Results

CEP occasional paper

UK national productivity trends: getting the data right - August 2026 update

We compare standard productivity estimates of UK output per worker derived from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) with newly released estimates based on more reliable "Real Time Information" (RTI) administrative data. LFS-ba...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The equilibrium impact of credit frictions: evidence from default risk using firm-level data

This paper examines the impact of credit frictions arising from firm-level default risk on aggregate economic performance. We build a micro-to-macro model with heterogeneous firms and sector-specific production functions...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

UK national productivity trends: getting the data right

We compare standard productivity estimates of UK output per worker derived from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) with newly released estimates based on more reliable "Real Time Information" (RTI) administrative data. LFS-ba...Read more...

Blog

VoxTalk (podcast):

Making Defence Spending Pay

Defence spending is rising whether voters like it or not. The UK has committed to 2.5% of national income and aims for nearer 3.5% over the next decade, GBP30bn a year for each percentage point. What does the country get...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics:

A more productive economy is being delivered under this Labour government

The Labour government set raising economic growth as its central target while in power. The new figures published by the Office for National Statistics suggest that the economy is doing a lot better than expected. John V...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Measuring national technological trajectories using 200 years of international patent data

Innovation underpins sustained long-run economic growth, yet measuring technological success is challenging. This column compiles two centuries of patent data and leverages filings in multiple patent offices to document ...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Ray of hope? The rise of solar energy in China

China's solar industry is a poster child for the countrya??s economic rise over the last four decades. The output of Chinese solar grew by 76% annually between 2004 and 2013, and by 2019 Chinese firms accounted for 63% o...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Philippe Aghion: explaining sustained growth through creative destruction

How the study of innovation and competition has been transformed....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Mapping technological trajectories: evidence from two centuries of patent data

We introduce a methodology to measure cross-country trends in innovation capability - "technological trajectories" and implement this on a new rich dataset covering patents between 1836 and 2016 across multiple countries...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Political Economy:

Opening up military innovation: causal effects of reforms to US defense research

For governments procuring innovation, one choice is whether to specify desired products (a conventional approach) or allow firms to suggest ideas (an open approach). Using a US Air Force R&D grant program where open and ...Read more...

Blog

European Economic Association:

2025 Nobel Laureate: Philippe Aghion

John Van Reenen writes about the profound influence of Nobel laureate Philippe Aghion's work not only on growth and industrial organisation, but also on fields as diverse as trade, labour, taxation, the environment, poli...Read more...

Chapter

Fostering green and inclusive productivity growth

in The London Consensus

This chapter explains the main ideas underpinning the Schumpeterian growth paradigm and how it provides a new lens to look at the determinants and effects of the growth process. Schumpeter was pessimistic about the futur...Read more...

Blog

Liberty Street Economics:

How Firms Spread Good Management

What is good management, and how is it transmitted across firms and plants? In a recent paper, we use survey and administrative data, coupled with a structural model of management, to explore these questions. We show tha...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Management and firm dynamism

We show better-managed firms are more dynamic in plant acquisitions, disposals, openings and closings in U.S. Census and international data. Better-managed firms also birth better-managed plants and improve the performan...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economics and Statistics:

The intellectual spoils of war? Defense R&D, productivity, and international spillovers

We examine the impact of government funding for R&D?and defense-related R&D in particular?on privately conducted R&D, and its ultimate effect on productivity growth. We estimate longitudinal models that relate privately ...Read more...

Journal article

PNAS:

The international empirics of management

A country's national income broadly depends on the quantity and quality of workers and capital. But how well these factors are managed within and between firms may be a key determinant of a country's productivity and its...Read more...

Blog

POIDcast :

Financing innovation

In this episode, our guest is Sabrina Howell who is a Professor of Finance at the NYU Stern. We talk about how to finance innovations, fintechs, venture capitalists, private and public equity, and the role of government!...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Managing to cope with natural disasters

Human-induced climate change is making disasters more frequent and more intense. Policy could help reduce the economic costs of climate change by helping firms withstand extreme weather events. This column explores how m...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

When trade drives markup divergence: an application to auto markets

When firms sell in multiple markets, estimates of markups from the demand-side will generally diverge from estimates based on the supply-side (e.g. via production functions). The empirical examination of the importance o...Read more...

Journal article

Oxford Open Economics:

Firms and inequality

We review the existing literature on falling business dynamism and present a new analysis using comprehensive UK firm-level panel data. Since the mid-1990s, there has been a large increase in UK firm-level inequality (es...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Production function estimation using subjective expectations data

Standard proxy methods for estimating production functions in the Olley and Pakes (1996) tradition require assumptions on input choices. We introduce a new method that exploits (increasingly available) data on firms' exp...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

An engine of (pay) growth? Productivity and wages in the UK auto industry

When labour market competition is imperfect, positive industry (and firm) productivity shocks can be passed through to workers in the form of higher wages. We document how the UK auto industry, following a period of decl...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Disaster management

Climate change is making natural disasters more frequent, yet little is known about the capacity of firms to withstand such disasters and adapt to their increased frequency. We examine this issue using the latest wave of...Read more...

Blog

LSE Politics and Policy:

How to grow the UK's dwindling productivity

The UK economy is stuck. GDP growth per person has been anaemic over the last 14 years, and last year it actually fell. The cause behind these concerning figures is the collapse in the growth of productivity. If the next...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Growth and productivity

The collapse in productivity growth underlies many of the problems of the UK economy ? from squeezed public services to stagnant living standards. Productivity growth in the UK has been weak relative to its own past and...Read more...

Blog

United States Politics and Policy:

Will the US remain the world's superpower? | LSE iQ and The Ballpark podcast

A shining city on a hill. America the beautiful. The United States has long been mythologised as the land of dreams and opportunity. And since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s it has been undisputedly the ...Read more...

Journal article

Econometrica:

A Comment on: "Walras-Bowley Lecture: Market power and wage inequality" by Shubhdeep Deb, Jan Eeckhout, Aseem Patel, and Lawrence Warren

A burgeoning literature in labor economics is focused on modeling employer labor market power, generally finding nontrivial estimates of monopsony power. A smaller literature also simultaneously incorporates product mark...Read more...

Blog

POIDcast :

More inclusive, more innovative!

We talk about Marx, Schumpeter, creative destruction, capital accumulation, history, middle income countries, political economy, and more....Read more...

CentrePiece article

Do large firms generate positive productivity spillovers?

The potentially negative effects of market concentration on consumers and workers has received much attention, but Mary Amiti, Cedric Duprez, Jozef Konings and John Van Reenen find that big firms can also promote product...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of the European Economic Association:

Come together: firm boundaries and delegation

We jointly study firm boundaries and the allocation of decision rights within them by confronting an incomplete-contracts model with data on vertical integration and delegation for thousands of firms around the world. In...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Labour market power: new evidence on Non-Compete Agreements and the effects of M&A in the UK

Monopsony power is an important feature of modern labour markets. We examine its impact on workers. We report the first representative survey of Non-Compete-Agreements (NCA) in the UK and find that about 26% of workers a...Read more...

CEP report

Boosting growth and productivity in the United Kingdom through investments in the sustainable economy

It is now widely accepted that the UK has a major productivity growth problem, with chronic underinvestment across both the public and private sectors being a key cause. Continued low public investment, as laid out in th...Read more...

CEP report

Cracking the Productivity Code: An international comparison of UK productivity

We examine the growth and level of UK productivity compared to France, Germany and the US. There has been a marked slowdown in labour productivity growth: comparing the dozen years before vs. after the Global Financial C...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Autumn Statement: Positive reforms to boost business investment, but a holistic approach to the UK's growth problem is still lacking

The UK faces a productivity crisis and tackling this will be crucial to regaining sustainable increases in living standards. In response, the Autumn Statement announced a large number of measures to try and boost busines...Read more...

Blog

Faster Please:

Economic growth and the environment don't have to be enemies

An incredible coincidence: Lots of folks who don't like innovative, entrepreneurial market-technocapitalism ... think the only way to tackle climate change is to abandon innovative, entrepreneurial market-technocapitalis...Read more...

Blog

VoxDevTalks:

Renewable energy in low- and middle-income countries (Podcast)

The price of renewables has fallen much faster than other sources of energy, making it a more accessible option for governments in low- and middle-income countries. In this episode of VoxDevTalks, Mar Reguant and John Va...Read more...

Journal article

IPPR Progressive Review:

Embedding green industrial policy in a growth strategy for the UK

In this article, we consider the role of a modern industrial strategy - coordinating a range of `industrial policies' - in shaping such an approach. How can the UK, an open and service-based economy with a small domestic...Read more...

Blog

VoxTalks Economics:

AI's impact on jobs (Podcast)

By automating non-routine tasks, AI may have a profound effect on the jobs we do, and even whether those jobs exist. How much should we fear, and how much should we welcome this change? In the second of our podcasts from...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review :

The impact of regulation on innovation

We present a framework that can be used to assess the equilibrium impact of regulation on endogenous innovation with heterogeneous firms. We implement this model using French firm-level panel data, where there is a sharp...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Large firms generate positive productivity spillovers

The rising dominance of large firms in many industrialised countries over the last few decades has received much attention, largely focusing on the potential negative effects of this increased market concentration. Using...Read more...

