Area Development or Sectoral Conflict? An Example of the Discriminatory Effects of Regional Policy in Britain

Abstract

Although goal conflicts are often recognized when a particular regional-development instrument is compared to another or, indeed, when regional and national development objectives are priorized, the possibility of minority disaffection with regional instruments that are generally welcomed is only infrequently accounted for. This paper focuses on the reception by the shipbuilding sector of the regional employment-premium program of 1967–1977. It notes how a minority of firms in an industry can be disadvantaged because of their spatial exclusion from regional-policy benefits. The need to explicitly recognize the possibility of regional policy conflicting with sectoral harmony is an obvious lesson from experiences of this kind.

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