Development of effective participatory mechanisms within infrastructure planning governance has been dependent on how far the outputs of participatory processes have an impact upon strategic policy priorities. However, neoliberal modes of governance are characterised by 'recentralisation' within arms-length regulatory bodies and private corporations. Tensions between participatory governance and recentralisation are exemplified by the relationship between energy privatisation and energy infrastructure planning. With this study we examine these tensions using a case study of a critical infrastructure project in the UK, the South Wales Gas Pipeline. Findings confirm arguments in the literature that siting conflicts often centre on policy issues as much as local concerns. The study reveals that the neoliberal recentralisation of some governance functions exacerbates such conflicts. We argue that, although new efforts to secure effective participation in neoliberal regimes are necessary, they will face obstacles in the form of risk-based governance structures, as exemplified by the privatised energy sector.
Location Quotients (LQs) remain an important tool for geographical analysis, particularly in terms of assessing industrial specialisation and clustering. LQs as decision aids are typically understood through the use of arbitrarily set cut-off values. However, LQs are rarely accompanied by an associated level of variance that can be connected with the estimated data used to calculate them. This paper reveals the importance of understanding this variance and shows how confidence intervals can be estimated for employment-based LQs. A systematic process is introduced, through which the arbitrariness of cut-off-value choice can be mitigated and borderline industry cases in terms of their LQ values and the considered cut-off value, identified. A case from a UK region is used to illustrate the issues covered in the paper.
AbstractThe paper begins by reviewing literature suggesting that sports stadia have negligible or even negative economic impacts upon their host city or region. This paper suggests that in some specific cases the picture may not be so clear cut. It examines the operations of the Wales Millennium Stadium since its inception in 1999 and suggests that the stadium has had a positive impact upon economic demand and hence employment and value added in Cardiff. Moreover, the research suggests that much of this increased demand originates from visitors resident outside Cardiff and Wales, and hence the stadium functions as a notable 'exporter' for the city, and is moreover critical to its tourism performance. Conversely, the paper finds that stadium effects are limited in scale compared to city and regional economic activity in aggregate and concludes that the stadium's relative economic importance is driven by its atypical operation compared to other stadia.ResumenEl artículo comienza revisando literatura que sugiere que los estadios deportivos tienen impactos económicos despreciables o incluso negativos en la ciudad o región que los alberga. Este artículo sugiere que, en casos específicos, esta imagen no es siempre cierta. Examina las operaciones del Wales Millenium Stadium desde sus comienzos en 1999 y sugiere que el estadio ha tenido un impacto positivo sobre la demanda económica y por tanto en el empleo y el valor añadido en Cardiff. Además, la investigación sugiere que gran parte de este aumento de la demanda se debe a visitantes de fuera de Cardiff y País de Gales, y que por tanto el estadio funciona como un 'exportador' notable para la ciudad y es además crítico para el rendimiento por turismo. Por el contrario, el artículo encuentra que los efectos del estadio son limitados a escala en comparación con las actividades económicas de la ciudad y la región agregadas y concluye que la importancia económica relativa del estadio está causada por su manera de operar atípica en comparación con otros estadios.
The authors examine the use of multisectoral qualitative analysis (MSQA) for evaluating the potential of key sectors in a regional case. They examine the desirability of policy focusing on the promotion of key sectors. It is suggested that the tools used to identify, and then to justify, key sectors are generally underdeveloped. The authors provide a review of selected methods to identify and classify key growth sectors, and their strengths and weaknesses. Given the weaknesses inherent in these approaches, it is particularly important for policymakers to consider methods which can test and extend key-sector evaluation. The authors suggest that MSQA provides an effective and policy-relevant means of forming conclusions on sector potentials, and report on a pilot exercise undertaken in the Welsh economy.
