From the Centre for European Reform, this is the CER podcast.

It is a critical moment. If we do not act with urgency, we would then severely undermine the liberal order.

Brexit means Brexit, and we're going to make a success of it.

The wind is back in Europe's sights.

We have now a window of opportunity, but it will not stay open forever.

Welcome to this special series of the Centre for European Reform podcast from our annual Ditchley Conference.

My name is Sam Lowe. I'm a Senior Research Fellow at the CER.

As we do every year, we have invited 49 of the world's top economists to gather in this wonderful stately home in the Oxfordshire countryside to discuss some of the big issues facing European policymakers.

In this episode, I'll be discussing growing regional divergence

with Yen Zudakim, the professor of international economics at Dutuzldorff University and with

Chincia Al-Scidi, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies. Hello both.

Hello.

Hello. Okay, so we haven't actually had this panel session yet. So this is for me as a bit of a spoiler.

So we're going to discuss it with the group in a little while.

But my first question is, in Western Europe, the economies of capital cities have been growing

faster than smaller cities, towns and the countryside since about 1995.

High value services sectors are clustering together in successful cities alongside the

graduate workers they employ. Is this a good or a bad thing? The first thing I think is a bit

of clarification. Growing capital cities and regions is true for countries like the UK and France,

but it's not necessarily true for all European countries. Notably, Rome and Berlin, I think, are two exceptions to this trend.

It worked for it to add this phenomenon as characterized also some central Eastern European countries,

like Pratislava or Prague or Warsaw,

...