Unequal impact of Covid-19 for business failure risk
Professor Ross Brown from the School of Management has published a paper in the International Small Business Journal examining the economic and spatial consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of potential business failure risk. This is part of a wider programme of research being undertaken by Professor Brown and Augusto Rocha in the School which has produced a series of published articles since the beginning of the Covid pandemic.
The research finds a clear and unequal impact on poorer northern and peripheral urban areas of the UK. The article indicates that the UK city likely to be worst affected by the crisis in terms of business closure was the Scottish city of Dundee. It concludes that Covid-19 has made the stated intention of the current government's ambition of 'levelling up' the forgotten and left-behind towns and cities of the UK an even more distant policy objective than prior to the crisis.
The paper has attracted widespread national and local media coverage, including The Courier's piece, 'Serious catastrophe': Dundee may see highest ratio of business failures in UK.