Strengthening the UK economy with social science

Social science research, evidence and insights are vital to understanding and driving economic growth at local, regional and national scales, through fostering innovation, informing policy decisions and encouraging investment.

Professor Anne Green FAcSS is Professor of Regional Economic Development at the City Regional Economic Development Institute (City-REDI) at the University of Birmingham. Research at City-REDI has contributed directly to shaping the West Midlands region’s socio-economic policy, and resulted in the underpinning a £1.5 billion cash injection into the region.

Professor Paul Mizen FAcSS is Professor in Economics at King’s College London and Director of the Decision Maker Panel, a monthly online survey which collects data from 11,000 CEOs and CFOs across the UK to inform policy decisions being made by the Bank of England.

Watch the video below to hear from Anne and Paul about how their social science research is strengthening the UK economy at both regional and national scales.

Video transcript

Professor Anne Green FAcSS:

I think social science matters because it provides a perspective about places, about communities, about businesses, and I think it provides that insight and reflection that policymakers need.

I’m Anne Green, I’m a Professor of Regional Economic Development at the City Regional Economic Development Institute at the University of Birmingham.

We have to understand that places are different. They have different histories, they have different assets, they have different characteristics, different demographies.

And if you can bring together, like we do in City-REDI, people from different social science disciplines, you can get a whole range of different perspectives on what the world looks like, what it could look like, and you can get evidence and different methodologies.

We’ve done a variety of research in the West Midlands and from that our evidence has led to £1.5 billion being injected into the economy. And this is through a range of different things.

We provided evidence on an ongoing basis throughout COVID for the Mayor of the West Midlands and for policymakers so they could see what’s going on. We’ve helped shape the West Midlands growth plan.

And then at a national level, we’ve contributed to the Green Book, which is what the Treasury uses to justify their investment decisions.

Professor Paul Mizen FAcSS:

This is a really good example of where social science and academic understanding can contribute to provide useful evidence and actionable insights for policymakers.

So, I’m Paul Mizen, I’m Professor in Economics at King’s College London and Director of the Decision Maker Panel. I’m also a consultant at the Bank of England.

So, the Decision Maker Panel, it’s an online survey. We send the survey out every month and there are about 11,000 CEOs and CFOs from companies across the country that are taking part in the Decision Maker Panel.

These people are making actual decisions about prices, about wages, about employment, about investment, and all of these things feed into the state of the UK economy.

So, we’ve been doing the Decision Maker Panel data collection process for about 10 years. We’ve been using that to inform monetary policy.

And a lot of what we’re doing is really informing, for example, whether inflation is likely to increase or decrease as a result of certain activities that have taken place in the economy, whether it’s the Brexit shock or COVID or, you know, a surge in inflation.

And that’s very valuable to the Monetary Policy Committee.

The better we can understand decision making and what drives those decisions, the better we can set policy and that is good for the UK economy.