Evaluating the local business growth effects of the UK City of Culture 2013

The use of the ONS statistical data in this work does not imply the endorsement of the ONS in relation to the interpretation or analysis of the statistical data. [...] The City's mayor at the time - Colum Eastwood – commented that ‘this will bring the jobs, the investment, the regeneration that we need.’ A local MP - Gregory Campbell – reflected both the potential for the COC and the background to the decision: CoC ‘has great potential, let's realise that potential …We need to try to ensure that the divisions of the past, are the divisions of the past and that t. [...] More specifically, we measure the average growth rate of the outcome variables 𝑦1𝑡+𝑛 , employment and turnover, as the difference between the pre-treatment log level at time t-n and the levels in the short-term (ST) 2 years after the treatment, and in the medium-term (MT) 4 years after the treatment.7 Since we are interested in identifying the differences in firms’ performance after the CoC, we. [...] The CoC reversed the decline in employment and led to a period of four years of job growth which was stronger and more consistent than that in any of the other cities shortlisted for the 2013 CoC (Figure 1). [...] First, the estimates are based on a comparison of the growth performance of individual firms in and in the other shortlisted cities before and after the CoC.