Blog

Liberty Street Economics:

Do Large Firms Generate Positive Productivity Spillovers?

Mary Amiti, Cedric Duprez, Jozef Konings and John Van Reenen investigate whether large firms also generate positive effects. Using firm-to-firm transaction data for an industrialised country, Belgium, they find that larg...Read more...

Blog

LSE Review of Books:

Creative destruction for growth and change

John Van Reenen introduces his new book, The Economics of Creative Destruction, co-edited with Ufuk Akcigit, which explores how technological innovation can be used to drive growth and tackle problems from inequality to ...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

The UK should lead on a green industrial strategy not roll back

The UK government appears to be watering down its commitments to net zero, breaking the cross-party consensus on the need for Britain to lead in the global battle against climate change. Yet now is the time to double dow...Read more...

Blog

IFS Zooms In:

Are differences between companies driving inequality and holding back growth? (podcast)

What do we mean when we talk about inequality between firms? Are inequalities between firms limiting UK business dynamism? And do governments need to step in and enforce competition rules? In this podcast episode, John V...Read more...

Book

The Economics of Creative Destruction
New Research on Themes from Aghion and Howitt

A stellar cast of economists examines the roles of creative destruction in addressing today’s most important political and social questions. Inequality is rising, growth is stagnant while rents accumulate, the env...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Superstar firms: how the shift from manufacturing to services affects local concentration of sales and jobs

The leading US firms in many industries have increased their national market share substantially over the last four decades - making these industries more concentrated. But locally the picture is more complex. David Auto...Read more...

Blog

LSE:

Why has productivity in the UK slowed? (video)

Growth and productivity are often talked about in UK politics but how are they linked and what effect do they have on the economy? John Van Reenen explains....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

FDI and superstar spillovers: evidence from firm-to-firm transactions

Using firm-to-firm transactions, we show that starting to supply a "superstar" firm (large domestic firms, exporters and multinationals) boosts productivity by 8% in the medium-run. Placebos on starting relationships wit...Read more...

Blog

CATO Institute:

The Impact of Regulation on Innovation

Many scholars have been concerned that slower growth in countries with heavy labour regulations could be due to firms' reluctance to innovate given the burden of red tape. Philippe Aghion, Antonin Bergeaud and John Van R...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Local and national concentration trends in jobs and sales: the role of structural transformation

National U.S. industrial concentration rose between 1992-2017. Simultaneously, the Herfindhahl Index of local (six-digit-NAICS by county) employment concentration fell. This divergence between national and local employme...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Local concentration and structural transformation

The national market shares of the leading US firms in many industries have risen substantially over the last four decades - ie, these industries have become more concentrated. David Autor, Christina Patterson and John Va...Read more...

Blog

Promarket:

The Case for Green Industrial Policy

Industrial policy was once so old-fashioned that it was jokingly called "the policy that shall not be named". Now it's back in a big way. On issues ranging from clean energy to semiconductors to Covid-19, governments are...Read more...

Journal article

NEJM Catalyst:

The role of state policy in fostering health information exchange in the United States

It is widely agreed that health information sharing holds enormous potential to improve health care productivity. Although the adoption of electronic health records in the United States over the past 15 years has been im...Read more...

Blog

Research Professional News:

Autumn statement delivered reassurance, but not vision

Investing in innovation is key to the future prosperity of an advanced economy such as the UK. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's 17 November autumn statement confirmed a commitment to raising public investments in science. Despit...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Autumn Statement: 'no one will be spared the pain'

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt faces a difficult balancing act to try and delay many measures while doing enough in the short run to appease the markets. John Van Reenen comments briefly on what can be expected in the Autumn Sta...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Nothing is booming in Britain, except uncertainty. This is not the time to cut public investment in research

Britain has suffered from a turbulent policy environment for a while. Following chancellor Jeremy Hunt's reversal of nearly all of the mini-budget tax measures and reigned in energy support, difficult spending cuts are c...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Drivers of bad management: evidence from Mexican firms

The management of firms in developing countries is typically of lower quality than in richer parts of the world. A study of Mexico by Nicholas Bloom, Leonardo Iacovone, Mariana Pereira-Lopez and John Van Reenen indicates...Read more...

Blog

Harvard Business Review:

The UK economic crisis might not be a one-off

Markets have reacted poorly to the UK government's new "mini-budget" combining energy price caps with tax cuts for the well off. The government's search for a quick fix to economic growth is a mistake. In fact, restartin...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

The shortest economic suicide note in history? How the mini-budget fails to help long-run growth

The UK has recently announced tax cuts and spending increases which exceed those implemented during the pandemic. John Van Reenen believes a reckoning will be unavoidable. He writes that policies for good growth are a lo...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

What should the next UK prime minister do?

Britain faces crises in energy and productivity, both of which have been crushing people's living standards. However, neither is being addressed by the two leadership candidates, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss. Anna Valero an...Read more...

Blog

Programme on Innovation and Diffusion Blog:

Risk of Business Failure - POID Tracker - Stalled Covid Recovery

Research shows that small firms are more likely to report they are at risk of failing in recent months, amid growing concerns about challenges such as Brexit controls, the Ukraine crisis and energy price hikes....Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Improving productivity through better management practices

John Van Reenen, Nicholas Bloom, and Raffaella Sadun explain how the World Management Survey provides the evidence needed for designing industrial strategies to tackle low productivity....Read more...

Journal article

Annual Review of Economics:

The impact of health information and communication technology on clinical quality, productivity, and workers

The adoption of health information and communication technology (HICT) has surged over the past two decades. We survey the medical and economic literature on HICT adoption and its impact on clinical outcomes, productivit...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Firms and inequality

In the last few decades, dramatic changes have been documented in the US business landscape. These include rising productivity and pay dispersion between firms, higher aggregate markups (of price over variable costs), gr...Read more...

External report

Firms and inequalities

There have been some dramatic changes in the business landscape in American firms over the last four decades that have been extensively documented by researchers and are the subject of much public debate (e.g. Van Reenen...Read more...

CEP Insights

Productivity

Economics is the study of how to share out scarce resources. But it is also about how to make those resources less scarce by creating a bigger economic pie to share. The key to economic growth is increased productivity -...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Misallocation explains worse management among Mexican firms

The implications of poor management in developing countries are becoming well known, but what drives these differences is less clear. Based on large new surveys in Mexico and the US, this column argues that misallocation...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A policy toolkit to increase research and innovation in the European Union

What research and innovation (R&I) policies should Europe adopt? The world faces a challenge to rebuild after the pandemic, but also faces the same structural slowdown of productivity growth that occurred in the decades ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Management and misallocation in Mexico

Developing countries exhibit a substantial productivity gap with the US. Differences in management practices are often cited as a crucial contributing factor. Through the implementation of the first comprehensive managem...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Do well managed firms make better forecasts?

We link a new UK management survey covering 8,000 firms to panel data on productivity in manufacturing and services. There is a large variation in management practices, which are highly correlated with productivity, prof...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Product market competition, creative destruction and innovation

We examine the economic analysis of the relationship between innovation and product market competition. First, we give a brief tour of the intellectual history of the area. Second, we examine how the Aghion-Howitt framew...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

How new technology can help clinical quality, productivity, and the healthcare workforce

Health information and communication technology (HICT) holds enormous potential to improve productivity. Several countries, the UK and the US included, have embraced this idea and spent billions of dollars on promoting H...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Have productivity and pay decoupled in the UK?

In the long-run at the macro level, the real pay of workers tends to follow labour productivity. In recent years, however, there have been concerns that this relationship has broken down and that pay has become "decouple...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of the European Economic Association:

CEO pay and the rise of relative performance contracts: a question of governance?

We exploit the large rise in relative performance awards in the United Kingdom over the last two decades to investigate whether these contracts improve the alignment between CEO pay and firm performance. We first documen...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The impact of healthcare IT on clinical quality, productivity and workers

Adoption of health information and communication technologies ('HICT') has surged over the past two decades. We survey the medical and economic literature on HICT adoption and its impact on clinical outcomes, productivit...Read more...

Government consultation

A response to the consultation document: 'A new pro-competition regime for digital markets'

Professor John Van Reenen writing to submit his views on the government's consultation document 'A new pro-competition regime for digital markets'....Read more...

Blog

POID blog:

Risk of Business Failure - POID Tracker

Research by Peter Lambert, Apolline Marion and John Van Reenen find that the number of firms at risk of failing has fallen from that earlier in the pandemic, but that one million jobs are still at risk and advancements c...Read more...

