Prestige project developments: Economic renaissance or economic myth? A case study of Birmingham

This article examines the City of Birmingham's attempt to generate economic activity through the construction of “prestige projects” and the refurbishment of its Central Business District in the 1980s. Birmingham City Council's claims to have generated thousands of jobs and £2 billion of private sector investment from its prestige developments are examined and the distributional impacts of the “claimed” job creation totals are also detailed. The article concludes that the global investment and employment figures claimed have been exaggerated and many of the jobs directly generated have contributed to the growth of the secondary labour market in Birmingham.     

Contract culture and target fetishism: The distortive effects of output measures in local regeneration programmes

Performance management in TECs¹ and urban initiatives has developed in the 1990s into a “contract culture” characterised by heavy reliance on quantitative indicators as the basis for funding arrangements. These indicators may have perverse effects. Firstly, they may distort the design of local policy at the level of strategic planning and SRB (Single Regeneration Budget) bid-writing. Secondly, their use in contracts between TECs, City Challenge companies, SRB partnerships and their delivery agencies may distort policy implementation. An instructive parallel may be drawn between this “indicator distortion” and the distortions induced by planning targets in the former Soviet Union.     

Small business service firms and the 1990s recession in the United Kingdom: Implications for local economic development

During the 1990s recession, the UK experienced a dramatic growth in employment in information-intensive business firms. This paper explores this growth with reference to small management consultancy and market research firms. Business service firms continued to be established and to grow during the recession because of three related attributes: professional expertise, an existing reputation and a network of client contacts. These attributes are related to the theoretical work of Granovetter (1973; 1982; 1985) who argues that “weak ties” operate to connect different groups of people together. The implications of these attributes for local economic development are considered. Success for all companies at the level of the local economy will be partially dependent on efficient and effective use of available business service expertise. The three attributes make it impossible to develop successful mechanisms to encourage the formation of business service companies in areas with underdeveloped service infrastructure. Mechanisms, however, may be developed at the local level to encourage the establishment of “weak ties” between local companies and regional and national providers of business service expertise.     

Rethinking the role of the service sector in local economic revitalisation

This article evaluates the role of the service sector in revitalising local economies. Using case study evidence from the Fens, the view that services are “parasitic” activities is refuted. Instead, services are shown to contribute positively to local economic rejuvenation not only as “basic” activities which bring income into local economies from outside but also, just as importantly, as locally-oriented activities which stop income from leaking out of the locality. The consequences of this reconceptualisation of services for the nature of local economic policy are addressed.     

Community businesses are their aims confused?

Glen Buchanan has given a chilling outline of the conditions from which community businesses have arisen, and communicated something of the idealism of their genesis. Mike Jacobs shares the ideals, but is worried by the way in which they are expressed. He writes: “Glen claims that community businesses are 'completely different' from public and private sector companies. I think they could be, but the way Glen describes them they are probably not.”     

Third time right? The EC's third action programme for women

Amid the welter of “new initiatives” from Brussels promoting social integration is a programme for women which appears to offer something new. Nothing in the way of new money, nor novel employment projects, rather a distinctly feminist flavour: “equality” is now to be integrated “into general mainstream policy”; grassroot action - organisation at the local and regional level - is required; working life has to be “reconciled” with family responsibilities and, finally, “women's unequal representation in all spheres of decision making” has to be addressed.

How far this rhetoric will translate into enhanced employment prospects for women, especially women in this country, is nevertheless highly problematic.     

Piecing together the peace dividend: Managing change in communities dependent on defence expenditure

To date governments have been slow to appreciate that, as well as a peace dividend, arms reduction will bring social and economic hardship to communities which have relied upon defence expenditure for employment. Conversion of military bases, let alone restructuring of defence industries, cannot be left to market forces to achieve; government intervention is required to ensure the successful adjustment of communities.

During the Cold War, the dominance of the “military-industrial complex” spread the notion that disarmament would threaten not only security, but jobs. Current geopolitical changes present an opportunity to challenge this argument. Local employment initiatives are essential to prevent defence cuts from causing unemployment.     

Sustainable development and the local economy

This article sets out the divergence so far between the developing “environmental economics” and local authority “green strategies”. We propose a model of environmentally sustainable economic development. Our argument outlines “environmental efficiency” and more stringent “sustainability” objectives. It reviews current local authority activities and practices. All are within the “environmental efficiency” framework. It concludes by identifying opportunities created by recent government commitment to environmental improvement targets and argues that local authorities are well placed to take up the challenge of developing sustainable development in local economies. It suggests that this process will involve intervention in the market in a way not dissimilar to that adopted in the 1980s by local authorities concerned with developing socially progressive economic strategies and that this process might be termed “social environmentalism”.     

