Matthew Baker

Building on a landmark municipal bond market study, new analysis puts a price tag on the costs of news deserts to local governments EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The widespread decline of local news is not merely a cultural or democratic crisis. It is a major challenge to the fiscal health of state and local governments.

Financial services sit at the heart of the UK government’s modern Industrial Strategy. Designated as one of eight “growth-driving sectors”, it is expected to play a central role in supporting economic growth – yet it faces intensifying global competition from alternative financial centres worldwide. Against that backdrop, the government has repeatedly stated that boosting the sector’s growth and international competitiveness is a top priority.

1 Introduction Climate change is rapidly elevating mean global temperatures and altering geographic patterns of temperature variability and extremes (Diffenbaugh et al. 2017; Wang and Dillon 2014). Such rapid change has amplified concerns that species may not persist in many locations across their geographic ranges, resulting in the disassembly of local ecological communities and the attendant loss of ecosystem functions and services (Bartley et al. 2019; Bellard et al. 2012; Cardinale et al. 2012).