Journal article

Oxford Review of Economic Policy:

The World Management Survey at 18: lessons and the way forward

Understanding how differences in management 'best practices' affect organizational outcomes has been a focus of both theoretical and empirical work in the fields of management, sociology, economics, and public policy. Th...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Going for growth that's sustainable and equitable

In the second anniversary lecture marking 30 years since CEP began, former director John Van Reenen focused on productivity, an issue that has been at the heart of the Centre's work for three decades. He sets out how tec...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

OPENing up military innovation: The causal effects of 'bottom up' reforms to US defence research

In recent decades, US defence R&D seems to have lost its lustre. To combat the declining innovation, in 2018 the US Air Force reformed its contracting procedures to allow applicants more freedom to suggest projects with ...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economics and Statistics:

Trade and management

?We study how management practices shape export performance using matched production-trade-management data for Chinese and American firms and a randomized control trial in India. Better-managed firms are more likely to e...Read more...

Blog

POID Blog:

Risk of Business Failure: POID Tracker

Peter Lambert and John Van Reenen track how UK businesses view their risks of bankruptcy over the next three months, finding extensions to COVID support schemes have helped avert a wave of bankruptcies, but risks remain....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Innovation and human capital policy

If innovation is to be subsidized, a natural place to start is to increase the quantity and quality of human capital. Innovation, after all, begins with people. Simply stimulating the ?demand side? through R&D subsidies ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Opening up military innovation: causal effects of reforms to US defense research

For governments procuring innovation, one choice is whether to specify desired products (a "Conventional" approach) or allow firms to suggest ideas (an "Open" approach). Using a U.S. Air Force R&D grant program, where Op...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Innovation policy to restore American prosperity

The new US administration has the opportunity to reset an economic model that has failed to deliver prosperity for millions of Americans for decades. John Van Reenen calls for a Grand Innovation Challenge Fund ? federal ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Covid-19 Blog:

We can tackle the climate emergency and grow the economy at the same time

The idea that economic growth is incompatible with tackling the climate emergency is wrong, says John Van Reenen (LSE). He sets out how technological innovation and better management can bring about sustainable growth....Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Regulation chills minor (but not radical) technological innovations

While there is suggestive evidence that regulations may have a stifling effect on innovation, there is as yet no rigorous economic framework to quantify the magnitude of such regulatory effects on innovation and the aggr...Read more...

CEP Covid-19 analysis

A major wave of UK business closures by April 2021? The scale of the problem and what can be done

This report presents an analysis of the financial health of UK businesses, which shows that immediate action is needed to prevent a wave of corporate failure in early April. We cannot delay action. Now is also the moment...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The impact of regulation on innovation

We present a framework that can be used to assess the equilibrium impact of regulation on endogenous innovation with heterogeneous firms. We implement this model using French firm-level panel data where there is a sharp ...Read more...

Journal article

Review of Economic Studies:

A reply to Campbell and Mau

In Bloom et al. (2016, Bloom, Draca and Van Reenen (BDVR)), we have a set of nine results on the impact of Chinese trade. The first three showed that Chinese trade increased technical change in European firms measured by...Read more...

Blog

Institute for the Future of Work:

The impact of Covid-19 on technology adoption

Anna Valero and Professor John Van Reenen examine the evidence on technology adoption through the pandemic and what it means for the UK's future of work and productivity crisis. New evidence offers a basis for guarded te...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics:

Turbulence, firm decentralization, and growth in bad times

What is the optimal form of firm organization during ?bad times?? The greater turbulence following macro shocks may benefit decentralized firms because the value of local information increases (the ?localist? view). On t...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Trapped factors and China?s impact on global growth

After a recent increase in Chinese import competition, European firms increased innovation. We present and rationalise these patterns using `trapped factors? at the micro level within a stylised equilibrium model of prod...Read more...

Blog

LSE Brexit:

The cost of Brexit is likely to be more than double that of Covid - it must be delayed

Whether we face Hard Brexit or No Deal, the long-run costs to the economy are likely to be more than twice that of COVID-19 - at least 2,000 GBP per person, warns John Van Reenen (LSE). He advocates delaying the exit fr...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Climate change policy: the case for a Covid-19 carbon tax

Ralf Martin and John Van Reenen explain how taxing emissions could help to meet the costs of the crisis and encourage investment in clean innovation....Read more...

Blog

LSE Covid-19:

Ralf Martin & John van Reenen: The case for a Covid-19 carbon tax

Ralf Martin and John Van Reenen (LSE) explain how a carbon tax could both help pay for the enormous costs of the pandemic and encourage `clean? investment. Crucially, it should be levied in a few years? time, when the UK...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Measuring the impact of malfunctioning credit markets on productivity

Since the Global Crisis, there has been a renewed awareness of how frictions in credit markets can damage economic efficiency due to a higher cost of capital and/or capital being misallocated away from its most productiv...Read more...

Blog

LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:

The implications of Brexit for the UK economy

The United Kingdom has now formally left the European Union, but what does the future hold for the British economy? Following a recent event at LSE, Gerard Lyons, Vicky Pryce and John Van Reenen took questions from LSE s...Read more...

Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

The fall of the labor share and the rise of superstar firms

The fall of labor's share of GDP in the United States and many other countries in recent decades is well documented but its causes remain uncertain. Existing empirical assessments typically rely on industry or macro data...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The aggregate consequences of default risk: evidence from firm-level data

This paper studies the implications of perceived default risk for aggregate output and productivity. Using a model of credit contracts with moral hazard, we show that a firm?s probability of default is a sufficient stati...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Public investment in defence research can increase business innovation

That doesn't mean that defence R&D is the most efficient way to stimulate private sector innovation and productivity, write Enrico Moretti, Claudia Steinwender and John van Reenen....Read more...

Journal article

Fiscal Studies:

Have R&D spillovers declined in the 21st century?

Slow growth over the last decade has prompted policy attention towards increasing R&D spending, often via the tax system. We examine the impact of R&D on firm performance, both by the firm's own investments and through p...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

John Van Reenen: `A lot of promises are just smoke and mirrors?

As director of LSE's Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) up to 2016, British economist John Van Reenen led a team of academic researchers who produced detailed analysis of the consequences a divorce from the European U...Read more...

CEP election analysis

The UK economy: policies for investment and productivity growth

Since the global financial crisis, the UK has been grappling with persistent poor productivity performance. While a number of factors have been at play, reduced investment due to austerity harmed growth in the early year...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The intellectual spoils of war? Defense R&D, productivity and international spillovers

Abstract We examine the impact of government funding for R&D - and defense-related R&D in particular - on privately conducted R&D, and its ultimate effect on productivity growth. We estimate longitudinal models that rel...Read more...

Journal article

Economic Journal:

Can helping the sick hurt the able? Incentives, information and disruption in a welfare reform

The UK Jobcentre Plus reform sharpened bureaucratic incentives to help disability benefit recipients (relative to unemployment insurance recipients) into jobs. In the long run, the policy raised exits off disability bene...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Give us the right to choose

On Saturday 19 October 2019, the UK Parliament faces a historic choice over whether or not to vote through the new deal agreed by Boris Johnson and the European Union. Members should demand that the Johnson deal be put t...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Why No-Deal Brexit is a battle for the soul of our nation

We are careening towards the most extreme form of Brexit imaginable ? flouncing out of the European Union (EU) after 46 years, without any transition plan. Operation Yellowhammer, a leaked secret report from the governme...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Perspectives:

A toolkit of policies to promote innovation

Economic theory suggests that market economies are likely to underprovide innovation because of the public good nature of knowledge. Empirical evidence from the United States and other advanced economies supports this id...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A toolkit of policies to promote innovation

Economic theory suggests that market economies are likely to under-provide innovation due to the public good nature of knowledge. Empirical evidence from the US and other advanced economies supports this idea. We summari...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economics and Statistics:

Healthy business? Managerial education and management in healthcare

We investigate the link between hospital performance and managerial education by collecting a large database of management practices and skills in hospitals across nine countries. We find that hospitals closer to univers...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of the European Economic Association:

Joseph Schumpeter Lecture, EEA Annual Congress 2017: do tax cuts produce more Einsteins? The impacts of financial incentives versus exposure to innovation on the supply of inventors

Many countries provide financial incentives to spur innovation, ranging from tax incentives to research and development grants. In this paper, we study how such financial incentives affect individuals' decisions to pursu...Read more...

Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

Who becomes an inventor in America? The importance of exposure to innovation

We characterize the factors that determine who becomes an inventor in the United States, focusing on the role of inventive ability (?nature?) versus environment (?nurture?). Using deidentified data on 1.2 million invento...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

What drives differences in management practices?

Partnering with the US Census Bureau, we implement a new survey of "structured" management practices in two waves of 35,000 manufacturing plants in 2010 and 2015. We fnd an enormous dispersion of management practices acr...Read more...

Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

The price ain't right? hospital prices and health spending on the privately insured

We use insurance claims data covering 28% of individuals with employersponsored health insurance in the United States to study the variation in health spending on the privately insured, examine the structure of insurer-h...Read more...

Journal article

Economics of Education Review:

The economic impact of universities: evidence from across the globe

We develop a new dataset using UNESCO source materials on the location of nearly 15,000 universities in about 1,500 regions across 78 countries, some dating back to the 11th Century. We estimate fixed effects models at t...Read more...

Journal article

Health Affairs:

Hospital prices grew substantially faster than physician prices for hospital-based care in 2007-14

Evidence suggests that growth in providers' prices drives growth in health care spending on the privately insured. However, existing work has not systematically differentiated between the growth rate of hospital prices a...Read more...

