Leaving the European Union is likely to reduce productivity in Britain as it will strengthen weaker companies while hurting the strongest, an economist has warned. Nicholas Bloom, a professor at Stanford University in California, added that company bosses had spent 2 per cent of their working time preparing for Brexit, which had cost the economy in wasted opportunities. He said that living standards would be damaged post-Brexit as companies that were the most optimistic were also the least productive.

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The Times

Our survey says...leave the questions to the grown-ups

Nicholas Bloom, a British economist at Stanford University in California, was back home yesterday to discuss the new discipline of measuring business expectations. Surveys, apparently, are the way to do it and they depend on the quality of personnel inputting the information. Managers and financial controllers are fine, but God forbid anyone in human resources is assigned the task. “This is the category I worry about a lot. I really don’t want HR or admin filling this survey out. Thankfully, at worst it’s 10 per cent of people who really don’t know what they are talking about,” Professor Bloom said.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/our-survey-says-leave-the-questions-to-the-grown-ups-lwcd809lw

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