Good jobs exist everywhere in the UK – but the highest-paying roles remain heavily concentrated in London and the South East, and a small number of cities. Structural change has reinforced these…

This briefing argues that a Scottish-style tourist tax would be more appropriate for England than a Welsh-style tourist tax

The year 2025 was unprecedented in the frequency, complexity, and volatility of US trade policy interventions. This column uses a new database tracking US tariff announcements during the year to show ...

Economic activity is inherently uneven, so ‘growth in every postcode’ is better understood as access to growth opportunities in every postcode.

Entry-level hiring has fallen sharply across white-collar work. One explanation is that generative AI is to blame. But where we work may be equally important.

Welcome to Why This Matters, a newsletter from the LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance which takes a topical question and draws from CEP’s policy-focused research to show how economists talk about i...

Use the database to find the amount of land around commuter stations that could support residential development in five UK cities.

This briefing explains what powers mayors in England have and how they vary across the country.

Governments keep promising more houses, and keep failing to build them. If Burnham is to keep his promise, there needs to be a radical reform to planning rules.

Join us in-person at King’s or online on 23 June for a special King’s Experts Series event, Brexit: Ten Years On.

While Brexit has meant the end of free movement from the EU, immigration to the UK has since risen to record levels. Alan Manning explains what happened.

Exploring the “Manchester Model”, this paper examines how inward investment, devolution and a strong university–industry interface have driven Manchester’s productivity growth, and considers how this ...

An event from the POID Public Event series organised by POID

For local government officers navigating complex economic challenges, logic models offer a practical tool to help design, communicate and evaluate interventions. To date, we’ve run training to…

6.30pm 15 Jun | Ed Conway, Peter Hill, Catherine Thomas, Linda Yueh | Free event at the LSE Festival: How to save the planet | Ticket required

This paper examines the implications of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) using a dynamic spatial general equilibrium model. Unlike previous studies that primarily projected potential impacts of Brexit based on uncertain scenarios, this analysis introduces new estimates of tariffs and nontariff measures (NTMs) specified by the TCA. The findings show that while the TCA will necessitate substantial adjustments for some sectors, Brexit will not fundamentally alter the overall structure of the UK economy. However, the main impacts will manifest as significant hits to real wages and productivity, exacerbating the long-standing economic challenges faced by the UK.

We study the role of job-to-job transitions in shaping wage dynamics in the United Kingdom. We show that job moves have continued to generate substantial wage gains for movers even during a period of real wage stagnation and declining labour market mobility. Using an econometric model that accounts for worker, firm, and match heterogeneity, we decompose the job mobility premium and find a limited role for worker and firm effects, with most of the return explained by match-specific factors. We also examine the determinants of job mobility and show that much of its recent decline reflects compositional changes in the workforce, particularly ageing and increasing occupational professionalisation. We conclude by discussing the policy challenges of promoting job mobility as a driver of wage growth and more efficient labour market reallocation.

We study productivity disparities across metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas in Great Britain. Spatial disparities in productivity are large and persistent. Using a development accounting framework, we show that differences in area size and in the spatial distribution of human and business capital are key explanatory factors. A combination of area size and human capital explains 30 percent of the productivity variance, increasing to 43 to 57 percent once we add measures of business capital stocks. Applying our framework to a case study of Greater Manchester, we show that large increases in both types of capital are needed to narrow productivity disparities with London, illustrating the scale of the challenge for policies aimed at reducing spatial inequality.

6.30pm Thurs 4 June | Dr Chad P Bown, Soumaya Keynes, Stepganie J. Rickard, Swati Dhingra | Ticket Required | Free public event at LSE

This blog is co-authored by Megan Streb, What Works Growth Deputy Director Outreach, and Rich Pickford, Co-Chair of the Areas of Research Interest (ARI) Sub-Committee at Universities Policy…