Journal article

Health Affairs:

Variation in health spending growth for the privately insured from 2007 to 2014

We examined the growth in health spending on people with employer-sponsored private insurance in the period 2007-14. Our analysis relied on information from the Health Care Cost Institute data set, which includes insuran...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Do tax cuts produce more Einsteins? The impacts of financial incentives vs. exposure to innovation on the supply of inventors

Many countries provide financial incentives to spur innovation, ranging from tax incentives to research and development grants. In this paper, we study how such financial incentives affect individuals' decisions to pursu...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

Some causal effects of an industrial policy

We exploit changes in the area-specific eligibility criteria for a program to support jobs through investment subsidies. European rules determine whether an area is eligible for subsidies, and we construct instrumental v...Read more...

Government consultation

Business productivity review

The Business Productivity Review is the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and HM Treasury response to the call for evidence. It outlines plans to spend #56 million to support business productivity, ...Read more...

Journal article

Economica:

Leveraging monopoly power by degrading interoperability: theory and evidence from computer markets

When will a monopolist have incentives to leverage her/his market power in a primary market to foreclose competition in a complementary market by degrading compatibility/interoperability of her/his products with those of...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Increasing differences between firms: market power and the macro-economy

A rich understanding of macro-economic outcomes requires taking into account the large (and increasing) differences between firms. These differences stem in large part from heterogeneous productivity rooted in managerial...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Managing trade: evidence from China and the US

We study how management practices shape export performance using matched production-trade-management data for Chinese and American firms and a randomized control trial in India. Better managed firms are more likely to ex...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Have R&D spillovers changed?

This paper revisits the results of Bloom, Schankerman, and Van Reenen (2013) examining the impact of R&D on the performance of US firms, especially through spillovers. We extend their analysis to include an additional 15...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Come together: firm boundaries and delegation

We jointly study firm boundaries and the allocation of decision rights within them by confronting an incomplete-contracts model with data on vertical integration and delegation for thousands of firms around the world. In...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Lost Einsteins: who becomes an inventor in America?

Who are America?s most successful inventors ? and what can we learn from their experiences in designing policies to stimulate innovation? To answer these questions, former CEP director John Van Reenen and his colleagues ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Labor Economics:

Management practices, workforce selection, and productivity

We study the relationship among productivity, management practices, and employee ability using German data combining management practices surveys with employees? longitudinal earnings records. Including human capital red...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Lost Einsteins: How exposure to innovation influences who becomes an inventor

Article by Alex Bell, Raj Chetty, Xavier Jaravel, Neviana Petkova and John Van Reenen: Relatively little is known about the factors that induce people to become inventors. Using data on the lives of over one million inv...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Who becomes an inventor in America? The importance of exposure to innovation

We characterize the factors that determine who becomes an inventor in the United States, focusing on the role of inventive ability ('nature') vs. environment ('nurture'). Using de-identified data on 1.2 million inventors...Read more...

Journal article

Economic Policy:

The costs and benefits of leaving the EU: trade effects

This paper estimates the welfare effects of Brexit in the medium to long run, focusing on trade and fiscal transfers.We use a standard quantitative general equilibrium trade model with many countries and sectors and trad...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Healthy business? Managerial education and management in healthcare

We investigate the link between hospital performance and managerial education by collecting a large database of management practices and skills in hospitals across nine countries. We find that hospitals that are closer t...Read more...

CEP report

Brexit and the future of globalisation?

Alongside the victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 US elections, Britain?s vote to leave the European Union (?Brexit?) in June 2016 reflects a global upsurge in populism. I find that under all plausible scenarios Brexit ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Are ideas getting harder to find?

In many growth models, economic growth arises from people creating ideas, and the long-run growth rate is the product of two terms: the effective number of researchers and their research productivity. We present a wide r...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... The value of good management

Management quality varies widely, even within a single firm, according to analysis of data collected from over 35,000 manufacturing plants in the United States. In their latest examination of the relationship between man...Read more...

Journal article

Research Policy:

The long-term effect of digital innovation on bank performance: an empirical study of SWIFT adoption in financial services

We examine the impact on bank performance of the adoption of SWIFT, a network-based technological infrastructure and set of standards for worldwide interbank telecommunication. We construct a new longitudinal dataset of ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The fall of the labor share and the rise of superstar firms

The fall of labor's share of GDP in the United States and many other countries in recent decades is well documented but its causes remain uncertain. Existing empirical assessments typically rely on industry or macro data...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

Concentrating on the fall of the labor share

The recent fall of labor's share of GDP in numerous countries is well-documented, but its causes are poorly understood. We sketch a "superstar firm" model where industries are increasingly characterized by "winner take m...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Turbulence, firm decentralization and growth in bad times

What is the optimal form of firm organization during 'bad times'? The greater turbulence following macro shocks may benefit decentralized firms because the value of local information increases (the 'localist' view). On t...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The costs and benefits of leaving the EU: trade effects

This paper estimates the welfare effects of Brexit, focusing on trade and fiscal transfers. We use a standard quantitative general equilibrium trade model with many countries and sectors and trade in intermediates, as in...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Concentrating on the fall of the labor share

In this paper, we discuss an explanation for the fall in share of labour in GDP based on the rise of ?superstar firms.? If globalization or technological changes advantage the most productive firms in each industry, prod...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

What drives differences in management?

Partnering with the Census we implement a new survey of ?structured? management practices in 32,000 US manufacturing plants. We find an enormous dispersion of management practices across plants, with 40% of this variatio...Read more...

CentrePiece article

How universities boost economic growth

The expansion of higher education has helped to fuel economic growth around the world, according to research by Anna Valero and John Van Reenen. Analysing data on 15,000 universities in 78 countries for the period since ...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

Firm size distortions and the productivity distribution: evidence from France

We show how size-contingent laws can be used to identify the equilibrium and welfare effects of labor regulation. Our framework incorporates such regulations into the Lucas (1978) model and applies it to France where man...Read more...

Blog

LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:

The aftermath of the Brexit vote ? the verdict from a derided expert

John Van Reenen was disappointed but not surprised by the UK?s vote to Leave the EU. Whilst his own research predicts serious economic and political damage in the case of Brexit, he thought a Leave vote was a real possib...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

The aftermath of the Brexit vote ? the verdict from a derided expert

John Van Reenen was disappointed but not surprised by the UK?s vote to Leave the EU. Whilst his own research predicts serious economic and political damage in the case of Brexit, he thought a Leave vote was a real possib...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The economic impact of universities: evidence from across the globe

We develop a new dataset using UNESCO source materials on the location of nearly 15,000 universities in about 1,500 regions across 78 countries, some dating back to the 11th Century. We estimate fixed effects models at t...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

CEO pay and the rise of relative performance contracts: a question of governance?

Would moving to relative performance contracts improve the alignment between CEO pay and performance? To address this, we exploit the large rise in relative performance awards and the share of equity pay in the UK over ...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Foreign investors love Britain ? but Brexit would end the affair

Foreign investment brings many benefits to the UK, including higher pay and productivity. But a Brexit vote could end it all, write Swati Dhingra, Gianmarco Ottaviano, Thomas Sampson and John Van Reenen. First, not being...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Why leaving the EU would almost certainly damage our economic prospects

The economic consequences of leaving the EU have been a central focus of the referendum campaign. As June 23 draws near, Jagjit Chadha, Paul Johnson and John Van Reenen bring together the conclusions from their research ...Read more...

CEP Brexit analysis

BREXIT 2016: policy analysis from the Centre for Economic Performance

On June 23rd, the British people will vote in a referendum over whether or not to remain in the European Union. It is the most important vote that most of us will have in our lifetimes. And one that will have major reper...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Brexit: the final assessment

John Van Reenen summarises the economic impact of a vote to leave the EU....Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Management practices in Pakistan

For more than a decade, CEP economists have been leading efforts to get measures of management incorporated into the statistical infrastructure used by governments and researchers. The authors report on the latest initia...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Why immigration is no reason to leave the EU

A major argument of Brexit campaigners is that leaving the European Union would give the UK more control over the flow of immigrants, who they claim hurt the jobs and pay of native-born workers. CEP research shows that E...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Foreign investors love Britain - but Brexit would end the affair

Investment from overseas brings many benefits to the UK economy, including higher pay and productivity. According to CEP research, leaving the European Union could lead to a fall in inward foreign direct investment in th...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Brexit: the impact on UK trade and living standards

For over two years, a CEP research team has been studying the likely impact on the living standards of UK households of a referendum vote to leave the European Union. The first of three reports summarised here focuses on...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

No one would be spared: how the costs of Brexit would be distributed across households

That leaving the EU would damage the overall economy is now being treated as more of a fact than a speculation. But those for Brexit argue that the rich will be negatively affected while the poor will benefit. This is no...Read more...

Blog

LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:

The `Britain Alone? scenario: how Economists for Brexit defy the laws of gravity

There is a degree of consensus among economists that a Brexit will make us worse off. The exception is recent work by Economists for Brexit. Their forecast of income gains from Brexit contrasts with all other economic an...Read more...