Cable and local economic development: Local authority roles and responses

There has been much recent comment about the development of the “information superhighway” and the opportunities that this will create for economic development. Yet elements of such a superhighway are already in place through the activities of cable companies in the UK This paper outlines the development of cable to date and examines the response of local authorities to such developments.     

Reviews

“REDUNDANT SPACE?” Green, Howard and Foley, Paul, 1986: Redundant Space, A Productive Asset Harper & Row, London, on behalf of the Small Business Research Trust, £14.95.

“SMALL FACTORIES” Perry, M., 1986: Small Factories and Economic Development. Aldershot: Gower, £22.50.

“COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVES” Willett, R. 1985: Village Ventures. Rural Communities in Action. Rural Voice/Bedford Square Press, £3.25

Alexander, T. 1986: Value for People, Adult Education and Popular Planning. Popular Planning Project, Clapham-Battersea Adult Education Institute, 116 Battersea Park Road, London, £2.50

Ashby, P. 1986: Trade Unions and the Community, Working for Jobs. Bedford Square Press/N.C.V.O.£2.50

“COMMUNITIES IN BUSINESS” Centre for Employment Initiatives/Community Initiatives Research Trust, 1986: Communities in Business. London: Centre for Employment Initiatives, £6.95 paper.

“LONDON TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY” London Strategic Policy Unit, 1987: Britain's Industrial Renaissance? The Development, Manufacture and Use of Information Technology. London: L.S.P.U.

“EUROPEAN EMPLOYMENT INITIATIVES” Martinos, H., 1986: Employment Creation in Local Labour Markets — Four Case Studies (ILE Notebooks No 5). Paris: OECD, price FF 60.00

“CHALLENGING THE MSC” Benn, C. and Fairley, J. Editors: 1986: Challenging the MSC on jobs, training and education. London Pluto Press, £5.95 Paperback.

“SMALL FIRMS” Scott, M., Lewis, J., Gibb, A., Faulkner, T.; Editors: 1986: Small Firms Growth and Development Gower, £19.50     

Worker co-operatives: A dream with jagged edges?

The authors of this paper argue that worker co-ops need to be valued as an improvement in the quality of working life, yet all too often they and the agencies which support them are caught up in a “numbers game” of trying to maximise the number of jobs created in order to justify funding. It is important not to under-estimate the problem of under-capitalisation in co-ops, the stresses of establishing a new business for those with no management experience, and the cost and time needed for training. Co-ops are more an experiment in a new labour process than an easy cure for a dying economy.     

Building and sustaining inter-firm networks. Lessons from training and enterprise councils

The academic discussion of business co-operation and networks is often undertaken in fairly abstract terms. The objective of this paper is to add some realism through “on-the-ground” examples of inter-firm networks in which Training and Enterprise Councils (TECS) have acted in a facilitating and supportive capacity. This paper considers the practicalities and problems that TECs, often in the shape of “network brokers”, have encountered in facilitating the building and sustaining of local inter-firm networks, primarily among SMEs, in a number of differing scenarios. It was found that the most effective and sustainable networks are initially based on informal relations, such as those developed through voluntary attendance at “learning” workshops and seminars. As trust emerges and bonds are gradually gained these arrangements may evolve into more formal and long-term associations. It is suggested that the initial focus of projects should consist of expanding the “stakeholder webs” of SMEs through learning networks that focus on building the stock of social capital. Furthermore, gaining sufficient reserves of social capital should be considered prior to the planning of any formal “dotted line” commercial or innovation-based relations.     

Wage comparison by gender and the effect of job segregation: The case of Taiwan

This paper examines the wage differential between the genders in a newly industrialized economy-Taiwan. The objective is to verify the existence and magnitude of the Taiwanese wage differential (or discrimination as some would term it) and contrast it with findings in the United States.The gender gap was estimated for the private sector and the public sector respectively. It was found that wage discrimination against females does exist. The magnitude of the “discrimination” falls within the same range as the empirical estimates for the U.S. In Taiwan, however, the wage discrimination appeared to be slightly more severe in the public sector.A measure for the discriminatory effects of the “occupational segregation” was proposed and implemented. Contrary to common belief, the “occupational segregation” was not an important factor in wage discrimination. Nor did the disparity of jobs distribution in terms of “industry” generate any significant level of wage discrimination. The main source of gender discrimination (in terms of wage rates) came from the lower returns to the “productivity” characteristics (experience, education, tenure, etc.) and not from seemingly popular hypotheses of occupational segregation (or, in more general terms, job segregation). This is in sharp contrast to previous studies.     

