Growth
The Growth programme studies the determinants of productivity and innovation. Research looks at new technologies, management practices, investment, R&D, skills, competition and regulation of labour and product markets.
As Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman wrote: "Productivity isn't everything, but, in the long run, it is almost everything. A country's ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker."
Our programme has researched the determinants of productivity empirically, focusing on the role of new technologies, management practices, investment, R&D, skills, competition and regulation of labour and product markets in shaping innovation and productivity both in the private and public sectors. There is a strong focus on linking empirical findings to practical policy and economic theory.
Detailed analysis of the evidence on the determinants of productivity has helped inform the options available to policymakers in dealing with the UK's laggard productivity performance. This was set out in two LSE Growth Commissions and their reports and continues in our work on industrial policy.
In looking at productivity in both the private and public sectors we have discovered wide variations in productivity across firms and organisations, even within narrowly defined sectors. To get at the causes of this the programme has, since 2004, conducted the world's first survey of management practices and their impact on firm productivity by carrying out in-depth interviews of over 20,000 firms in 35 countries (the World Management Survey). Organisations such as the UK's Office for National Statistics, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, have incorporated elements of the CEP's survey into their own surveys and we partnered with the US Census Bureau to generate the Management and Organizational Practices Survey (MOPS) now in its third wave and emulated by 10 other countries around the world. Surveys have also been conducted of hospitals and schools.
Growth has to be sustainable if societies are to meet the demands of managing climate change. One of the programme's themes examines how low-carbon technologies and policies can make major contributions to innovation and the reduction of emissions. For example, we have examined the impact of carbon prices and other policies on the incentives to innovate in clean technologies. And we are conducting experiments over new energy saving household technologies.
Featured Work
Growth publications
Jonathan Colmer, Ralf Martin, Mirabelle Muûls and Ulrich J. Wagner
17 November 2020
Capucine Riom and Anna Valero
2 November 2020
Christos Genakos, Felix Grey and Robert A. Ritz
30 July 2020
Nick Robins, James Rydge, Nicholas Stern, Sam Unsworth, Anna Valero and Dimitri Zenghelis
15 July 2020
Antoine Dechezleprêtre, Cal B. Muckley and Parvati Neelakantan
2 July 2020
Ali Kabiri, Vlad Malone, Isabelle Roland and Mariana Spatareanu
12 June 2020
Andy Feng and Anna Valero
1 May 2020
Phillipe Aghion, Roland Bénabou, Ralf Martin and Alexandra Roulet
31 March 2020
Antoine Dechezleprêtre, David Hémous, Morten Olsen and Carlo Zanella
21 February 2020
Ralf Martin, Sam Unsworth, Anna Valero and Dennis Verhoeven
13 February 2020
Daniel Mead and Isabelle Roland
6 February 2020