CEP Brexit analysis

Who bears the pain? How the costs of Brexit would be distributed across income groups

Read more...

Journal article

The Journal of Industrial Economics:

Spillovers in space: does geography matter?

Using U.S. firm level panel data we simultaneously assess the contributions to productivity of three potential sources of research and development spillovers: geographic, technological, and product market ("horizontal")....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Management as a technology?

Are some management practices akin to a technology that can explain firm and national productivity, or do they simply reflect contingent management styles? We collect data on core management practices from over 11,000 fi...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

The `Britain Alone? scenario: how Economists for Brexit defy the laws of gravity

There is a degree of consensus among economists that a Brexit will make us worse off. The exception is recent work by Economists for Brexit. Their forecast of income gains from Brexit contrasts with all other economic an...Read more...

CEP Brexit analysis

`ECONOMISTS FOR BREXIT?: A critique

Read more...

CEP Brexit analysis

Brexit and the impact of immigration on the UK

A reduction in immigration from the European Union (EU) following a vote for Brexit would not lead to any improvement in living standards for those born in the UK. Cuts in EU immigration would not offset the big fall in ...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

International data on measuring management practices

We examine methods used to survey firms on their management and organizational practices. We contrast the strengths and weaknesses of "open ended questions" (like the World Management Survey) with "closed questions" (lik...Read more...

CEP Brexit analysis

The UK Treasury analysis of 'The long-term economic impact of EU membership and the alternatives': CEP Commentary

Overly cautious assumptions in the Treasury?s recent report on the long-run consequences for the UK economy of leaving the European Union (EU) mean that it has probably underestimated the economic costs. That is one of t...Read more...

CEP Brexit analysis

The impact of Brexit on foreign investment in the UK

The third in a series of Brexit reports from the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP), examines how leaving the EU would affect UK incomes through changes in foreign investment in the UK. Leaving the European Union (EU)...Read more...

Blog

LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:

Growth multiplier: How university expansion increases national income

What impact do universities have on a country?s economy? Outlining the results of a study of universities across 78 countries, Anna Valero and John Van Reenen find that doubling the number of universities in a region inc...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

The question is not whether Brexit will cost the UK in economic terms but how much

For over two years, a research team at the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) has been studying the likely impact of the UK leaving the European Union. Their latest report focuses on the impact of `Brexit? through cha...Read more...

CEP Brexit analysis

The consequences of Brexit for UK trade and living standards

The economic consequences of leaving the EU will depend on what policies the UK adopts following Brexit. But lower trade due to reduced integration with EU countries is likely to cost the UK economy far more than is gain...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Management practices, workforce selection and productivity

Recent research suggests that much of the cross-firm variation in measured productivity is due to differences in use of advanced management practices. Many of these practices ? including monitoring, goal setting, and the...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Do tax incentives for research increase firm innovation? An RD design for R&D, patents and spillovers

We present evidence of the positive causal impacts of research and development (R&D) tax incentives on a firm's own innovation and that of its technological neighbors (spillovers). Exploiting a change in the assets-based...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Political Economy:

Carbon taxes, path dependency, and directed technical change: evidence from the auto industry

Can directed technical change be used to combat climate change? We construct new firm-level panel data on auto industry innovation distinguishing between ?dirty? (internal combustion engine) and ?clean? (e.g., electric, ...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

International data on measuring management practices

We examine methods used to survey firms on their management and organizational practices. We contrast the strengths and weaknesses of ?open ended questions? (like the World Management Survey) with ?closed questions? (lik...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economic Studies:

Trade induced technical change? The impact of Chinese imports on innovation, IT and productivity

We examine the impact of Chinese import competition on broad measures of technical change - patenting, IT, and TFP - using new panel data across twelve European countries from 1996 to 2007. In particular, we establish th...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The price ain't right? Hospital prices and health spending on the privately insured

We use insurance claims data covering 28 percent of individuals with employer-sponsored health insurance in the US to study the variation in health spending on the privately insured, examine the structure of insurer-hosp...Read more...

Government consultation

Autumn Statement 2015

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CentrePiece article

Healthcare: how competition can improve management quality and save lives

NHS hospitals in England are rarely closed in constituencies where the governing party has a slender majority. This means that for near random reasons, those parts of the country have more competition in healthcare - whi...Read more...

Government consultation

BIS - Productivity Plan inquiry

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Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Corbyn and the political economy of nostalgia

Voting for Jeremy Corbyn as leader is a gut reaction to Labour?s electoral defeat. Corbyn does point to some real economic problems facing Britain but his policies are based largely on the kind of wishful thinking that i...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Productivity Plan: A sound framework, but gaps in policy persist. More is needed to get productivity growing again

Following the summer budget, the government released a productivity plan aimed at dealing with a chronic issue facing the UK?s economy. Anna Valero and John Van Reenen review the plan, writing that overall the plan is br...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Summer budget 2015: Osborne is right to raise wages, but a clearer productivity plan is required

Yesterday, George Osborne delivered the new government?s first budget in which he surprised many by hiking the minimum wage significantly. John Van Reenen reviews the measures introduced, writing that the Chancellor is r...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Where is the real Manifesto for Growth?

As voters go to the polls in a knife-edge election, Labour?s popularity on the NHS is counter-balanced by the Tory?s reputation for economic competence. But is this reputation deserved? John Van Reenen writes that a real...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Does management matter in schools?

We collect data on management practices in over 1,800 high schools in eight countries. We show that higher management quality is strongly associated with better educational outcomes. The UK, Sweden, Canada and the US obt...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

Do private equity owned firms have better management practices?

Using an innovative survey measure of management practices on over 15,000 firms, we find private equity firms are better managed than government, family, and privately owned firms, and have similar management to publicly...Read more...

CEP election analysis

#ElectionEconomics: The Research Evidence on Key Issues for Voters in the 2015 UK General Election

Please see the CEP #ElectionEconomics report(Paper 1)and the Executive Summary (Paper 2) that cover all the election 2015 briefings, discussing the research evidence on 15 of the UK's key policy battlegrounds: immigratio...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Can helping the sick hurt the able? Incentives, information and disruption in a welfare reform

The UK Jobcentre Plus reform sharpened bureaucratic incentives to help disability benefit recipients (relative to unemployment insurance recipients) into jobs. In the long-run, the policy raised disability exits by 10% a...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

The NHS: Promises and productivity

In the general election debate about healthcare, all the parties are seeking to portray an NHS protected from major public sector expenditure cuts, with expansion in some areas. But according to Alistair McGuire and John...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Health: How Will the NHS Fare in a Cold Climate?

With the NHS a central issue of the 2015 general election, the parties are debating funding, the form of provision, quality and productivity. This paper looks at the NHS record under the coalition government and consider...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Regarding public service spending, the UK electorate faces real choices this election

The possible spending plans of Labour and the Tories illustrate the fact that there are real choices to be made at the election, writes John Van Reenen. When viewed over the longer term, the state of the UK economy is no...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Budget 2015: What the Chancellor said and didn?t say

Who would have thought an election was around the corner? John Van Reenen looks at what George Osborne had to say in the budget speech as well as what he didn?t say; the Chancellor neither mentioned the productivity prob...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Austerity in the UK: past, present and future

In this article, John Van Reenen looks at the UK?s economic performance since the global financial crisis and assesses the impact of austerity policies. He also examines the fiscal plans of the three major parties over t...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Austerity: Growth Costs and Post-Election Plans

The austerity programme of the coalition government knocked at least one percent per year off growth in the first two years of this Parliament. In retrospect, this looks like a mistake and the slower pace of austerity in...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does management matter In schools?

We collect data on operations, targets and human resources management practices in over 1,800 schools educating 15-year-olds in eight countries. Overall, we show that higher management quality is strongly associated with...Read more...

Blog

LSE American Politics and Policy Blog:

Experts react to the Scottish referendum result: The Nays have it

On 18 September, Scotland voted against independence from the United Kingdom by a margin of 55-45 per cent, an event that will be of interest to many in the U.S. given the commentary made there by many in the lead up to ...Read more...

CEP election analysis

The Scottish Referendum: Breaking Up is Hard ? and expensive - to Do

The Scottish Referendum: CEP Director John Van Reenen on why with a 'YES' vote, the Scottish people will be poorer. A lot poorer...Read more...

Blog

LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:

Leaving the European Union would likely have a significant negative impact on the UK?s economy

How would leaving the EU affect the UK's economy? Gianmarco Ottaviano, Joao Paulo Pessoa, Thomas Sampson and John Van Reenen outline findings from a new report on the economic consequences of a Brexit. They indicate that...Read more...

Blog

LSE American Politics and Policy Blog:

Firms with more structured management practices are more productive, innovative and have faster employment growth.

In 2010, the US Census Bureau conducted the first large-scale survey of management practices in America, gathering data on more than 30,000 manufacturing plants. Nicholas Bloom and colleagues find strong links between es...Read more...

