Divergent economic performance in many countries has led to renewed interest in place-based policies, such as the UK’s local industrial strategies at the level of Combined Authorities or Local Economic Partnerships. However, an analysis of employment data using methods from the economic complexity literature demonstrates great heterogeneity in industrial strengths and future growth opportunities within those jurisdictions, raising challenges in designing common policies suited to all sub-geographies. Moreover, the ‘related’ industries into which low-complexity, low-wage local authorities could potentially diversify are also low-wage. Incremental policies building on existing local capacities are therefore likely to amplify divergence between prospering and left-behind areas.

许多国家/地区的经济表现各不相同，导致人们对基于地方的政策重新产生了兴趣，例如英国在联合政府或地方经济合作伙伴一级的地方工业战略。但是，使用经济复杂性文献中的方法对就业数据进行的分析表明，这些辖区的产业实力和未来增长机会存在很大的异质性，这在设计适用于所有子地区的共同政策时面临挑战。此外，低复杂度，低工资的地方政府可能多元化的“相关”行业也是低工资的。因此，建立在现有地方能力基础上的增量政策可能会扩大繁荣地区和落后地区之间的分歧。