Inward investment from foreign manufacturing firms has been sought as a remedy to regional industrial problems in the UK. Foreign manufacturing offers the prospect of industrial diversification, new jobs and incomes, and can also represent a stimulus to new ideas and practices in domestic industries. The potential for production externalities from the foreign to the domestic sector has been investigated in a number of empirical studies. The wider potential for foreign manufacturing to become a driver of regional competitive advantage is expected to be linked to a number of factors including underlying investment motives, subsidiary age and type, subsidiary size, degree of value added within the plant, type of plant/degree of autonomy, nationality of ownership, entry mode, industry sector, and the structure of the host/regional economy. An additional and inter-linked factor with the above is the extent to which foreign plants are embedded through their purchasing linkages into their respective local economies. The degree of embeddedness determines the indirect employment and output supported by foreign firm activities in regional economies, and is a general indicator of the extent to which foreign firms contribute towards regional growth. Previous research has work has highlighted the comparatively low levels of linkage that exist between inward investing sectors and local supply bases. For example, Turok (1993, 1997) demonstrated the Scottish electronics industry (including large numbers of inward investors) purchased just 12% of material inputs in Scotland, and that (with reference to Input-Output tables for Scotland) output based multipliers for the electronics sector still revealed a poor quality of linkages into the local economy. In Northern Ireland, Crone and Roper (1999) reported that weak supply linkages between foreign and regional firms had restricted the potential of positive production externalities. In Wales, Roberts (1996) considered the backward (and forward) linkages created by foreign manufacturing sectors in the local economy using 1994 Input-Output tables for Wales. Overall, this research found that, on average, less than 17% of non-wage spending of foreign manufacturing firms occurred in the Welsh economy (see also Gillespie, 2000). Finally, Brand, Hill and Munday (2000), explored in a regional Input-Output framework, the direct and indirect economic contribution of foreign owned and domestic manufacturing to the economies of Wales, Scotland and the West Midlands. The study demonstrated that foreign owned manufacturing in these regions purchased less locally than domestic firms. As a result in most of the industry sectors explored the output supported in other regional industries was generally greater in the domestic than in the foreign owned case. The analysis also explored how far each job created in foreign and domestically owned manufacturing contributed to regional value added. The superior productivity of the foreign sector meant that it generally contributed more per employee to regional value added than its domestic counterpart. The analysis of the impact of foreign (and in some cases domestic) manufacturing on local economies within an Input-Output framework has largely been based on cross-sectional information. The present paper attempts to develop a more dynamic perspective by considering structural changes over time. The objective of this paper is to explore the role of foreign manufacturing in changing the pattern of industry linkages in Wales and Scotland – two regions which have attracted comparatively high shares of new UK foreign inward investment. These two regions also make for a valuable comparative study with some analysts suggesting that there are important differences in the underlying quality of inward investment between the two regions (Hood, 1991). The paper uses information from the Scottish Input-Output tables 1973 and 1996 (see Fraser of Allander, 1973, and Scottish Executive, 1999), and Welsh Input-Output tables 1968 and 1996 (see Ireson and Tomkins, 1978; and Hill and Roberts, 2001) to examine the changing structure of these regional economies over time. The focus of the paper is comparing manufacturing sectors where there have been high and low levels of foreign investment. The influence of foreign manufacturing is considered in the context of changes in the export orientation, import propensity and indirect employment and output effects of selected industry sectors. The wider context of the paper is continuing concern in the UK on the more dynamic impacts of foreign manufacturing industry in improving the economic prospects for UK regions, and the validity of the 'inward investment' model of development. The second section of the paper reviews the development of foreign manufacturing in the Welsh and Scottish economies, and critically analyses previous research that has explored the role of the foreign sector in these regions within an Input-Output model framework. The third section examines how foreign manufacturing might be expected to impact differently from the domestic sector in terms of impact on the structure of the regional economy over time. For example, in terms of its higher productivity, and different import and export propensities. The fourth section describes the Input-Output tables that are available for Wales and Scotland, and more specifically, discusses issues of comparability of tables of different vintages. The methodology used to reconcile the industry sectors in the table is discussed. The fifth section examines the nature of structural changes in the two economies, including an analysis