History Matters: Path dependence and innovation in British city ...

Appendix 2: Secondary data indicators
This Appendix provides further information
on the range of secondary data indicators
used in the study, including details of data
sources, definitions and data limitations. The
secondary data indicators have been used to
provide evidence on absorptive capacity and
innovation systems in each of the 12 case
study city-regions. In addition, time series data
has been used to explore the evidence for path
dependent development and new path creation
in these cities over the last 25 years (since the
early 1980s). The indicators used in the study
are listed in Table 1 below.
For each indicator, this Appendix provides the
following details:
• Description of the indicator.
• Time series – the years for which data has
been obtained. For most indicators, this is
the economic trough years of 1981, 1991
and 2005. However, for some indicators a full
time series of annual data has been obtained
from 1980/1981 to 2005/2006.
• Data source – details of the data source or
data provider.
• Geographic basis – a brief description of
how data has been matched to city-region
boundaries. For most indicators, data for
local authority districts has been best-fit to
1998 TTWA boundaries.
• Definitions – details of sectoral and
other definitions used, special analytical
techniques, etc.
• Comments – a description of any important
data limitations, e.g. due to discontinuities in
time series data; poor geographic fit to cityregions;
missing data, etc.
80