To answer, our recent paper published in the Journal of Rural Studies investigates the comparative performance of urban and rural Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in these regions. We used official Longitudinal Small Business Survey data for the analysis. To compare performance, we analysed both the rates of innovation and exporting for the overall stock of rural and urban businesses, as well as comparing rural and urban businesses with similar profile characteristics, using a statistical procedure known as propensity score matching.
New academic paper
The gap in incomes between England’s richest and poorest regions continues to grow, with much political attention given to ‘Levelling Up’ less prosperous communities, writes Matthew Gorton, deputy director of NICRE. In improving the fortunes of less prosperous regions, one school of thought regards cities as the engines of improvement, with rural areas inevitable laggards in terms of levels of innovation and international trade. But does this argument hold for the North and Midlands of England?
