David Bailey

David Bailey is a British academic economist at the Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, a Vice-Chair of the Regional Studies Association, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Regional Studies, and senior fellow at the UK in a Changing Europe.

Academic career Bailey studied Economics at the University of Birmingham, winning the Hargreaves-Beare Prize for best graduating student and graduating with a First Class Honours degree in 1988. This was followed by a master's degree at Birmingham in Russian and East European Studies with Economics, and later a PhD at the Birmingham Business School. He has written extensively on industrial and regional policy and globalisation, especially in relation to the auto industry, and appears frequently in the local, national and international media. Bailey was principal investigator on an ESRC funded project with Alex de Ruyter, Caroline Chapain, Gill Bentley and Stephen Hall looking at the impact of the MG Rover closure on workers, families and communities, and the policy response to this.

This ESRC funded work on the impact of the MG Rover closure has attracted widespread publicity and was featured in the first of the booklets published by the Academy of Social Science and the ESRC on 'Making the Case for Social Science'.

Bailey has held visiting posts at the University of Bologna, and in the US, Japan, France and the Czech Republic.

Bailey took up his first post at the Birmingham Business School as a Research Associate working with George Harte and Roger Sugden, and was appointed a Professor in 2006 and Director of the Birmingham Business School in 2008. He moved to Coventry University Business School in 2009. In September 2013, he was appointed as 'Professor of Industrial Strategy' at Aston Business School, Aston University, Bailey was elected an Academician of the Social Sciences in 2008.

Bailey's high media profile and numerous roles have led to him being ranked in several listings of the most influential people in the region, including those in Business Insider magazine and the Birmingham Post 'Power 50'; in the latter he was ranked at No. 8 in 2009.

Most recently he has been active through his academic work, blogs and extensive media work in keeping the plight of the ex-MG Rover workers in the public eye, in making the case for support for the firm Jaguar Land Rover, in pushing the case for support for the auto industry (earning him the nickname 'Professor Scrappage'), in the campaign to defend Cadbury's independence and to push for greater protection for UK firms from takeover, and the need for the retention of some form of regional tier post RDAs.