Universities, local labour markets and regional economic development

Helen Lawton Smith and Rupert Waters

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2021, vol. 42, issue 1/2, 8-26

Abstract: Universities as a supplier of the highly-skilled have long been understood as a contributor to economic development (Glasson, 2003). However, the direct impact of graduate education at the regional level is less clearly understood. This paper investigates patterns that emerge from 'first destination' data for all the UK universities on where graduates begin work and what they actually do in successful regions, comparing this with recent policy rhetoric, for example, in the UK's Industrial Strategy (HM Government, 2017), the Adonis Growth Review 2014 and the 2014 Witty Review of Universities and Growth. It illustrates reality using case studies of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire which are both adjacent geographically and among the most competitive places in the UK, albeit with rather different HEIs. It addresses the issue of spatial differences, examining how different patterns of skills matching emerge even in adjacent regions. It also reflects on spatial mobility: whether and how the migratory behaviour of skills influences education-job match.

Keywords: universities; Oxfordshire; Buckinghamshire; highly-skilled labour markets. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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