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Gregory Thwaites.

Gregory Thwaites

Associate

Expertise: Macroeconomics, productivity, growth, labour markets, firm-level data

Email:
gregorythwaites@gmail.com
Connect:
Twitter
Website
Links:
CEP Growth
University of Nottingham School of Economics

Biography

Gregory Thwaites an Associate Professor in Economics at the University of Nottingham, a Research Director at the Resolution Foundation and a member of the Board of the Review of Economic Studies (as Business Manager). He spent a total of 12 years at the Bank of England between 2001-18, where his last job was as Head of International Research. He has also worked as an economist for the United Nations Mission in Kosovo and the Independent Commission on Banking (the ‘Vickers Commission’), inter alia. In 2015 he received his PhD in economics from LSE under the supervision of Silvana Tenreyro. He has broad research interests macroeconomics, productivity, labour market, firm-level data and inequality.

Current areas of research include:

  • Firm-level data and surveys: the Decision Maker Panel
  • Growth policy in the UK: productivity; labour supply; regional performance and policies
  • Labour market inequality: wage inequality; impact of early years; impact of minimum wages

Publications

Blog
Brexit's slow-burn hit to the UK economy

The UK is once again debating why its economy has grown slowly since the mid-2010s. This column examines the impact of the decision to leave the European Union in 2016. Using almost a decade of data since the referendum,... Read more...

Nicholas Bloom and Gregory Thwaites

05 December 2025

Blog
The impact of the 2025 US tariff announcements on UK firms

In the first half of 2025, the US and some of its trading partners announced significant changes to import tariffs. This column uses newly designed questions to study the impact of these changes on UK firms and to assess... Read more...

Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Veenaa Sasikaran, Krishan Shah, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov

27 July 2025

Blog
Inflation on Wall Street versus Main Street

Since 2021, developed countries have experienced a significant inflation episode. This column uses Decision Maker Panel data from UK CEOs and CFOs to study firms' inflation perceptions and expectations around monthly off... Read more...

Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov

02 April 2025

CEP discussion papers
Firm climate investment: A glass half-full

We analyse the importance of climate-related investment using a large economy-wide survey of UK firms. Over half of firms expect climate change to have a positive impact on their investment in the medium term, with aroun... Read more...

Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Prachi Srivastava, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov

20 February 2025

Blog
Firm climate investment: A glass half-full

The transition to a green economy will require large investments by firms. This column uses new survey data to study the importance of climate-related investment for UK firms. Over half of firms expect climate change to ... Read more...

Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Prachi Srivastava, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov

20 November 2024

Blog
The speed of firm response to inflation

Firm inflation expectations are a key driver of future price growth. This column uses a large economy-wide business survey to understand the response of firms to monthly CPI inflation releases in the UK. Firms' CPI infla... Read more...

Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov

06 August 2024

Blog
The impact of higher interest rates on UK firms

Firms across many advanced economies have faced a significant increase in the interest rates paid on borrowing and received on deposits since 2021. Krishan Shah, Nick Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Gregory Thwaites and ... Read more...

Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Krishan Shah, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov

26 April 2024

Blog
Managers say working from home is here to stay

Krishan Shah, Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Gregory Thwaites, and Ivan Yotzov analyse new firm-level data to explore future remote work trends. Managers expect 2028 remote work levels to mirror those of 2023, ... Read more...

Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Krishan Shah, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov

18 February 2024

Blog
Britain can promote private investment and economic growth. Here's how

The UK investment ecosystem needs rewiring across the board to increase firms' desire to invest in productive and sustainable assets, and to enhance their ability to do so. Paul Brandily, Mimosa Distefano, Krishan Shah, ... Read more...

Paul Brandily, Mimosa Distefano, Krishan Shah, Gregory Thwaites and Anna Valero

24 October 2023

CentrePiece - The magazine of the Centre for Economic Performance
Low investment Britain: policies to promote foundations for growth

The UK investment ecosystem needs rewiring across the board to increase firms' desire to invest in productive and sustainable assets, and to enhance their ability to do so. Paul Brandily, Mimosa Distefano, Krishan Shah, ... Read more...

