no relationship between the share of foreign workers in a local labour market and firm level innovation, nor do migrant-run firms in diverse cities appear particularly innovative. But urban context does matter and firms in London with more migrant owners and partners are more innovative than others.

A growing body of research is making links between diversity and the economic performance of cities and regions. Most of the underlying mechanisms take place within firms, but only a handful of organization-level studies have been conducted. We contribute to this underexplored literature by using a unique sample of 7,600 firms to investigate links among cultural diversity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and sales strategies in London businesses between 2005 and 2007. London is one of the world's major cities, with a rich cultural diversity that is widely seen as a social and economic asset. Our data allowed us to distinguish owner/partner and wider workforce characteristics, identify migrant/minority-headed firms, and differentiate firms along multiple dimensions. The results, which are robust to most challenges, suggest a small but significant “diversity bonus” for all types of London firms. First, companies with diverse management are more likely to introduce new product innovations than are those with homogeneous “top teams.” Second, diversity is particularly important for reaching international markets and serving London's cosmopolitan population. Third, migrant status has positive links to entrepreneurship. Overall, the results provide some support for claims that diversity is an economic asset, as well as a social benefit.

One of the key benefits of cities is that they allow the exchange of knowledge and information between economic actors. This may have two effects: it may create the conditions for entirely new innovations to emerge; and, it may allow firms to learn innovations from those nearby. Yet few studies have considered the impact of an urban location on whether innovations are original or learnt. This paper tests these hypotheses using survey evidence for over 1600 UK SMEs. It is shown that, while urban firms tend to be both product and process innovators, urban firms are disproportionately likely to introduce process innovations which are only new to the firm, rather than entirely original. Instead, the urban advantage in product innovation appears to come from a combination of the effects. The results highlight a need for a nuanced view of the link between cities and innovation.

London is one of the world's major cities, and one of its most diverse. London's cultural diversity is widely seen as a social asset, but there is little hard evidence on its importance for the city's businesses. Theory and evidence suggest various links between urban cultural diversity and innovation, at individual, firm and urban level. This paper uses a sample of 7,400 firms to investigate, exploiting the natural experiment of A8 accession. The results, which are robust to most endogeneity challenges, suggest there is a small but significant 'diversity bonus' for London firms. Diverse management teams are particularly important for ideas generation, reaching international markets and serving London's cosmopolitan population.

London is one of the world's major cities and one of its most culturally diverse. A number of studies link diverse workforces and populations to levels of urban innovation, especially in global cities. While widely explored as a social phenomenon, there has been little work on the importance of London's diversity for the city's businesses. This paper uses the 2007 London Annual Business Survey to investigate, exploiting the survey's unique coverage of both workforce composition and innovation outcomes. From a cross-section of over 2300 firms, we find significant positive relationships between workforce and ownership diversity, and product and process innovation. These provide some support for claims that London's cultural diversity is a source of economic strength.

Dysregulation of hematopoietic cellular differentiation contributes to leukemogenesis. Unfortunately, relatively little is known about how cell differentiation is regulated. Considering that heat shock proteins (hsp) and specifically the small hsps have been increasingly linked to growth regulation, we sought to determine whether the mammalian small hsp (hsp28) is a growth-regulatory candidate during hematopoietic cell differentiation. Because of its effects on cell growth and differentiation and its increasing clinical use as a differentiating agent, we examined the effect of retinoic acid (RA) on hsp28 during differentiation of the human leukemic HL-60 cell line. Although hsp28 was constitutively expressed at low levels in untreated HL-60 cells, steady state hsp28 protein increased transiently, concomitant with the onset of G1 cell cycle arrest. Furthermore, hsp28 phosphorylation transiently increased within one hour following treatment with RA. Interestingly, in contrast to other differentiating agents the induction of hsp28 by RA was post-transcriptionally mediated with hsp28 protein and mRNA being discordantly regulated. These observations underscore the complex regulation of hsp28 by RA during granulocytic differentiation of human leukemic cells and indicate hsp28 as an intermediary in the pathway through which retinoids exert their growth and differentiative effects.

The creative and cultural industries form an important part of many urban economies, and the fashion industries are one of the exemplar creative industries. Because fashion is based on intangibles such as branding and reputation, it tends to have a two-way relationship with cities: urban areas market themselves through their fashion industry, while the fashion industry draws heavily on the representation of place. In this paper we investigate this interlinked relationship between the fashion industry and place in four of the major cities of global fashion – London, New York, Milan and Paris – using data from the social media platform Twitter. To do this, we draw upon a variety of computer-aided text analysis techniques – including cluster, correspondence and specificity analyses – to examine almost 100,000 tweets collected during the Spring–Summer fashion weeks of February and March 2018. We find considerable diversity in how these cities are represented. Milan and Paris are seen in terms of national fashion houses, artisanal production and traditional institutions such as galleries and exhibitions. New York is focused on media and entertainment, independent designers and a ‘buzzy’ social life. London is portrayed in the most diverse ways, with events, shopping, education, social movements, political issues and the royal family all prominent. In each case, the historical legacy and built environment form important parts of the city’s image. However, there is considerable diversity in representation. We argue that social media allow a more democratic view of the way cities are represented than other methodologies.