It is time to start “Rethinking Socialist Economics”

For the next few years, economic and employment policies will be dominated by the Conservative Government's programme. However, the debate on “alternative” policies should not be allowed to die. This review suggests that the issues raised by “Rethinking Socialist Economics” deserves serious attention.     

Local governance and urban prospects: The potential of city pride

The recent re-alignment of urban policy, involving the promotion of a diversity of public-private partnerships, a fostering of local business elites, and the increasing importance of city marketing and image reconstruction, all point in the direction of a “new localism” in urban regeneration. Focusing on the potential of the recent City Pride initiative in building up consensual and holistic “visions” of Britain's main cities, the following set of papers assess the role of the “urban prospectus” in fostering local coalitions and the benefits of mutuality in order to address issues of resource procurement and allocation. The potential of this new approach for targeting large-scale programme and project investment in the local economy, infra-structural priorities and aspects of social cohesion are all considered by the contributing authors, who look specifically at recent developments in London, Manchester and Birmingham.     

Telecommunications and the local economy: Some emerging policy issues

This paper provides a brief overview of the issues which surround local economic development and telecommunications. The implications of telecommunications for urban and regional development in the present “information-based” era are outlined and the seven basic features of this development are described. Some necessary steps and conceptual approaches to developing specifically local development policies in this new area are then expounded by way of the development of a “framework for the local policy maker”. Finally, several leading attempts at developing locally controlled telecommunications infrastructures in the UK, as agents of economic and social development, are briefly analysed.     

Integrating the economic and the social. Policy and institutional change in local economic strategy

Since the mid-1990s policy “integration” has become an increasingly salient theme within central government and local government policy-making. In this paper we report survey findings tracing the recent emergence of explicitly “integrated” local economic and social strategies, and the evolving position of ostensibly social themes in local economic strategies. These highlight some of the more important policy and institutional changes that have characterised local economic strategy in the post-Thatcher era. Subsequently, in the light of this initial data we outline a number of possible directions for further research.     

The community programme revisited

This paper examines the lessons for the New Deal era of some older strands in UK and European labour market measures; the Community Programme of the 1980s and the experience of “entreprises d'insertion in France, Spain and the Netherlands. It considers whether the institutional infrastructure of the New Deal is appropriate for the realisation of “intermediate labour markets”. This raises some further questions; whether ILMs are about creating employment or merely redistributing it, and whether it would be preferable to use the “benefit transfer principle” to produce social wealth without regard for commercial viability.     

Holding company risk in China: a final step of state-owned enterprises reform and an emerging problem of corporate governance

Public Enterprise Reform in China has reached a plataeu, and is awaiting the last step of privatization. Most of non-regulated industries in China has improved their competitiveness thorough a hard and intense competition, particularly in the home appliance industry. However, it still happened that excellent companies with nationwide brands suddenly fall into severe difficulties and suddenly disappears in the industry, as we seen in the early 1990's. Author argues that this is caused by structure of corporate governance in China, which can facilitate to enhance the control right of the controlling shareholder, that is the government for the most of listed company in China, compared to their holding cash flow right. This corporate structure, which is called “pyramiding” allows an implicit controller of the company, the municipal government, to exploit. In the cases of listed company in China, the “holding company” is the conduit of this risk. Experiences of 2 companies from home appliance industries in China will be documented here.     

The “North-South” controversy and Britain's regional problems

The extent of regional economic disparities in Britain has recently become the focus of considerable controversy. Attempts have been made to portray the existing situation in terms of a “North-South divide” or as “two nations”. Opponents of this point of view have argued that no such stark division of the country exists, and that prosperous areas can be found in parts of the North just as depressed areas can be found in parts of the South.

This paper considers the pattern of regional disparities which now prevails in Britain. Section I is a detailed presentation of the existing situation. Section II considers the question of how sharp a division there now is between different parts of Britain, followed, in Section III, by a discussion of the process of change which has brought about the regional disparities which we now observe. Implications for government policy are then considered.