Paul Brandily, Mimosa Distefano, Krishan Shah, Gregory Thwaites and Anna Valero

20 October 2023

External reports
Ready for change

Britain's productivity shortfall is its foundational economic problem. Debate about this gap and how to fix it typically focus on raising productivity of existing firms, via two routes. First, innovation: investment, R&D... Read more...

Richard Davies, Nadim Hamdan and Gregory Thwaites

25 September 2023

Blog
Price-setting in a high-inflation environment

Since 2021, inflation rates have increased sharply in many advanced economies. Philip Bunn, Nicholas Bloom, Paul Mizen, Ozgen Ozturk, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov study firm pricing strategies during the recent perio... Read more...

Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Gregory Thwaites, Ivan Yotzov and Özgen Öztürk

07 August 2023

CEP discussion papers
The impact of Covid-19 on productivity

We analyse the impact of Covid-19 on productivity using data from an innovative monthly firm survey panel that asks for quantitative impacts of Covid on inputs and outputs. We find total factor productivity (TFP) fell by... Read more...

Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Pawel Smietanka and Gregory Thwaites

26 June 2023

External reports
Beyond boosterism

The UK is a low investment nation. Low business investment is a big driver of this. Low investment is one reason behind the UK's weak productivity growth, which in turn is the main reason behind the stagnation in UK livi... Read more...

Paul Brandily, Mimosa Distefano, Krishan Shah, Gregory Thwaites and Anna Valero

22 June 2023

CentrePiece - The magazine of the Centre for Economic Performance
Improving the lives of low-paid workers

The ramping up of the national minimum wage since 2015 has more than halved the share of low-paid employees in Britain. But it is far from job done: too few low-paying jobs offer dignity, respect and security to the peop... Read more...

Nye Cominetti, Rui Costa, Charlie McCurdy and Gregory Thwaites

20 June 2023

CEP discussion papers
Firming up price inflation

We use data from a large panel survey of UK firms to analyze the economic drivers of price setting since the start of the Covid pandemic. Inflation responded asymmetrically to movements in demand. This helps to explain w... Read more...

Lena Anayi, Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov

15 May 2023

External reports
Low pay Britain 2023

After a decade and a half of relative economic decline, Britain needs a new economic strategy. This paper considers what it would mean to put good work centre stage. It requires us to go far beyond the narrow focus this ... Read more...

Nye Cominetti, Rui Costa, Charlie McCurdy and Gregory Thwaites

19 April 2023

Blog
Firm inflation expectations in quantitative and text data

Inflation rates and short-term inflation expectations in the UK have increased significantly since 2021. This column uses quantitative and text data from the Decision Maker Panel to analyse the factors affecting inflatio... Read more...

Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Gregory Thwaites, Ivan Yotzov and Özgen Öztürk

08 December 2022

Blog
Firming up price inflation

Inflation rates in the UK and US are currently at their highest levels in over 30 years. This column uses firm-level data from the Decision Maker Panel to study inflation dynamics in the UK, and in particular since the s... Read more...

Lena Anayi, Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov

26 August 2022

Blog
The UK must recognise its enduring economic strengths

A decade of stagnant living standards, weak productivity and low investment combined with a coming decade of major change - driven by Covid-19, Brexit and the need for accelerated action on Net Zero - mean that it is cru... Read more...

Josh De Lyon, Ralf Martin, Juliana Oliveira-Cunha, Arjun Shah, Krishan Shah, Gregory Thwaites and Anna Valero

25 August 2022

External reports
Enduring strengths

A decade of stagnant living standards, weak productivity and low investment combined with a coming decade of major change - driven by Covid-19, Brexit and Net Zero - mean that it is crucial for the UK to renew its econom... Read more...

Josh De Lyon, Ralf Martin, Juliana Oliveira-Cunha, Arjun Shah, Krishan Shah, Gregory Thwaites and Anna Valero

28 April 2022

Blog
The impact of the war in Ukraine on economic uncertainty

Economists review the effects of the war in Ukraine, identifying where and to what extent measures of economic uncertainty have increased.... Read more...

