Using data from the 2023 Annual Population Survey this paper explores explanations for the higher rate of sickness absence in Wales compared to the UK average. The paper isolates the role of differences in workforce composition from unobserved drivers of regional differences in sickness absence. While unexplained regional gaps in sickness absence exist between Wales and some other UK regions, particularly London and the South East, these are by no means universal. In most cases, after accounting for differences in the characteristics of jobs known to influence absence, sickness absence rates in Wales are similar to other UK regions.
Introductory Editor's note: Edward (Ted) Nevin produced a considerable body of research on the Welsh economy and regional policy, publishing a total of fifty monographs, academic papers and press articles between the early 1950s and 1990. February 2025 will be the centenary of Nevin’s birth. To mark this milestone, his son, Michael Nevin, has recently published a book ‘Edward Nevin: An impression of his life, times and legacy’ (Nevin, 2024). In addition, Michael Nevin has authored this paper which provides a synthesis of Edward Nevin’s work on the Welsh economy and considers its implications for Welsh economic policy in the 2020s. Edward Nevin’s work was of great significance and importance, in particular the pioneering work he co-authored on the structure of the Welsh economy, producing the first set of input-output accounts relating to Wales. This work formed a foundation and provided inspiration for research in input-output analysis in Wales and beyond. In Wales, much of the activities of the Welsh Economy Research Unit at Cardiff Business School have been based around compiling input-output tables for Wales and applying these in a range of contexts.
How do public museums balance their economic costs with their economic benefits? Political debate often strips nuance from museum management, with the total public spending going into a museum countered by a museum’s direct revenue generation. This paper attempts to complicate those false dichotomies by demonstrating that while free-to-enter public museums generate relatively little of their own direct revenue, their broader contribution to the regional economy must be considered. Across Britain, national museums play a central role in the tourist economy, and in Wales, St. Fagans National Museum of History has long been the nation’s most visited tourist destination. With this in mind, using self-provided data on spending inside museums and within broader museum communities, we attempt to highlight the community economic impacts of all seven National Museum Wales (NMW) museums. The findings support other museum studies which identify a regional multiplying effect that free entry museums have on regional economies, and that even museums which generate little direct revenue could be considered for their 'return on investment' in broader regional economic and cultural development.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently advised that “climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our wellbeing and a healthy planet” (2023, p.6). This threat underlines the importance of developing businesses innovation capabilities and implementing Circular Economy (CE) principles. Organisations that have developed innovation capabilities are most likely to implement CE principles within their organisations. However, the UK has suffered a ‘long tail of productivity’ largely due to the UK’s relatively low levels of innovation across the firm population. In Wales, the location of this study, output per hour worked was almost 16% below the UK average in 2021, suggesting that the levels of innovation capability might hinder CE implementation. Therefore, evidence on programmes that support organisations to develop their innovation capabilities and their CE understanding should be of interest to policymakers, academics, and practitioners. This paper presents data collected from a university designed CE innovation programme, the Cardiff Circular Economy Network, and suggests that the novel approach adopted enhanced the innovation capabilities and CE knowledge of participants.
Wales has a chronic and severe problem of low productivity, and shares with the wider UK two decades of stagnant productivity. Significantly, Wales has a severe and persistent productivity gap with other UK nations and regions, and with other international competitors. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the issues together with some analysis of both the Welsh productivity gap and the intra-Wales dispersion of productivity. The paper describes potential macro and micro productivity drivers and argues that there is an urgent need to (re-) promote productivity within Wales as a policy objective.
This paper examines Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Welsh Government support for 5G deployment in rural areas of Wales. This project introduced several use cases based on 5G-enabled digital applications in Monmouthshire and Blaenau Gwent. The findings highlight the ongoing challenges associated with 5G deployment in rural Wales, and the current lack of a business model for 5G deployment by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in such areas. The report illustrates how the public sector may collaborate with private actors to develop an experimental approach to 5G deployment challenges faced in rural areas. This approach is based on an iterative learning process, in which small-scale experimental actions aimed at identifying sources of demand and understanding the potential impacts of new technology solutions are established. The report suggests that policy action is required at multiple levels of governance in such experimentation to address the challenge of deploying new 5G, and to ensure that firms and public service provision in rural parts of Wales are not disadvantaged.
