Regional productivity differentials in England: Explaining the gap

Significant and persistent differences in regional productivity exist across most countries and are the subject of academic and policy concern. We use plant-level data to examine the determinants of regional productivity differentials across regions of England and demonstrate that substantial differences in regional productivity can be explained by a fairly limited set of variables, including industry mix, capital stock, ownership and skills. Location-specific factors of travel time and population density are also identified as being important. © Journal compilation © 2009 Regional Science Association International