No abstract

No abstract

Research question: This paper focuses on estimating the net regional economic impact of a UK Premier League football club. The drivers of local economic effects, factors constraining impacts, and the return on public investment for peripheral regions are considered.

We reveal how tourist visitation to similar historical sites supports different levels of local gross value added (GVA). The paper shows how information on tourism activity at few historical sites can be used to analyse causal recipes defining whether sites support relatively high/low levels of GVA. Fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis is employed to offer perspectives not possible with other analytical methods. The study reveals that for a set of similar heritage sites, that factors supporting local economic impacts are complex and with this having ramifications for management interventions around sites that seek to boost the economic impacts of visitation.

No abstract

This paper examines the challenges of deploying broadband policies at the local level. It is a topic that has received significant attention in urban and rural areas, with uneven access to broadband identified as an important issue by policy makers and researchers alike. While the broadband and regional development literature has highlighted the complexity of regional deployment, with reference to geographical metaphors such as the last mile, it has tended to downplay the underlying policy processes as actors seek to manage the deployment process over time and space. Drawing on the concept of the policy mix, the paper examines how actors seek to manage complexity between policy objectives. It does so by drawing on an in-depth case-study of broadband policy in Wales – 2012 to 2017, and shows deployment to be a contested process in the last mile, characterised by interaction between policy objectives in a range of policy areas including planning and highways. It is argued that coordination of these tensions represents a complex socio-spatial process in which local actors (government, households, businesses and broadband providers) engage in a negotiated process to find place-based, bespoke solutions to deployment problems.

PurposeThe paper shows how small firms perceive the pathways through which access to and adoption of superfast broadband-enabled resources strengthen business performance. Improvements to broadband infrastructure do not automatically lead to adoption of opportunities made available through the broadband resource. Then, interventions can be used to alert small firms to new opportunities. However, the quality of interventions in terms of education and digital audits can be better targeted with information available on how small firms perceive the benefits from broadband access and whether these perceptions are reflected in business performance outcomes.Design/methodology/approachData are used from the Digital Maturity Survey from Wales. The study uses principal component analysis and a dual stage cluster approach to show how SMEs believe they are benefitting from broadband access. These belief-based perceptions of broadband inferred business benefits are tested against business performance variables.FindingsThe analysis shows variation in SME perceptions of the benefits of broadband-enabled services. This study reveals a cluster of firms which perceived routes to business value in terms of variables linked to security and risk management, and then more commonly held notions linked to communication, competition enhancement and productivity.Originality/valueWhile the research literature points to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) resources (ICT investment and skills) and use (digital applications), leading to new to business value improvements, this study suggests less work has sought to identify the critical themes identified by business owners in explaining how ICT resources and use tie to observed business performance. The study identifies these critical themes. The analysis suggests that these critical themes in terms of business value benefits as perceived by business owners can be summarised in terms of communication and competition benefits, and security and risk related benefits. The findings have a series of implications for interventions in the space.

Sea angling has been shown to be a high value activity with significant expenditure by individuals on their sport. Deriving estimates of the economic contribution of recreational sea angling is important in a number of related policy contexts, from tourism management and economic development policy, to the sustainable management of inshore fish stocks. This paper reveals some of the challenges in understanding the economic effects associated with recreational sea angling, and provides estimates of the economic value of recreational sea angling in England. The results were derived from research undertaken in England in 2011-13, which was conducted as part a wide ranging government-funded study, Sea Angling 2012, that estimated sea angler catches, spending and activity. Recreational sea angling made a significant contribution to the economy, supporting just over £2 billion of total spending, and 23,600 jobs in England in 2012-13. The implications of these results are discussed in the context of the management of recreational sea angling in England. Highlights  The paper estimates the economic contribution of recreational sea angling to England.  Average angler spending, on trips and major items, was almost £1,400 in 2012-13.  Sea angling supported around £2 billion of spending and 23,600 jobs in England.