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Cities, Jobs, and Economic Change

This programme has now ended, but continues as a network. The III networks are former research programmes that continue to be active in research, collaboration, and impact in their subject area.

This network takes an internationally comparative, cross-disciplinary, and multidimensional approach to analysing economic and technological change, polarised labour markets, and geographic divides in education, employment opportunities, political attitudes, and cultural values. It engages quantitative and qualitative researchers to understand both broad economic processes and everyday lived experiences.

This research network is led by Professor Neil Lee.

The information technology revolution has led to huge changes in society, reshaping social relationships, the type of work we do, and patterns of consumption. Many countries have seen a decline in mid-skill, mid-wage jobs, with polarisation between high skill, high pay employment and low skill, low pay (and often precarious) work. One striking feature of this economic change has been its tendency to concentrate economic prosperity in selected locations. Once-thriving urban areas are ‘left behind’, struggling to replace their historical economic purpose. Discontent with this uneven geography of opportunity is manifest in the rise of populist politics across Europe and the United States, challenging the stability of democratic societies.

Our research network ties together academics from the LSE and elsewhere who are interested in developing an internationally comparative, cross-disciplinary and multidimensional approach to these issues, and what the implications are for public policy. Other strands will investigate the institutional responses to technological change, such as the failure of education systems to meet the increased demand for high skilled labour and sub-optimal investment in research and development. We will engage quantitative and qualitative researchers to understand both broad economic processes and everyday lived experiences.