Backgrounder: Auckland – an Internationally Competitive City
[ Last Updated 13 December 2007 ]
This backgrounder provides information on the Auckland chapter of Economic Development Indicators 2007. The indicators report has been produced twice before (2003 and 2005) but this is the first time that Auckland has been a focus of the report.
Why use this indicator?
International evidence suggests that large, outward-facing, global cities are playing an increasingly important role in driving economic development.
Successful global cities:
- allow greater levels of specialisation;
- allow better matching of workers skills to employer needs;
- attract highly-skilled workers;
- are centres of innovation and entrepreneurship;
- are competitive locations for global and regional company headquarters; and
- link universities with research and production facilities.
While Auckland is small by international standards, as New Zealand's largest city it is the city most likely to bring these benefits to New Zealand.
Which cities did we use for comparisons?
Auckland's performance is compared with the other regions of New Zealand and is also compared to Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, Seattle, Vancouver and Copenhagen.
These cities were chosen because most of them are broadly similar in size, density, and economic make-up and the more successful of them provide an example of the sorts of results Auckland could sensibly aspire to.
What did we find?
Auckland is assessed as offering a very high quality of life – in the top five - by international standards.
Auckland's GDP per capita is lower than all but one of the international benchmark cities chosen, but only slightly so in most cases.
Auckland's productivity levels are lower than the average of a sample of OECD cities, and in the middle of comparator cities, but similar to a number of larger and mid-range cities. The difference in productivity between Auckland and New Zealand as a whole – known as the Auckland "premium" – is about the middle of the comparator cities. This suggests that Auckland is similar to other countries' major cities in the contribution it makes to national economic growth.
Auckland's population growth rate is driven by high levels of net inward international migration and is very high by international standards. Within New Zealand, Auckland has experienced a small net outflow of workers over recent years.
Auckland's levels of patent applications per capita are relatively low by international standards, as is its share of the working age population with a tertiary education. However, its share of employment in high tech manufacturing goods and services is broadly in the middle of the international comparator cities.
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