Economic Competitiveness
As the world economy is becoming increasingly integrated, the UK is facing more competition from abroad. Whereas our main competitors used to be other industrialised countries in Europe, the U.S. or Japan, in recent years some fast growing economies like China and India have turned out to be a competitive challenge in many branches of industry.
We believe that this new competition should be welcomed because it opens up opportunities for millions of people at home and abroad. But in order to play a positive role in today’s international markets, the UK needs to do its homework to improve its ability to compete. This is why economic competitiveness is one of Policy Exchange’s major areas of research.
Economic competitiveness, however, can stand for a wide variety of things. In order to be competitive, we need a tax system that is easy to comply with and that minimises economic distortions. It also means having a workforce that is qualified to contribute to the economy’s development.
In particular, we are going to focus on two issues of economic competitiveness which so far have often been neglected in policy debates. The first is urban regeneration. We believe that cities are the backbone of our economies, but that some British cities are currently not living up to their true economic potential. We will explore different sets of regional policies to revive business in these cities.
The second issue is transport. It is widely accepted that the British transport infrastructure is lagging behind the integrated transport systems that had been developed in other countries. We know about road congestion, overstretched airport capacities and problems in the rail network. Thus it is vital to find ways to upgrade the UK’s transport infrastructure if we do not want to risk losing our ability to compete with other countries.
Publications on Economic Competitiveness Issues
Economic Competitiveness Experts