CEP policy analysis

Brexit or Fixit? The Trade and Welfare Effects of Leaving the European Union

Since a speech by the Prime Minister in January 2013 , the Conservative party has been committed to holding a referendum on the UK?s membership of the European Union (EU) in 2017. So this is a good moment to consider wha...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Management in America

There are strong links between the performance of US manufacturing plants and the quality of their systems of monitoring, targets and incentives, according to research by Professor Nicholas Bloom and colleagues. Their an...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... New technology: who wins, who loses?

Technology has transformed the once powerful office of ambassador into a glorified sales position, while nurses, teaching assistants and medical technicians all benefit from the ICT revolution. According to an empirical ...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

The UK productivity and jobs puzzle: does the answer lie in wage flexibility?

UK GDP per worker fell by almost 4% in the five years following Lehman's collapse in 2008, something unprecedented in post‐war history. A possible reason for poor productivity is low growth in the effective capital...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

The new empirical economics of management

Over the last decade the World Management Survey (WMS) has collected firm-level management practices data across multiple sectors and countries. We developed the survey to try to explain the large and persistent TFP diff...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trapped factors and China's impact on global growth

When China?s accession to the WTO exposed European firms to import competition, they responded by increasing their investment in innovation. This response was stronger in industries and firms where factors of production ...Read more...

Journal article

Review of Economics and Statistics:

Has ICT polarized skill demand? Evidence from eleven countries over twenty-five years

We test the hypothesis that information and communication technologies (ICT) polarize labor markets by increasing demand for the highly educated at the expense of the middle educated, with little effect on low-educated w...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

IT and management in America

The Census Bureau recently conducted a survey of management practices in over 30,000 plants across the US, the first large-scale survey of management in America. Analyzing these data reveals several striking results. Fir...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Mrs Thatcher's industrial legacy

John Van Reenen examines the 'unbalancing' of Britain's economy away from manufacturing since 1979....Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Bankers and their bonuses

We analyse the role of financial sector workers in the huge rise of the share of earnings going to those at the very top of the pay distribution in the UK. Rising bankers' bonuses accounted for two-thirds of the increase...Read more...

Blog

LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:

The state of the UK economy: Diagnosis, prognosis and recommended treatment

The UK economy has experienced a prolonged period of weakness over the last five years. John Van Reenen writes that the real problems for the UK are inadequate long-run investment in infrastructure, innovation and human ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Wage growth and productivity growth: the myth and reality of 'decoupling'

Employees in the UK are not being denied their fair share of economic growth, according to research by Jo?o Paulo Pessoa and John Van Reenen. Their investigation of claims that wage growth has become `decoupled? from pro...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Decoupling of wage growth and productivity growth? Myth and reality

It is widely believed that in the US wage growth has fallen massively behind productivity growth. Recently, it has also been suggested that the UK is starting to follow the same path. Analysts point to the much faster gr...Read more...

Book

Investing for Prosperity
A manifesto for growth

Why is economic growth such a rare and elusive butterfly in the UK garden? What institutions and policies are needed to sustain UK economic growth in the dynamic global economy of the twenty-first century? After yea...Read more...

Blog

LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:

UK Spending Review 2013: A triumph of politics over reason?

The UK?s Spending Review has been forced on the British Chancellor because weak economic growth has blown a hole in the deficit reduction programme. John Van Reenen welcomes the partial reversal of the hugely damaging cu...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Health Care: Evidence on the Impact of Increased Spending and Patient Choice

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CEP election analysis

Welfare to Work: The Evidence on Labour?s New Deal Policies

Read more...

CEP report

The UK productivity and jobs puzzle: does the answer lie in labour market flexibility?

GDP per worker fell for the five years after 2008 which is unprecedented in post war UK history. In this paper we argue that ?capital shallowing? (i.e. the fall in the capital-labour ratio) could be the main reason for t...Read more...

Blog

LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:

Small isn?t always beautiful: The cost of regulation on French firms

France has a raft of labour-market regulations that kick in for firms with 50 workers or more. Luis Garicano and John Van Reenen use this threshold to identify the economic effects of size-contingent regulations. Such po...Read more...

Blog

LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:

No Triple Dip does not mean a good recovery for the UK

John Van Reenen reacts to the news this week that the UK has avoided economic contraction in the last quarter. Whilst Osborne may see this as cause to celebrate, there is nothing commendable about an economy that continu...Read more...

Blog

LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:

The economic legacy of Margaret Thatcher is a mixed bag

John Van Reenen analyses the economic legacy of Margaret Thatcher. In the late 1970s, when the UK was behind other developed nations in terms of material wellbeing, her supply side policies spurred economic revival. Ther...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Incomplete contracts and the internal organisation of firms

We survey the theoretical and empirical literature on decentralization within firms. We first discuss how the concept of incomplete contracts shapes our views about the organization of decision-making within firms. We th...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

What are the Channels for Technology Sourcing? Panel Data Evidence from German Companies

Innovation processes within corporations increasingly tap into international technology sources, yet little is known about the relative contribution of different types of innovation channels. We investigate the effective...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Bankers and their bonuses

The pay of financial sector workers (?bankers?) is a focus of public concern especially since the onset of the financial crisis. We document the remarkable rise in the share of aggregate pay going to those at the very to...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A Trapped Factors Model of Innovation

When will reducing trade barriers against a low wage country cause innovation to increase in high wage regions like the US or EU? We develop a model where factors of production have costs of adjustment and so are partial...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Extreme wage inequality: pay at the very top

We provide new evidence on the growth in pay at the very top of the wage distribution in the UK. Sectoral decompositions show that workers in the financial sector have accounted for the majority of the gains at the top o...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

Innovation and institutional ownership

We find that greater institutional ownership is associated with more innovation. To explore the mechanism, we contrast the "lazy manager" hypothesis with a model where institutional owners increase innovation incentives ...Read more...

CEP report

Investing for Prosperity: Skills, Infrastructure and Innovation

What institutions and policies are needed to sustain UK economic growth in the dynamic world economy of the twentyfirst century? After years of inadequate investment in skills, infrastructure and innovation, there are lo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Carbon taxes, path dependency and directed technical change: evidence from the auto industry

Can directed technical change be used to combat climate change? We construct new firm-level panel data on auto industry innovation distinguishing between ?dirty? (internal combustion engine) and ?clean? (e.g. electric an...Read more...

Blog

LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:

The books that inspired John Van Reenen: ?I think I always enjoy reading Conservative thinkers more than leftist ones. It?s much more fun to have books that really challenge your positions rather than confirming your prejudices?

In a cross-post from the LSE Review of Books blog, John van Reenen, Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Economic Performance LSE, talks us through the must-read comics that first inspired his interest i...Read more...

CEP US election analysis

Inequality and opportunity: the return of a neglected debate

During this election period many Americans are feeling angry towards the very rich, especially those working in the financial sector, who helped cause the Great Recession and yet were bailed out by the government. Increa...Read more...

CEP US election analysis

Economic Recovery and Policy Uncertainty

Until some political mechanism creates incentives to elect moderate representatives who can reach across the ideological divide, the US seems destined to heightened levels of policy uncertainty for many years to come. So...Read more...

CEP report

Fiscal consolidation during a depression

In 2009-10, the UK's budget deficit was about 11 per cent of GDP. A credible plan for fiscal consolidation was introduced in the UK over the fiscal years 2011-12 to 2016-17. In this paper, we assess the impact of the sca...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... UK chief executives: paid for performance?

Does it matter whether you work for a successful company? And if so, does it matter who you are? To answer these questions we construct a unique panel dataset covering the pay of all CEOs, senior managers and a fully rep...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Two cheers for Anglo-Saxon financial markets?

We find that institutional ownership in publicly traded companies is associated with more innovation (measured by cite-weighted patents). To explore the mechanism through which this link arises, we build a model that nes...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Can industrial policy boost jobs?

Business support policies designed to raise productivity and employment are common worldwide, but rigorous micro-econometric evaluation of their causal effects is rare. We exploit multiple changes in the area-specific el...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Growth and productivity: UK economic performance since 1997

A common view is that the performance of the UK economy between 1997 and 2010 under Labour was very weak and that the current economic problems are a consequence of poor policies in this period. In this report, we analys...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Firm Size Distortions and the Productivity Distribution: Evidence from France

We show how size-contingent laws can be used to identify the equilibrium and welfare effects of labor regulation. Our framework incorporates such regulations into the Lucas (1978) model and applies it to France where man...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Why Has China Grown So Fast? The Role of International Technology Transfer

Chinese economic growth has been spectacular in the last 30 years. We investigate the role of International Joint Ventures with Technology Transfer agreements, an understudied area. Technology transfer is the traditional...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

Americans do IT better: US multinationals and the productivity miracle

US productivity growth accelerated after 1995 (unlike Europe's), particularly in sectors that intensively use information technologies (IT). Using two new micro panel datasets we show that US multinationals operating in ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Some Causal Effects of an Industrial Policy

Business support policies designed to raise employment and productivity are ubiquitous around the world. We exploit changes in the area-specific eligibility criteria for a major program to support manufacturing jobs thro...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

The Causal Effects of an Industrial Policy

Business support policies designed to raise productivity and employment are common worldwide, but rigorous micro-econometric evaluation of their causal effects is rare. We exploit multiple changes in the area-specific el...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Management Practices Across Firms and Countries

For the last decade we have been using double-blind survey techniques and randomized sampling to construct management data on over 10,000 organizations across twenty countries. On average, we find that in manufacturing A...Read more...