Lena Anayi, Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov

16 April 2022

Blog
Two years on, how has the pandemic affected businesses in the UK?

Two years on from the start of the pandemic, this article takes stock of how businesses were affected, the extent to which things have recovered and where the effects of Covid-19 are still being felt.... Read more...

Lena Anayi, Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov

31 March 2022

Blog
Covid-19 uncertainty: a tale of two tails

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a massive spike in uncertainty. This column uses data from panel surveys of US and UK business executives to document how uncertainty over own-firm sales growth rates over the... Read more...

David E. Altig, Lena Anayi, Jose Maria Barrero, Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Steven J. Davis, Brent Meyer, Emil Mihaylov, Paul Mizen and Gregory Thwaites

16 November 2021

External reports
Business time

The UK is set for a decade of major change, with private sector firms in the front line. How ready are they for this change? What form should policy towards business take within a new economic strategy for the UK? This r... Read more...

Jesse Kozler, Juliana Oliveira-Cunha, Pablo Shah, Gregory Thwaites and Anna Valero

15 November 2021

Blog
Covid-19 and structural change

Covid-19 has had a sizeable impact on where people work and how they shop. This column uses data from the Decision Maker Panel business survey of 3,000 UK firms to assess the longer-run impact. The pandemic is expected t... Read more...

Lena Anayi, Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Gregory Thwaites and Chris Young

28 October 2021

Blog
Labour market reallocation in the wake of Covid-19

As economies bounce back from Covid-19, our economists question whether the recovery will re-employ all of the workers made redundant during the downturn, and whether they will go back to similar jobs.... Read more...

Lena Anayi, Jose Maria Barrero, Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Steven J. Davis, Julia Leather, Brent Meyer, Emil Mihaylov, Paul Mizen, Myrto Oikonomou and Gregory Thwaites

13 August 2021

Blog
The 2020s will be a crunch decade that will determine the UK's trajectory into the mid-21st century

As vaccines roll out and restrictions are lifted, public debate is turning to the economic recovery from Covid-19 and the deepest annual downturn for 300 years that came in its wake. But viewing the years ahead simply as... Read more...

Torsten Bell, Swati Dhingra, Stephen Machin, Charlie McCurdy, Henry G. Overman, Gregory Thwaites, Daniel Tomlinson and Anna Valero

18 May 2021

External reports
The UK's decisive decade: the launch report for The Economy 2030 Inquiry

This report marks the launch of The Economy 2030 Inquiry, a landmark collaboration between the Resolution Foundation and the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, funded by the Nuffield Found... Read more...

Torsten Bell, Swati Dhingra, Stephen Machin, Charlie McCurdy, Henry G. Overman, Gregory Thwaites, Daniel Tomlinson and Anna Valero

18 May 2021

Blog
Update: Which firms and industries have been most affected by Covid-19?

Businesses across the UK have been negatively affected by the pandemic, but the damage has not been equal. Certain sectors and certain firms within them have suffered more than others - and many have faced highly uncerta... Read more...

Nicholas Bloom, Paul Mizen, Pawel Smietanka and Gregory Thwaites

05 May 2021

Blog
Which firms and industries have been most affected by Covid-19?

Almost all UK businesses have been badly affected by the spread of Covid-19, but some industries have been hit harder than others. Financial market data and surveys of firms themselves provide insights into the scale of ... Read more...

Nicholas Bloom, Rachel Griffith, Peter Levell, Paul Mizen, Pawel Smietanka, Rebekah Stroud and Gregory Thwaites

28 May 2020

CEP discussion papers
Pushing on a string: US monetary policy is less powerful in recessions

We estimate the impulse response of key US macro series to the monetary policy shocks identified by Romer and Romer (2004), allowing the response to depend flexibly on the state of the business cycle. We find strong evid... Read more...

Silvana Tenreyro and Gregory Thwaites

14 May 2013

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