David Bailey is a British academic economist at the Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, a Vice-Chair of the Regional Studies Association,[1] Editor-in-Chief of the journal Regional Studies, and senior fellow at the UK in a Changing Europe.
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[clarification needed] on workers, families and communities, and the policy response to this.
[2] Bailey has held visiting posts at the University of Bologna, and in the US, Japan, France and the Czech Republic.
Outside of the Birmingham Business School, Bailey is Chair of the Regional Studies Association Europe Foundation, a Vice-Chair of the Regional Studies Association, having been Chair for two terms over 2006–2012, and an active blogger and columnist at The Birmingham Post newspaper.
[5] 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.