CEP report

UK economic performance since 1997: growth, productivity and jobs

A common view is that the performance of the UK economy between 1997 and 2010 under Labour was very weak and that the current economic problems are a consequence of poor policies in this period. In this report, we analys...Read more...

Government consultation

BIS - Executive Remuneration Discussion Paper

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CEP discussion paper

Firm Performance and Wages: Evidence from Across the Corporate Hierarchy

Does it matter whether you work for a successful company? And if so, does it matter who you are? To answer these questions we construct a unique panel dataset covering the pay of all CEOs, senior managers and a fully rep...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Big ideas: Innovation policy

In the last CentrePiece, John Van Reenen stressed the importance of competition and labour market flexibility for productivity growth. His latest in CEP's 'big ideas' series describes the impact of research on how policy...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Land that Lean Manufacturing Forgot? Management Practices in Transition Countries

We have conducted the first survey on management practices in transition countries. We found that Central Asian transition countries, such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, have on average very poor management practices. The...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Leveraging Monopoly Power by Degrading Interoperability: Theory and Evidence from Computer Markets

When will a monopolist have incentives to leverage his market power in a primary market to foreclose competition in a complementary market by degrading compatibility/interoperability of his products with those of her riv...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Big ideas: How competition improves management and productivity

John Van Reenen sketches the evolution of CEP research on the drivers of productivity growth - and its impact on policies to foster competition....Read more...

CentrePiece article

Youth unemployment

The rise in joblessness among young people began long before the recession - Barbara Petrongolo and John Van Reenen consider potential explanations....Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Wage inequality, technology and trade: 21st century evidence

This paper describes and explains some of the principal trends in the wage and skill distribution in recent decades. There have been sharp increases in wage inequality across the OECD, beginning with the US and UK at the...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Location, location, location: why geography matters for R&D

John Van Reenen and colleagues assess the impact on growth of 'knowledge spillovers' between corporate research labs located close to each other...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Hospital performance: the impact of good management

CEP research highlights the potential role of improving the quality of hospital management for raising productivity in the UK healthcare sector...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

From `Plan B? to `Plan V?: what the UK economy needs to reboot and rebalance growth

With the threat of stagflation and interest rate rises, the current economic climate shows little sign of improvement in the near future. John Van Reenen finds that the government?s severe austerity programme, with its v...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics:

Minimum wages and firm profitability

We study the impact of minimum wages on firm profitability, exploiting the changes induced by the introduction of a UK national minimum wage in 1999. We use pre-policy information on the distribution of wages to implemen...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade induced technical change? The impact of Chinese imports on innovation, IT and productivity

We examine the impact of Chinese import competition on broad measures of technical change - patenting, IT, R&D, TFP and management practices ? using new panel data across twelve European countries between 1996-2007. We c...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does Competition Raise Productivity Through Improving Management Quality?

A classic question in industrial organization is whether competition raises productivity and if so, through what mechanism? I discuss recent empirical evidence from both large-scale databases and specific industries whic...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The shrinking middle

Guy Michaels and colleagues show how new technologies are polarising the labour market, with the middle-skilled losing out most...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Chinese ghosts in the Western machine

John Van Reenen and colleagues measure China's impact on the innovation and productivity performance of European firms...Read more...

Government consultation

Department for Work and Pensions - 21st century welfare

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Government consultation

BIS - Financing the private sector recovery

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CEP occasional paper

Why do management practices differ across firms and countries?

Economists have long puzzled over the astounding differences in productivity between firms and countries. For example, looking at disaggregated data on U.S. manufacturing industries, Syverson (2004a) found that plants at...Read more...

Government consultation

National Science Foundation (NSF/SBE) - Future research in the social, behavioral and economic sciences

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CEP discussion paper

The long-term effect of digital innovation on bank performance: an empirical study of SWIFT adoption in financial services

We examine the impact on bank performance of the adoption of SWIFT, a network-based technological infrastructure for worldwide interbank telecommunication. We construct a new longitudinal dataset of 6,848 banks in 29 cou...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Spillovers in Space: Does Geography Matter?

Using US firm level panel data we simultaneously assess the contributions to productivity of three potential sources of research and development spillovers: geographic, technological, and product market (?horizontal?). T...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Has ICT Polarized Skill Demand? Evidence from Eleven Countries over 25 Years

OECD labor markets have become more ?polarized? with employment in the middle of the skill distribution falling relative to the top and (in recent years) also the bottom of the skill distribution. We test the hypothesis ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Impact of Competition on Management Quality: Evidence from Public Hospitals

We analyze the causal impact of competition on managerial quality (and hospital performance). To address the endogeneity of market structure we analyze the English public hospital sector where entry and exit are controll...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Human Resource Management and Productivity

In this chapter we examine the relationship between Human Resource Management (HRM) and productivity. HRM includes incentive pay (individual and group) as well as many nonpay aspects of the employment relationship such a...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Political Economy:

Can pay regulation kill? Panel data evidence on the effect of labor markets on hospital performance

In many sectors, pay is regulated to be equal across heterogeneous geographical labor markets. When the competitive outside wage is higher than the regulated wage, there are likely to be falls in quality. We exploit pane...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Inequality: Still Higher, But Labour's Policies Kept it Down

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CEP election analysis

Jobs and Youth Unemployment: It's bad, but not as bad as you might think

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CEP report

Bankers' Pay and Extreme Wage Inequality in the UK

It is well known that the distribution of income in the United Kingdom has widened considerably in the last three decades. This rise has been a result of a widening at both the top and bottom of the wage distribution. Mo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Recent Advances in the Empirics of Organizational Economics

We present a survey of recent contributions in the empirical organizational economics, focusing on management practices and decentralization. Productivity dispersion between firms and countries has motivated the improved...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Management practices in the NHS

CEP researchers have conducted a unique survey of clinicians and hospital managers to explore how well NHS hospitals are managed...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

New Approaches to Measuring Management and Firm Organization

We detail the methodology that we have been using to quantify managerial and organizational practices across firms and countries in recent years. This has been used in many pieces of research at the Centre for Economic P...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does Product Market Competition Lead Firms to Decentralize?

There is a widespread sense that over the last two decades firms have been decentralizing decisions to employees further down the managerial hierarchy. Economists have developed a range of theories to account for delegat...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Europe's top prize for economic research

Europe's top prize for economic research John Van Reenen has been jointly awarded the Yrjo Jahnsson Award in Economics 2009....Read more...

CentrePiece article

Bossonomics: the economics of management and productivity

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen analyse the role of management practices in driving firm performance and national productivity....Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Do private equity owned firms have better management practices?

We use an innovative survey tool to collect management practice data from over 4,000 medium sized manufacturing firms across Asia, Europe and the US. These measures of managerial practice are strongly associated with fir...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Organization of Firms Across Countries

We argue that social capital as proxied by trust increases aggregate productivity by affecting the organization of firms. To do this we collect new data on the decentralization of investment, hiring, production, and sale...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

What if Congress Doubled R&D Spending on the Physical Sciences?

Many business, academic, and scientific groups have recommended that the Congress substantially increase R&D spending in the near future. President Bush?s American Competitiveness Initiative calls for a doubling of spend...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Distinct Effects of Information Technology and Communication Technology on Firm Organization

Guided by theories of management by exception, we study the impact of Information and Communication Technology on worker and plant manager autonomy and on span of control. We find, using an original dataset of American a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Innovation and institutional ownership

We find that institutional ownership in publicly traded companies is associated with more innovation (measured by cite-weighted patents). To explore the mechanism through which this link arises, we build a model that nes...Read more...

EDS discussion paper

Interoperability and Market Foreclosure in the European Microsoft Case

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EDS discussion paper

Americans do I.T. Better: US Multinationals and the Productivity Miracle

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CentrePiece article

In brief... Can pay regulation kill?

John Van Reenen and colleagues present evidence on the impact of regulating the labour market for nurses on the performance of hospitals in England....Read more...

CentrePiece article

Big ideas: Unemployment and welfare to work

To illustrate CEP's impact on public policy and debate, John Van Reenen introduces and presents the first in a series of 'big ideas', surveying the significant research findings that have emerged from the Centre over the...Read more...

CEP report

Interoperability and Market Foreclosure In the European Microsoft Case

In this paper we discuss some of the most important economic issues raised in European Commission vs. Microsoft (2004) concerning the market for work group servers. In our view, the most important economic issues relate ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Inequality of Individual Wages and the Dispersion of Firm Productivity

Many blame globalisation for growing wage inequality in the UK. But according to research by Giulia Faggio, Kjell Salvanes and John Van Reenen, the rise in inequality is better explained by increasing dispersion in the p...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Is Distance Dying at Last?

Economists have long been sceptical of claims about the 'death of distance' - the idea that new technology has diminished the significance of geography for economic outcomes. Research by Sokbae Lee, Rachel Griffith and J...Read more...