The Welsh manufacturing sector has undergone significant change over the last decade, with new technologies, greater promotion of the circular economy by policymakers, and a competitive environment affected by Brexit, covid and energy price rises, all impacting the business landscape. Consequently, Welsh manufacturing businesses, the vast majority of which are micro, small, or medium-sized enterprises, face issues concerning supply chains, training and skills, innovation, finance, infrastructure, and sustainability. This report summarises a recent study conducted by Swansea University, on behalf of the Federation of Small Businesses (Pickernell et al 2023). The research investigated the issues faced by Welsh small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and identified short-term problems with energy and infrastructure, and difficulties recruiting sufficient qualified staff, as well as a lack of Welsh-based suppliers for many of the resources Welsh SMEs required. The research also highlighted the gap between short-term pressures and long-term vision, but that bridging that gap would allow Welsh manufacturing businesses to place themselves on a more resilient footing, build skills and employment and prepare for future opportunities.
The economic fall-out from the COVID-19 crisis continues to wreak serious damage in the labour market, and at the time of writing the full extent of this damage is some way from becoming apparent. One significant group of workers who have been very badly affected by the economic shock resulting from 'lockdown' are the self-employed. In previous analysis it was reported that almost 4 in 10 of the jobs created in Wales over the decade following the 2008 financial crisis were in self-employment (Henley and Lang, 2017). Furthermore, this analysis demonstrated the high degree of diversity of self-employment activity across Wales, both in spatial and sectoral dimensions. This paper looks at how this group in Wales have fared so far during the crisis and makes some suggestions on how policy may address the prospects of the self-employed.
Tourism is a vital component of the Welsh economy and the need to incorporate sustainability principles into new and more responsible forms of tourism development is now widely accepted. Sustainability in a tourism context is multi-faceted, involving consideration of the economic, sociocultural and environmental impacts of tourism on all of the people and places impacted by it, including tourism and non-tourism businesses, residents and guests. Planning for sustainable tourism is therefore complex, requiring integration with other relevant planning processes; wide-ranging stakeholder participation; and, an integrative, iterative and strategic approach. This study assessed the extent to which Wales’ regional tourism entities have to date incorporated a stakeholder-driven, sustainability-focused mindset into their planning activities. Evaluation of 22 recent destination management plans revealed that there are many opportunities for improvement in the extent to which the desires of the industry, visitors and residents, and the conditions of the local economy, society and environment, are given equal consideration in tourism planning efforts. The need to refocus is especially important in light of Visit Wales’ recently articulated new ambition for tourism and the broader aspirations of the Well-being of Future Generations Act.
The paper examines the funding of Welsh voluntary sector organisations (VSOs), in terms of income source and type, in the aftermath of the 2007-08 global economic crisis, seeking to explore marketisation trends. A detailed examination of voluntary sector income from 2010-11, at the beginning of the austerity period, to 2016-17, the financial year with the latest available figures, provides valuable insights to both academic and policy inquiry about VSOs and their financial resilience. Several works have examined the voluntary sector funding in the aftermath of the 2007-08 economic crisis (Osborne, 2012; Clifford, 2017). Osborne (2012) indicated that Scottish charities reacted positively to the effects of the recession, with Scottish Government funding increases compensating for the decline in voluntary donations. Clifford (2017) showed that English and Welsh charities’ income had significantly declined from 2008 to 2014. This paper provides some insights into how VSOs might respond to the current economic conditions affecting the Welsh economy.