of local trading propensities, together with estimates of multiplier effects of selected industries characterised by high and low levels of foreign direct investment (in the period 1968-1996 for Wales, and 1973-1996 for Scotland). The final section contains conclusions. References Hill, S. & A. Roberts (2001), Input-Output Tables for Wales 1996. Cardiff: South East Wales Economic Forum. Hood, N. (1991), Inward Investment and the Scottish Economy, Royal Bank of Scotland Review, 169, pp. 17-32. Brand S., Hill, S. & M. Munday (2000), Assessing the Impacts of Foreign Manufacturing on Regional Economies: The Cases of Wales, Scotland and West Midlands. Regional Studies 34, pp. 343-55. Crone, M. & S. Roper (1999), Knowledge Transfers from Multinational Plants in Northern Ireland, paper given to Regional Science Association European Congress, University College Dublin, August 23rd-27th. Fraser of Allander Institute, University of Strathclyde, The Scottish Council Research Institute Limited and IBM UK Scientific Centre (1978), Input-Output Tables for Scotland 1973. Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh. Gillespie, G. (2000), Modelling the System-wide Impact of Foreign Direct Investment in Scotland: An Ownership-Disaggregated Regional Computable General Equilibrium Analysis, Ph.D thesis, University of Strathclyde. Ireson, R. & C. Tomkins (1978), Inter-Regional Input-Output Tables for Wales and the Rest of the UK 1968. HMSO, London. Roberts, A. (1996), The Economic Impact of Foreign Manufacturing Investment in Wales. Unpublished Ph.D, University of Wales, Cardiff. Scottish Executive (1999), Input-Output Tables and Multipliers for Scotland 1996. Government Statistical Service, Edinburgh. Turok, I. (1993), Inward Investment and Local Linkages: How Deeply Embedded is 'Silicon Glen? Regional Studies 27, pp. 401-17. Turok, I. (1997), Linkages in the Scottish Electronics Industry: Further Evidence, Regional Studies 31, pp. 705-711.
Abstract In recent years, public policymakers in Europe have become increasingly aware of the need to support Europe's failing semiconductor industry. This is an emerging policy area, and this paper examines the current state of the industry in Europe and assesses its potential future. It contends that the competitiveness of the industry will be related to its innovative capacity, especially its capability to engage in processes of open innovation. The industry in Europe is largely located in a number of discrete regional clusters, and the analysis focuses on data collected from a series of interviews with lead representatives of these clusters. The analysis indicates that the challenges facing the industry stem from the structure of the industry in Europe and the structure of the wider European technology industry. It is concluded that policies, such as the introduction of the European Chips Act, are likely to have a limited, or even negative, impact on the types of open innovation–led growth that will improve long-term competitiveness.
Investments in renewable energy have been identified as one mechanism for encouraging development in lagging regions, with community owned or operated facilities potentially having a relatively greater impact. The development of small hydropower installations in Wales is examined to establish the economic and community benefits of such schemes. The sector displays a number of locally beneficial economic characteristics that are absent from larger scale renewable investments. However, this is shown to be a fragile sector dependent on a small number of key individuals and institutions, and with an investment model relying on depreciating UK government subsidies. Following an introduction, the paper first examines why renewables, and small-scale, community renewables in particular, have attracted attention as a part response to declining economic, social and environmental conditions in rural communities. It then describes the Welsh energy and policy context before describing the data and the method employed in the research. The paper then examines the economic value of small hydropower developments, the nature and scale of impacts on local social capital and on communities, and then the extent to which small hydropower might be considered distinct from other local energy sectors in terms of business behaviours and inter-organisation relationships. The discussion then focuses on factors affecting prospects for the small hydropower sector, and which will limit how far development of the sector can lead to transformative outcomes for communities close to the natural resource.
The paper examines a method to attribute hazardous waste streams to regional production and consumption activity, and to connect these same waste streams through to different management options. We argue that a method using an input-output framework provides useful intelligence for decision makers seeking to connect elements of the management of the hazardous waste hierarchy to production and to different patterns and types of final consumption (of which domestic household consumption is one). This paper extends application of conventional demand driven input-output attribution methods to identify hazardous waste 'hotspots' in the supply chains of different final consumption goods and consumption groups. Using a regional case study to exposit the framework and its use, we find that domestic government final consumption of public administration production indirectly drives hazardous waste generation that goes to landfill, particularly in the domestic construction and sanitary services sectors, but also in the manufacture of wood products.
