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Territory and Public Employment: A General Model and British Evidence*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Richard Parry
Richard Parry
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, University of Edinburgh
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Abstract

A model of the territorial distribution of public employment within a country is presented, and tested with evidence from the United Kingdom in 1977. Three influences are suggested to account for the pattern of territorial variation: proportionality (an even distribution after standardisation for area and client group characteristics); the structure of the public sector (the presence of industries and services that must be concentrated in some places) and political discretion. These are then related to different activities of government. The first two influences are shown to account for much, though not all, of the territorial variation between United Kingdom nations and regions in 1977, substantial though this was, with Northern Ireland having nearly twice the level of public employment of the West Midlands. Location patterns tend to be byproducts of decisions taken on functional grounds, with structural constraints and service entitlements having a much greater impact than political choice.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , May 1981 , pp. 221 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

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