Economic Policy > GLA Economics > Events > Success, Strategy and Sectors seminar

Success, Strategy and Sectors

7 February 2007, City Hall

Seminar summary

This event investigated our understanding of London’s sectors and industries and how the public sector might best intervene to enable the future growth of London’s economy.

Traditionally, London’s sectors are described using statistically-defined groupings of activities – the seminar provided more detail behind such classifications to try and build a better understanding of trends over time and the resulting structure of London’s economy. This consideration also looked at the spatial characteristics of London’s sectors and industries.

The seminar aimed to develop a better understanding of how and why the public sector might intervene to support London’s sectors or industries, and considered what the most effective use of public resources might be.

Speakers

Bridget Rosewell, Consultant Chief Economist, GLA Economics
'The changing structure of London's economy'
Statistics can conceal as well as reveal. This presentation sought to get under the skin of sectoral data to show where London is growing and how its activities fit together across the capital. It looked at how high value activity is concentrated, and reviewed where occupations are centred as well as where different industries are located.

Bridget Rosewell presentation PDF
Bridget Rosewell presentation RTF

Paul Ormerod, Director, Volterra Consulting
'Industrial structure and economic success at the local authority level'
Contrary to received wisdom, industrial structure itself is of only second-order importance in determining employment growth. On average, certain types of structure are associated with faster subsequent growth of employment than other types. Differences in success within groups of local authority areas with similar industrial structure are distinctly larger than differences between groups with different structures. In other words, there are a wide variety of industrial structures that are capable of generating local employment growth and economic success. By implication, it is the nature of the companies within each industrial sector that is important, rather than the type of industrial sector.

The present policy emphasis on the 'knowledge-based' sectors is therefore misplaced. A successful local economy can in principle be built upon almost any industrial structure.

Paul Ormerod presentation PDF
Paul Ormerod presentation RTF

John Glen, Senior Lecturer Economics and Director of full-time MBA, Cranfield School of Management
This session examined the role for the public sector in supporting the various sectors of London’s economy. The primary economic justification for public sector intervention in a market economy is to correct market failure. It examined the nature of market failure in the context of sector policy and endeavoured to identify appropriate public sector interventions to correct that market failure. This session was interactive with delegates discussing market failures and what they thought the appropriate public sector response should be.

John Glen presentation PDF
John Glen presentation RTF