Time: 19:00-20:30, November 3

Venue: Guanghua School of Management

Language: English (simultaneous Chinese interpretation)

Speaker: Dennis Novy
              Chief Economist and Director of Analysis 
               UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office

              Professor of Economics 
               University of Warwick

Introduction: As economies develop, economic activity often shifts from manufacturing towards services, but this transformation does not affect all places equally. Drawing on detailed firm-level data from France, Dennis Novy's research finds that tradable services have expanded particularly rapidly in densely populated cities, driven by the increasing concentration of large service firms, while manufacturing has relatively declined. These changes have also been accompanied by rising urban housing costs. The lecture will explore how firm location, productivity, trade and local services shape these patterns, and what structural transformation can mean for cities, living standards and regional inequality.