Living near a productive company can have considerable economic benefits. It means the chance of well-paid jobs, creates opportunities for suppliers of goods and services, and can be a boost to local retailers. This common-sense economic logic explains why policymakers consistently worry about the uneven spread of industry in Britain and, from time to time, conclude that it inefficient and unfair and that something new must be done. But while there is agreement across Britain’s political parties that the distribution of industry is a problem, little new analysis on the location and performance of British firms with an explicitly regional focus has been published recently.
This paper, part of ongoing work on the economics of British industry at the LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance, starts to fill that gap. We present maps and charts setting out the latest data on firm location, together with geographic measures of employment, productivity, and innovation.
Additional maps can be found here.