Neil Lee

We get a few (excellent) West Point / Annapolis students in our summer school where I teach them such woke topics as optimal currency areas and monopsonistic labour markets

‘People laughed at TV jobs in Belfast!’ How Northern Ireland’s capital became the home of quality drama From Blue Lights gossip to How to Get to Heaven from Belfast cocktails, the city has become a small-screen hotspot – and is basking in its newfound fame

Belfast is buzzing.

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Europe lags the United States because of a structural deficit in first-mover innovation. This paper diagnoses the institutional roots of that deficit and outlines a coordinated political-economy pathway to address it.

🔴 zurl.co/1uhUW

terrible pub, great company

Great times

Going to @ucl.ac.uk changed my life & gave me the best friends a person could ask for.

It helped me think, write and argue. (Looking at you @jowolff.bsky.social @timcrane.bsky.social & others not on here)

Happy 200th UCL. Keep breaking the tradition.

Europe's innovation problem

New WP with Herbertson, Storper, Soskice, and Pardy

researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/13...

Just found about it now, so no! I'd actually done another urgent one that morning - it's a bind because you don't want to be the reason a former student doesn't get a job

Had a reference request at 9.47pm on Saturday night asking for the reference 'ideally' by midnight

Quick science policy thread 1

Changes in the governance of UK science since the mid 1980s make it extremely hard to be strategic (that was the point), in terms of both process (dropped) and capability (hollowed out).

"All around us – in our homes, in everyday life, in our hobbies and pastimes – we can see, if we care to look, the products of all kinds of technological innovation in products & the materials that make them, that collectively lead to overall economic growth"
softmachines.org?p=3249

Rock-climber Alex Honnold is in the news again, for climbing solo a Taipei skyscraper - an excuse to recycle this old post of mine about the importance of technological innovation in climbing, (contrary to the claims of a well-known economist).

Ha! I'm not sure - I will try and check later but I think your resident point is a good one...

Huge caveats on the data but GVA per head in Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire actually fell relative to the national average between 1998 - 2023

Smartphones have reduced crime but made everyone unhappy. So maybe we actually liked crime?

🧵 1/4 Yesterday I sat down with the @livingstandardsc.bsky.social, the @coopparty.party.coop, and several colleagues and experts to discuss how we can deliver growth felt by communities.

confidence intervals: 1.1 in Greater Manchester, 0.7 in London so I think any errors broader than that

Actually let me do confidence intervals and report back

There is a nice paper on sampling error in Ashe which I think may be similar to the issues in the GVA (under sampling small firms), but I think a little more reliable because easier to attribute wage data than output

I should have done confidence intervals but I think 2-5%

My contribution to the 'is Manchester growing' debate

GVA data looks fishy, but ASHE data on wages seem to show some convergence (with caveats)

(Source: ASHE, resident analysis)

We need a Southern Powerhouse to rebalance the economy

My contribution to the 'is Manchester growing' debate

GVA data looks fishy, but ASHE data on wages seem to show some convergence (with caveats)

(Source: ASHE, resident analysis)

work with me and @drdaveobrien.bsky.social as part of @creativepec.bsky.social! we're recruiting a postdoc to work on the arts, culture and heritage sectors using quantitative methods. please share, please feel free to email me directly with any Qs! jobsite.sheffield.ac.uk/job/Sheffiel...

Markets and Mobility: How Employers Structure Economic Opportunity

Intergenerational mobility, measuring the ability to achieve economic success regardless of family background, is a critical reflection of a society’s commitment to equality of opportunity. Rising income inequality has raised concerns about the potential erosion of upward mobility. While education has traditionally been viewed as the path to mobility, its transformative power is facing challenges in a rapidly evolving job market. This project reorients the focus of intergenerational mobility research by highlighting the labor market as an arena for the reproduction of advantage. It employs a comparative approach, using administrative data from four countries: Sweden, Austria, England, and the United States. It also incorporates evidence from a broader set of nations through cross-national surveys, longitudinal household surveys, labor force surveys, secondary data, and digital trace data. The project employs cutting-edge empirical methods, including quasi- experimental designs, event studies, within-family comparisons, decomposition analyses, counterfactual simulations, and diagnostic checks to rigorously assess the extent of inequalities in the labor market. The research investigates how family background influences the sorting of individuals to employers and workplaces, accounting for education and occupation, and explores variations in career progression within and between employers. It comprehensively catalogues and assesses mechanisms shaping workplace inequality, contributing to the development of social closure theory. Additionally, the project evaluates intervention strategies, encompassing both employer practices and government actions, to promote fair opportunity in the labor market.

JOB! I'm hiring a postdoc for 2 years on my ERC MaMo project.

Looking for someone with strong quant methods, ongoing work close to the project's aims, and a desire to publish in sociology. Start flexible in the next 12 months.

Formal call out shortly, but contact me first.

📣 Call for Papers:
🗓️ 23-24 April 2026 at LSE

Submit full papers: forms.office.com/e/9qVWeNTK0p

Please share with colleagues & early-career researchers!

Will you be in #Madrid in late #February? Join @neillee.bsky.social & I to decode the #geography of #discontent and the structural rise of #populism. We map the territorial revolt in this @fundacionareces.bsky.social & #LSE masterclass.
Applications: 9 February
www.fundacionareces.es/fundacionare...

A lot of the analysis seems to be about falling shares of low income households in neighbourhoods, which in many cases (such as Woodberry Down) is probably driven by building large amounts of market rate housing. But other research suggests that will tend to lower rents and gentrification pressures.

well exactly. the revenge of mixed neighbourhood policy!

maybe Boris Johnson’s masterplan for levelling up was tanking London?

Head to the Trust for London website for the nasty background: incomes in London barely shifted from 2012-2020