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This paper examines the UK's large and, by some measures, growing variation in economic performance across cities and regions and assesses how policymakers can and should respond. The traditional policy mix – including central government investments in local growth projects, transport and other infrastructure, and funding for business support and access to finance – has not been effective. Greater local control is needed to improve policy effectiveness and recent devolution deals and directly elected mayors are a step in this direction. Nonetheless, when devolving powers, it is important that policies that have wide scale impacts (such as transport and housing) are coordinated across local areas. London's strong economic performance plays a large part in explaining widening disparities within the UK. Providing an effective counter-balance to London may require policy aimed at 'rebalancing' to be more spatially focused. Ultimately, policymakers should care about the effect of policies on people more than on places and thus efforts to rebalance an economy should be judged on the extent to which they improve opportunities for all, rather than whether they narrow the gap between particular places.

read before the Society, 26 April 2018; Symposium: ?Where? will the Economy be in 2040? Delivering on the National Development Framework ; This paper examines the UK?s large and, by some measures, growing variation in economic performance across cities and regions and assesses how policymakers can and should respond. The traditional policy mix ? including central government investments in local growth projects, transport and other infrastructure, and funding for business support and access to finance ? has not been effective. Greater local control is needed to improve policy effectiveness and recent devolution deals and directly elected mayors are a step in this direction. Nonetheless, when devolving powers, it is important that policies that have wide scale impacts (such as transport and housing) are coordinated across local areas. London?s strong economic performance plays a large part in explaining widening disparities within the UK. Providing an effective counter-balance to London may require policy aimed at ?rebalancing? to be more spatially focused. Ultimately, policymakers should care about the effect of policies on people more than on places and thus efforts to rebalance an economy should be judged on the extent to which they improve opportunities for all, rather than whether they narrow the gap between particular places.

In a recent commentary for this journal, Haughton, Deas, and Hinks (henceforth HDH) discuss the dangers involved when trying to use academic research to influence policy. First, it is argued, there is the danger of co-option by wider ('neoliberal') political agendas. Second, and related, is the danger that researchers are "seduced in to providing provocative analyses in order to gain the attention of policy makers" (page 269). Some of my work, which in turn builds on the research of the Spatial Economics Research Centre (SERC),(1) is used as an example to illustrate these dangers. In particular, HDH focus on work claimed to represent the "orthodoxy that infuses much of contemporary thinking about local and regional economic development in Britain … what might be described as a mix of agglomeration boosterism and antipathy towards planning" (page 265).(2) This commentary is, in part, written as a response to the criticisms raised by HDH. That task is complicated by the fact that these mainly take the form of vague accusations, assertions, or insinuations, while more specific criticisms seem to arise from misreading, misunderstanding, or misrepresenting the research they criticise. I give some examples of these issues below. The commentary also addresses some of the wider, substantive issues, around agglomeration and planning as well as briefly reflecting on the broader impact agenda and the issues this raises.

Spatial disparities in income levels and worklessness in the European Union are profound, persistent and may be widening. We describe disparities across metropolitan regions and discuss theories and empirical evidence that help us understand what causes these disparities. Increases in the productivity benefits of cities, the clustering of highly educated workers and increases in their wage premium all play a role. Europe has a long-standing tradition of using capital subsidies, enterprise zones, transport investments and other place-based policies to address these disparities. The evidence suggests these policies may have partially offset increasing disparities but are not sufficient to fully offset the economic forces at work.

We combine establishment‐level employment data with trade data by port to examine the impact of accession to the European Economic Community on the spatial distribution of UK manufacturing. We test the predictions from economic geography models of how external trade affects the spatial distribution of employment. We treat accession as a natural experiment which helps mitigate problems of endogeneity. Our results suggest that accession changed the country composition of trade and via the port composition induced an exogenous shock to different locations. In line with theory, we find that better access to export markets and intermediate goods increase employment while increased import competition decreases employment.

Many governments aim to improve the labour market outcomes of people living in deprived areas through "place-making" initiatives. Economists are often sceptical about the effectiveness of such policies, but empirical evidence on their impacts remains limited. We examine the impact of building subsidised business floor space in deprived neighbourhoods in the UK. Our estimates suggest that while the £8.2bn investment into these projects increased the number of jobs located in the targeted neighbourhoods, it did little to improve the employment of local residents.

One rationale for devolution is that local decision makers may be well placed to adapt national policies to the local context. We test whether such adaptation helps meet programme objectives in the case of the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers. Originally a national programme, aimed at incentivising employers to take on apprentices, reforms a few years into operation gave some Local Authorities negotiated flexibilities in how the scheme operated. We consider the impact of the national scheme and then use a difference‐in‐differences approach to test whether flexibility led to an increase in the number of apprenticeship starts in devolved areas relative to control groups. We find that flexibility had zero effect. There is suggestive evidence that this is because flexibilities were negotiated on the wrong margins.