Recession and Relative Recovery

There was a rapid decline in the economic performance of Coventry during the 1970s and early 1980s which mirrored that of the British economy over this period. Deteriorating national economic conditions in the early 1970s were associated with the 1973/1974 international oil crisis, followed between 1978 and 1982 by a severe recession and then a recovery phase in the remainder of the 1980s. Compared to Britain as a whole, Coventry lost a higher proportion of its employment during the recession but the city gained relatively more employment in the recovery phase during the rest of the 1980s. This change in Coventry’s relative employment performance has been taken by Healey and Dunham (1994) as indicating a change from relative competitive disadvantage to relative competitive advantage.