How Is Brexit Going to Be Affected by the COVID-19 Outbreak?

Professor Raquel Ortega-Argilés looks into the effects COVID-19 will have on Brexit negotiations and the consequences for local regions as well as the United Kingdom as a whole. Since the UK officially left the European Union on 31 January 2020 much has changed. Brexit has gone out of the political focus as both the UK and … Continue reading “How Is Brexit Going to Be Affected by the COVID-19 Outbreak?”

Optimising Entrepreneurial Development Processes for Smart Specialisation in the European Union

Optimizing entrepreneurial development process for smart specialization in the European Union by Laszlo Szerb, Raquel Ortega-Argiles, Zoltan Acs and Eva Komlosi.  This paper published in Regional Science demonstrates how the Regional Entrepreneurship and Development Index (REDI) can be used to optimize local entrepreneurial discovery processes, in a manner which can support the construction of regional … Continue reading “Optimising Entrepreneurial Development Processes for Smart Specialisation in the European Union”

COVID-19 Diversification Measures: What Local and Regional Governments Can Do?

COVID-19 and Brexit are putting our value chains in danger. How can an economic diversification strategy help in this process? And what can local and regional governments do about it? COVID-19 and Brexit are affecting the UK industrial fabric in different ways, but in particular, the sudden deglobalisation effects they create can lead to trade … Continue reading “COVID-19 Diversification Measures: What Local and Regional Governments Can Do?”

COVID-19 Business Support Measures: Insights from the UK, Spain and Ireland

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that COVID-19 will have far-reaching impacts on world labour market outcomes. The virus and the subsequent economic shocks will impact the world of work across three key dimensions: The number of jobs (both unemployment and underemployment) The quality of work (e.g. wages and access to social protection) Effects on … Continue reading “COVID-19 Business Support Measures: Insights from the UK, Spain and Ireland”

Adapting, Innovating and Preparing for the Near Future: Brexit

This blog post has been produced to provide insight into the findings of the Birmingham Economic Review. The Birmingham Economic Review 2019 is produced by City-REDI, University of Birmingham and the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, with contributions from the West Midlands Growth Company. It is an in-depth exploration of the economy of England’s second … Continue reading “Adapting, Innovating and Preparing for the Near Future: Brexit”

The Long-Run Consequences of Adverse Economic Shocks: UK Regional and Urban Inequalities

The UK today is deeply divided between prosperous places and lagging regions. The UK economy has become extremely unbalanced, in the sense that the UK is now one of the world’s most inter-regionally unequal countries (Rice et al. 2006; Martin 2015; Martin et al. 2018; McCann 2019a,b). The prosperous parts of the UK today exhibit … Continue reading “The Long-Run Consequences of Adverse Economic Shocks: UK Regional and Urban Inequalities”

Brexit and the UK’s Regional and Urban Challenges

Brexit poses four direct challenges that relate to sub-national, regional and urban issues. First, it leads to an economic challenge in that the UK’s interregional inequalities are likely to become even greater than they currently are. Second, and consequent upon the first, is that Brexit also leads to a political challenge in that the expectations of voters … Continue reading “Brexit and the UK’s Regional and Urban Challenges”

The Implications of Brexit for the UK’s Regions

Our research for the UK in a Changing Europe (“The economic impacts of Brexit on the UK, its regions, its cities and its sectors”) has demonstrated that the implications of Brexit are profoundly different for the different cities, regions, and nations of the UK. Yet, the proposed UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement brokered by Prime Minister Theresa … Continue reading “The Implications of Brexit for the UK’s Regions”

The Exposure of the West Midlands Region to Brexit

There are many unknowns relating to Brexit, regarding (i) the nature of the final trade deal and (ii) the potential responses of firms and consumers to any major shock like Brexit. Nevertheless, “a partial but still very wide-ranging and impact assessment can be undertaken even without such specific knowledge of the final trade deal and … Continue reading “The Exposure of the West Midlands Region to Brexit”

Brexit: Local and Devolved Government

This week the new report Brexit: Local and Devolved Government has been launched. The report considers not only what happened in the EU referendum itself but also the consequences of Brexit at the sub-national level. The report was launched to coincide with The UK in a Changing Europe’s conference Brexit: local and devolved government, which … Continue reading “Brexit: Local and Devolved Government”