British regional employment and development policies.

Regional economic development has become an integral part of the national economic planning process of modem nations. Great Britain was the first country in the western world to adopt a regional development programme as a major component of Government policy.One of the principal objectives of British regional development policy has been the reduction of unemployment rates in the depressed areas (while controlling labour congestion in the Midlands and South East conurbations). The diversification of the industrial structure of regions, and consequently of its working population, has been considered one of the main solutions in the prevention of unemployment.This thesis aims to critically assess the effects of regional measures on unemployment by analysing the extent to which a diversification policy has in fact helped to reduce unemployment indices or rather merely created a major shift in the industrial structure of the regions.The work is divided into two main parts. The first part starts with an introduction to the British regional problem including a brief summary of its origin and nature with the emphasis on the historical, social and economic factors which contributed to the creation of areas of contrasting economic development. A detailed study of the evolution of regional development policies and measures in Great Britain as far back as the setting up of the Industrial Transference Board in 1928 is undertaken in order to give a logical sequence and comprehensive background to the analytical part of the thesis.The second part of the thesis surveys the different methods used to measure and explain changes in the economic structure of theregions, emphasizing the effectiveness of the diversification policy in reducing unemployment. It continues with an examination of the use of alternative data disaggregation in the analysis of changes that occurred in the economic structure of the regions.Finally an attempt is made to assess the most appropriate data disaggregation to be used when interpreting changes over time in regional economic structures