City and metro mayors are increasingly high-profile and urbanisation is rising. By 2050 the majority of citizens will live in the world’s cities. Is the city – and city-region – replacing the nation as the most important economic entity? What does this mean for planning and delivering the future economy?

The panel, chaired by Margaret Heffernan, includes Andrew Carter (Centre for Cities), Diane Coyle (University of Cambridge), Patricia Greer (West of England Combined Authority) and Max Nathan (University of Birmingham).

Bristol Festival of Economics is presented in association with

The illustration is a detail of this year’s brochure cover by Alys Jones.

Speakers

Andrew Carter became the chief executive of Centre for Cities in April 2017. He is also the deputy director of the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth. Before that he was the deputy chief executive and director of Policy and Research with overall responsibility for the centre’s research and policy programme. He has over 20 years of experience working on urban economic policy issues for public and private development agencies, consultants and research institutes. He has also spent time in the US as part of the Churchill Foundation’s Fellowship Programme reviewing urban economic development policy and practice in American cities including New York, Washington DC, Boston and Chicago. Follow him on Twitter @AndrewCities

Diane Coyle is the inaugural Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, joining the Department of Politics and International Studies. She runs Enlightenment Economics and programmes the annual Festival of Economics in Bristol, which started in 2011. Prior to her appointment at Cambridge, she was a professor of economics at the University of Manchester. She is a fellow of the Office for National Statistics and a member of the Natural Capital Committee. She was the vice-chair of the BBC Trust until April 2015, a member of the Migration Advisory Committee from 2007-2012, and a member of the Competition Commission from 2001-2009. She is the author of several books, including GDP: A Brief But Affectionate History (2014), The Economics of Enough (2011), The Soulful Science (2007), Sex, Drugs and Economics (2002), Paradoxes of Prosperity (2001), Governing the World Economy (2000) and The Weightless World (1997). She has also published numerous book chapters, reports and articles, and was formerly a regular presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Analysis. She was previously Economics Editor of The Independent and before that worked at the Treasury and in the private sector as an economist. She has a PhD from Harvard and was awarded a CBE for services to economics and the public understanding of economics in January 2018. Follow her on Twitter @DianeCoyle1859

Dr Paricia Greer is Chief Executive of the West of England Combined Authority and Local Enterprise Partnership. She moved back to the region 3 and half years ago to lead the work across the region’s authorities to develop a devolution deal for the region. Patricia studied at the University of Bath and started her career at the University of Bath leading a programme of work on government reform and has published extensively on the subject. Her publications include her book, Transforming Central Government (1994). Her career then spanned management consultancy, central government and local government, including 5 years in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit.

Margaret Heffernan is an entrepreneur, chief executive and author. She worked in BBC Radio for five years where she wrote, directed, produced and commissioned dozens of documentaries and dramas. As a television producer, she made documentary films for Timewatch, Arena and Newsnight, among other programmes. She also produced music videos. Leaving the BBC, she ran the trade association IPPA, which represented the interests of independent film and television producers. In 1994 she returned to the US where she served as chief executive officer for InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and iCAST Corporation, and was named one of the Top 100 Media Executives by The Hollywood Reporter, among other accolades. Her books include The Naked Truth: A Working Woman’s Manifesto About Business and What Really Matters, Women on Top: How Female Entrepreneurs are Changing the Rules for Business Success, Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril and Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes. Follow her on Twitter @M_Heffernan

Max Nathan is Senior Birmingham Fellow (Regional Economic Development) at Birmingham Business School and is a deputy director of the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth. He is an economic geographer with a background in public policy. His research focuses on urban economic development, in particular the economics of immigration and diversity; innovation systems and tech clusters; and public policy for cities, especially policy design and evaluation. He has over 15 years’ public policy experience in think tanks, consultancy and government, including at DCLG as an ESRC-DCLG Senior Policy Adviser. He also co-founded the Centre for Cities, where he ran the research programme for the centre’s first three years. Follow him on Twitter @iammaxnathan