the institute for employment studies

What’s different about university cities?

Marc Cowling

Issues

More than half of our largest cities have universities

Universities are huge creators of human capital

Graduates represent the single largest flow of human capital around the UK

Human capital is fundamental to economic growth, innovation and productivity

Over-arching research questions

What attracts students to study at their chosen university?

What affects graduates locational decisions?

- Quality of life- Quality of university- Economic and labour market capacityWhat impact does this have on the socio-

economics outcomes of cities?

Research strand (1)

City level demographics- Demographics (who lives there)- Quality of life - Economics- Labour market capacity

Neighbourhood statistics and census data

Research strand (2)

Map out flows of (primarily) young people within the UK, at the city level from;

- Home to university- University to work

HESA Graduate Destinations data

Cities in socio-economic space

City Demographics: university cities….

similar ethnic mixlarger migrant populationsmore atheistshigher shares of economically active

graduates poorer average performance for children

at Key Stage 2greater polarisation in labour marketshigher crime rates

City Economics:university cities have…..

lower business densitylower business start-up ratesless knowledge based business activity

(than the best non-university cities)higher Gross Value Added (GVA) per

capita

General points

Cities with higher graduate shares maintain them over time and there is little evidence of ‘catch up’ for cities with small graduate populations

And it is hard to improve a cities rate of knowledge based business activity, if it starts from a low base, and catch up with the best performing knowledge cities

Knowledge industries and graduates

Dynamics of graduates in cities

Graduates and quality of city life

Graduates and city performance

Summary

The presence or not of a university (or universities) in a city does not appear to fundamentally change a cities economic and social outcomes as much as geography. As such, persistent regional differences in the UK far outweigh the contribution of universities in improving social and economic welfare at the city level.

However, graduate population shares do matter. This suggests that graduate retention is a key issue in the economic development of UK cities

Although university cities do fare better on GVA per capita, there is evidence that these cities are more polarised economically

What is of great concern is that cities that start from a low base on any measure of economic performance will find it immensely difficult to improve their relative position regardless of whether they have a university or not!

… thank you

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