The digital industries cluster known as 'Silicon Roundabout' has been quietly growing in East London since the 1990s. Now rebranded 'Tech City', it is now the focus of huge public and government attention. National and local policymakers wish to accelerate the local area's development: such...

To study the detailed location patterns of industries, and particularly the tendency for industries to cluster relative to overall manufacturing, we develop distance-based tests of localisation. In contrast to previous studies, our approach allows us to assess the statistical significance of...

To study the detailed location patterns of industries, and particularly the tendency for industries to cluster relative to overall manufacturing, we develop distance-based tests of localisation. In contrast to previous studies, our approach allows us to assess the statistical significance of...

We use a point-pattern methodology to explore the detailed location patterns of UK manufacturing industries. In particular, we consider the location of entrants and exiters vs. continuing establishments, domestic- vs. foreign-owned, large vs. small, and affiliated vs. independent. We also...

London is one of the world’s major cities, and one of its most diverse. London’s cultural diversity is widely seen as a social asset, but there is little hard evidence on its importance for the city’s businesses. Theory and evidence suggest various links between urban cultural diversity...

Entrepreneurs are believed to be the ultimate engine of modern economic systems. Yet, the study of entrepreneurship suffers from the lack of consensus on the most crucial question: what makes an entrepreneur? A recent theory developed by Edward Lazear suggests that individuals mastering a...

Ethnic inventors play important roles in US innovation systems, especially in high-tech regions like Silicon Valley. Do ‘ethnicity-innovation’ channels exist elsewhere? This paper investigates, using a new panel of UK patents microdata. In theory, ethnicity might affect positively innovation...

This paper explores the effects of foreign direct investment, measured by mergers and acquisitions, on domestic entrepreneurial entry. We use a micro‐panel of more than two thousand individuals disaggregated by industry in seventy countries including both developed and developing economies,...

This paper shows that job creation of cohorts of U.S. firms is strongly influenced by aggregate conditions at the time of their entry. Using data from the Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS) we follow cohorts of young firms and document that their employment levels are very persistent and largely...

Growing cultural diversity is seen as important for innovation. Research has focused on two potential mechanisms: a firm effect, with diversity at the firm level improving knowledge sourcing or ideas generation, and a city effect, where diverse cities helping firms innovate. This paper uses a...