This article sets out developments in the place branding literature, detailing its potential to support sustainable development when considered as a process that reflects and supports the place and its people, policies and practices. To achieve these aims, it is suggested that a greater unison of place branding and placemaking needs to occur, supporting the ongoing involvement of people in the shared (re)invention of lived-in places. Both of which benefit from collaborations and partnerships with stakeholders, helping to (re)create and (re)present the places in which they live, work, visit, and invest in. Building on these assumptions, this article looks at how placemaking and place branding are interwoven into the Well-being of the Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, which provides the legislative and policy backing to enact substantive change and support sustainable development in Wales. Based on reflections of the Act and the Future Generation Report (2020) this paper proposes that policy making can help to bring together placemaking and place branding, and when all three components are pursued collectively and in unison they can bring about substantive economic, social, cultural and environment benefits.
The aim of the WER is to provide authoritative and objective analysis and commentary on the Welsh economy, and regional economies in general, in a manner that promotes understanding and informs decision-making. The intended audience includes academics, economic development practitioners, policy-makers, and anyone with an interest in the Welsh economy and/or regional economics.
Governments have been intervening to boost an underperforming Welsh economy since 1934. Regional policies encouraged manufacturing industries to locate factories in Wales after the Second World War but these policies lost effectiveness in the 1970s (Gooberman and Curtis, 2020). The decline of regional policies coincided with the government’s 1976 creation of the Welsh Development Agency (WDA). The Agency had a central role in economic development until it merged with the Welsh Government in 2006. This article provides a brief overview of recent research (e.g. Gooberman, 2017; Gooberman and Boyns, 2020) to explore the WDA’s achievements and their contemporary implications.
The aim of the WER is to provide authoritative and objective analysis and commentary on the Welsh economy, and regional economies in general, in a manner that promotes understanding and informs decision-making. The intended audience includes academics, economic development practitioners, policy-makers, and anyone with an interest in the Welsh economy and/or regional economics.
The aim of the WER is to provide authoritative and objective analysis and commentary on the Welsh economy, and regional economies in general, in a manner that promotes understanding and informs decision-making. The intended audience includes academics, economic development practitioners, policy-makers, and anyone with an interest in the Welsh economy and/or regional economics.
The aim of the WER is to provide authoritative and objective analysis and commentary on the Welsh economy, and regional economies in general, in a manner that promotes understanding and informs decision-making. The intended audience includes academics, economic development practitioners, policy-makers, and anyone with an interest in the Welsh economy and/or regional economics.
The Brexit vote in the UK, according to Andres Rodriguez-Pose (2018), is an instance of the revenge of the ‘places that don’t matter’. This expression of discontent from places at the sharp end of rising social and spatial inequalities has fostered the rapid rise of populism that is challenging the hegemony of neoliberal capitalism and liberal democracy. This paper considers the problems of these so-called ‘left-behind’ places – typically former industrial regions. Such places figured prominently not just among those that voted leave in the Brexit referendum in the UK, but also among those who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 in the US, and for Marine Le Pen in 2017 in France in their respective presidential elections. In this context, this paper’s aims are fourfold. First, we outline the political economy of ‘left-behind’ regions. Second, we offer a critical account of recent efforts to ‘regenerate’ deindustrialised regions. Third, we describe new policy prescriptions for ‘left-behind’ regions attracting the attention of policymakers. Finally, the politics of local and regional economic development are considered, including the kinds of institutions are required to affect a new economic future in such disadvantaged places.
Governments have a responsibility to secure the best return on their investments in services. This being the case, the institutions that are involved in organising the supply of these services are a topic of interest and concern. In the case of educational services in Wales, particular concern surrounds the performance of school pupils as measured by international tests, in which the recent record has been disappointing. This paper examines this record and evaluates reform measures that have been put in place. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. In the next section, I look at some data that allows comparison of educational outcomes in Wales and England. This is followed by a broader discussion about the system of education. The final section draws together the main ideas of the paper in a conclusion.
Ple a s e no t e: Ch a n g e s m a d e a s a r e s ul t of p u blishing p roc e s s e s s uc h a s copy-e di ting, for m a t ting a n d p a g e n u m b e r s m ay no t b e r eflec t e d in t his ve r sion. For t h e d efini tive ve r sion of t his p u blica tion, ple a s e r ef e r to t h e p u blish e d sou rc e. You a r e a dvise d to cons ul t t h e p u blish e r’s ve r sion if you wish to ci t e t his p a p er.
