Lecture: Can policy deliver growth in every postcode?

For two decades, the United Kingdom has experienced weaker trend productivity growth, alongside significant inequalities in income, wealth and opportunity between different places and communities. The inequalities are visible in depressed high streets, fraying infrastructure and inadequate services, with some places seemingly trapped in a spiral of decline. 

Against this backdrop Prime Minister Andy Burnham has set out an ambition for “growth in every postcode.” But what would it really take to make this possible and how would we know if we had succeeded? In this year’s Campaign for Social Science Annual Sage Lecture, economist professor Dame Diane Coyle FAcSS will discuss this challenge, exploring the practicalities of delivering economic growth across different places.  Coyle is the Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge and research director at the Bennett School of Public Policy. Her latest book is The Measure of Progress: Counting what really matters.

Coyle will talk about the kinds of policies, investment, institutions and local capabilities we would need to turn the ambition into reality, and how national, regional and local government might work together to deliver it. She will also look beyond GDP to consider how we might measure whether growth is really delivering for people and places. Drawing on her expertise in economics, public policy and the measurement of economic and social progress, Coyle will examine the opportunities and challenges involved in pursuing a more geographically inclusive approach to growth.

Also speaking will be professor Monder Ram FAcSS, professor of small business at Aston University and founder-director of the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship, and professor Anna Valero, professor in practice at the LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance and Global School of Sustainability; director of the CEP’s Growth Programme and deputy director of the Programme on Innovation and Diffusion. 

The event will be chaired by professor Christina Boswell FAcSS, professor of politics at University of Edinburgh and chair of the Campaign for Social Science.

Following the lecture there will be a networking reception providing an opportunity to further discuss the key themes over refreshments.