CEP report

Capacity Constraints and Irreversible Investments: Defending Against Collective Dominance in UPM Kymmene/Norske Skog/Haindl

Scrutiny of potential mergers by the European Commission often focuses on unilateral effects or single firm dominance. But some cases have involved concerns over coordinated effects: the concern that the merger could inc...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Can Pay Regulation Kill? Panel Data Evidence on the Effect of Labor Markets on Hospital Performance

Labor market regulation can have harmful unintended consequences. In many markets, especially for public sector workers, pay is regulated to be the same for individuals across heterogeneous geographical labor markets. We...Read more...

Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

Measuring and explaining management practices across firms and countries

We use an innovative survey tool to collect management practice data from 732 medium-sized firms in the United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. These measures of managerial practice are strongly associate...Read more...

CentrePiece article

What drives good management around the world?

CEP's global survey of over 4,000 firms reveals huge variations in the quality of management practices...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Evolution of Inequality in Productivity and Wages: Panel Data Evidence

There has been a remarkable increase in wage inequality in the US, UK and many other countries over the past three decades. A significant part of this appears to be within observable groups (such as age-gender-skill cell...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Is Distance Dying at Last? Falling Home Bias in Fixed Effects Models of Patent Citations

We examine the ?home bias? of international knowledge spillovers as measured by the speed of patent citations (i.e. knowledge spreads slowly over international boundaries). We present the first compelling econometric evi...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Blair's economic legacy

Blair leaves behind an economy in better shape than any previous Labour leader...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The European Commission versus Microsoft: Competition policy in high-tech industries

The antitrust cases against Microsoft in the United States and Europe have been the most high profile implementation of competition law in the last 20 years. Christos Genakos, Kai Uwe Kuhn and John Van Reenen look at the...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Privatization, Entry Regulation and the Decline of Labor's Share of GDP: A Cross-Country Analysis of the Network Industries

Labor?s share of GDP in most OECD countries has declined over the last two decades. Some authors have suggested that these changes are linked to deregulation of product and labor markets. To examine this we focus on a la...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Americans Do I.T. Better: US Multinationals and the Productivity Miracle

The US has experienced a sustained increase in productivity growth since the mid-1990s, particularly in sectors that intensively use information technologies (IT). This has not occurred in Europe. If the US ?productivity...Read more...

CEP report

Changes in Wage Inequality

We examine trends in wage inequality in the US and other countries over the past four decades. We show that there has been a secular increase in the 90-50 wage differential in the US and the UK since the late 1970s. By c...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Productivity and ICT: A Review of the Evidence

We survey the micro and macro literature on the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on productivity. The ?Solow Paradox? of the absence of an impact of ICT on productivity no longer holds, if it e...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Uncertainty and Investment Dynamics

This paper shows that, with (partial) irreversibility, higher uncertainty reduces the impact effect of demand shocks on investment. Uncertainty increases real option values making firms more cautious when investing or di...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Work-life balance: the links with management practices and productivity

Does good management and higher productivity come at the expense of work-life balance? Or is good work-life balance an important component of the management of successful firms? New research by Nick Bloom, Tobias Kretsch...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Technology, Information and the Decentralization of the Firm

This paper develops a framework to analyze the relationship between the diffusion of new technologies and the decentralization decisions of firms. Centralized control relies on the information of the principal, which we ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Measuring and Explaining Management Practices Across Firms and Countries

We use an innovative survey tool to collect management practice data from 732 medium sized manufacturing firms in the US, France, Germany and the UK. These measures of managerial practice are strongly associated with fir...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Minimum Wages and Firm Profitability

Although there is a large literature on the economic effects of minimum wages on labour market outcomes (especially employment), there is hardly any evidence on their impact on firm performance. This is surprising: minim...Read more...

CEP report

Work-Life Balance, Management Practices and Productivity

Do ?Anglo-Saxon? management practices generate higher productivity only at the expense of lousy work-life balance (WLB) for workers? Many critics of ?neo-liberalisme sauvage? have argued that increased competition from g...Read more...

CentrePiece article

It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do I.T.

It's taken a long time to confirm that computers boost productivity. But as Nick Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen show, the key to their success seems to lie in management - and that's where US firms have been ...Read more...

EDS discussion paper

Information Technology and Productivity: It ain't what you do it's the way that you do I.T.

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CEP discussion paper

The Growth of Network Computing: Quality Adjusted Price Changes for Network Servers

In this paper we investigate the evolution of quality adjusted prices for servers motivated by two facts. First, the productivity acceleration in the US economy since the mid 1990s is closely linked to spread of informat...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Management practices: the impact on company performance

There are wide and persistent differences in productivity across firms and countries. A new CEP study - conducted jointly with McKinsey & Company - uses a pioneering approach to measure management practices and assess th...Read more...

CEP report

Management Practices Across Firms and Nations

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CEP discussion paper

New Survey Evidence on Recent Changes in UK Union Recognition

This paper reports results from a recent survey we conducted on the union status of over 650 firms in the private sector of the UK. Compared to earlier periods, the survey shows that since 1997 there has been a slight fa...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Boffins in the USA: the boost to UK productivity

The US innovation boom since 1990 has had major benefits for the UK economy. According to new research by CEP's director John Van Reenen and colleagues, without the growth in US spending on research and development (R&D)...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Identifying Technology Spillovers and Product Market Rivalry

The impact of R&D on growth through spillovers has been a major topic of economic research over the last thirty years. A central problem in the literature is that firm performance is affected by two countervailing ?spill...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Impact of Training on Productivity and Wages: Evidence from British Panel Data

It is standard in the literature on training to use wages as a sufficient statistic for productivity. But there are many reasons why wages and productivity may diverge. This paper is part of a smaller literature on the e...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

How Special is the Special Relationship? Using the Impact of US R&D Spillovers on UK Firms as a Test of Technology Sourcing

How much does US-based R&D benefit other countries and through what mechanisms? We test the 'technology sourcing' hypothesis that foreign research labs located on US soil tap into US R&D spillovers and improve home count...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Internationalisation of Public Welfare Policy

With increasing globalisation of knowledge, there are increased opportunities to 'learn' from the experience of policy interventions elsewhere. This paper presents evidence on the extent of international convergence in p...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Is There a Market for Work Group Servers? Evaluating Market Level Demand Elasticities Using Micro and Macro Models

This paper contains an empirical analysis demand for ?work-group? (or low-end) servers. Servers are at the centre of many US and EU anti-trust debates, including the Hewlett-Packard/Compaq merger and investigations into ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of the European Economic Association:

Evaluating the employment impact of a mandatory job search program

This paper exploits area-based piloting and age-related eligibility rules to identify treatment effects of a labor market program-the New Deal for Young People in the U.K. A central focus is on substitution/displacement ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Working better

John Van Reenen finds that British labour productivity still suffers from low investment in capital, basic skills and innovation....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Corporate R&D and Productivity in Germany and the United Kingdom

This paper analyzes differences in R&D spending and in the impact of R&D on productivity between German and UK firms. We confirm that German firms spend significantly larger amounts on R&D than their UK counterparts, eve...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Investment, R&D and Financial Constraints in Britain and Germany

This paper tests for the importance of cash flow on investment in fixed capital and R&D using firm-level panel data in two countries between 1985 and 1994. For German firms, cash flow is not informative in simple econome...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Measuring the Cost Effectiveness of an R&D Tax Credit for the UK

This paper investigates the economic impact of the government's proposed new UK R&D tax credit. We measure the benefit of the credit by the effect on value added in the short and long?run. This is simulated from existin...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Technological Innovation and Performance in the United Kingdom

Over the period since 1970, Britain has improved its relative productivity performance, but there remains a significant gap in market sector productivity between Britain and both Continental Europe and the United States....Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

The Returns to Education: A Review of the Macro-Economic Literature

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CEP discussion paper

Mapping the Two Faces of R&D: Productivity Growth in a Panel of OECD Industries

Many writers have claimed that R&D has two 'faces'. In addition to the conventional role of stimulating innovation, R&D enhances technology transfer by improving the ability of firms to learn about advances in the lead...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Bridging the productivity gap

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Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

Technology and changes in skill structure: evidence from seven OECD countries

This paper compares the changing skill structure of wage bills and employment in the United States with six other OECD countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, and the United Kingdom). We investigate whether a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Technology and Changes in Skill Structure: Evidence from an International Panel of Industries

Much of the dramatic change in skill and wage structure observed in recent years in the United States is believed to stem from the impact of new technology. This paper compares the changing skill structure of wages and e...Read more...

Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

The creation and capture of rents: wages and innovation in a panel of UK companies

This paper examines the impact of technological innovation on wages using a panel of British firms. A head-count measure of major innovations between 1945 and 1983 is combined with share price and accounting information....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Economic Effects of Multiple Unionism: Evidence from the 1984 Workplace Industrial Relations Survey

This paper uses establishment-level data from the 1984 workplace Industrial Relations Survey to investigate the relationship between the presence of multiple recognised unions and wages, financial performance and the inc...Read more...