Regional economic policy and the Hunt Committee

Brown was an important regional economist, publishing a major book on the subject (The Framework of Regional Economics in the United Kingdom), and served on the Hunt Committee that reported on the state of the UK regions. This chapter focuses on his approach to the subject and to matters such as: the inadequacy of disaggregate spatial data; the importance of retaining employment in depressed areas; the role of infrastructure in local economic development in the UK; and the comparison between the UK’s regional problems and those of other countries. In his work on the Hunt Committee, he specifically and quantitatively examines the UK’s Intermediate Regions—those that were likely to suffer economic downturns soon—and the types of policy that could stave off severe economic depression.