1. GEMACA II What Is Regional Competitiveness?  Can places compete? And what’s new about it?  Competing in which games for what prizes?  How do we tell who’s winning?  Who gets to play? Bringing all stake-holders into the game

2. Can places compete? a debate (in paraphrase)  ‘Cities don’t compete … only firms do’ ( Paul Krugman )  ‘Internationally successful firms derive key elements of competitive advantage from the regional environments in which they are based’ ( Michael Porter )  ‘There is an intellectually respectable case to be made for places to intervene to boost competitiveness – but most actual cases fail this test, and are disguised efforts to promote special interests – at the cost of others’ ( Krugman )  i.e. Collective action could make a real difference to local productivity and prosperity – but it’s only likely to be positive if strategies are thought through on an economy-wide basis.

3. What’s new about this? Haven’t city-regions always competed?  Yes – but in the modern industrial era what mattered was location, technology and corporate strength  Now (from 1980s/90s) – location matters less – and place- based (face-to-face) external economies matter more  Especially qualitative assets (to support qualities-based competition), market intelligence – and rivalry (Porter)  Without these, competition means ‘a race to the bottom’  And territorial agencies can influence the ‘new’ assets more than old ‘location factors’

4. Markets that Cities Compete in  PRODUCT MARKETS – for firms based and/or operating from there (nb Porter’s focus on home bases)  INWARD INVESTMENT  DESIRABLE RESIDENTS – notably mobile highly skilled labour  RECOGNITION / FAVOURS from central / EU authorities  All operate at multiple spatial scales – with local, regional, national, European, global rivals

5. And the most important of these is …?  Typically - product market competition:  the major source of overall performance differences  the game whose prizes are most widely shared within an area (cf. inward investment)  the least likely to be zero-sum (or purely wasteful)  Same location factors don’t apply to all – so need to make choices  But in all cases, net gains depend on developing distinctive strengths / USPs

6. How do we tell who’s winning?..  In product terms COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE = ‘the capacity to sell your products in contested markets’  Revealed for geographical areas in higher levels of :  productivity  growth  exports  All have biases as measures – and reflect patterns of specialisation etc. – so need to consider together (and allow for assets deployed)

7. Issues in assessing London’s Performance Exemplifies key issues in evaluating competitiveness:  extensive use of human capital etc. developed elsewhere – output per head overstates total factor productivity  export performance reflects pattern of specialisation (lower because of limited manufacturing, higher because of City role)  rapid ‘productivity’ growth reflects (to unknown degree) institutional influences on pay disparities in the UK  effects of constrained / inelastic supply of space – lowering measured growth and raising measured productivity – especially for core urban areas – less so for FURs

8. Places, Interests and Competition Going back to Krugman:  basically competition involves INTERESTS which happen to be located in places – with positive / negative spillovers around there  for ‘good’ spatial strategies, need to:  internalise (and recognise) these spillovers (hence city-regions )  develop a political / institutional capacity reflecting the whole range of place-dependent economic interests – not just:  Property / development  CBD or  Traditional sectors  Depends on recognising and creating vested interests in interdependence and regional assets of long term value