THE LOCATION OF HIGH-TECHNOLOGY MANUFACTURING IN GREAT-BRITAIN - CHANGES IN THE LATE 1980S

Positive feedback processes, set in the context of all-industry locati on factors, provide the theoretical background to the statistical anal ysis of the shift-share residual component which is used to identify t he localisation and delocalisation by county of high-technology manufa cturing in Great Britain. Delocalisation from London appears to be wel l established, but apart from the Welsh countries, where the stimulus seems to be largely policy effects, none of the other shift-share resi duals are significant enough to be distinguishable from random variati on. However, this is after the elimination of an 'aerospace effect' wh ich significantly disturbs the otherwise random spatial variation. The techniques used in the paper separate signal from noise in the residu al component of the shift-share method, which by itself offers no 'exp lanation' of the residual.