Results

Journal article

Research Policy:

The great divergence(s)

This paper provides new evidence on the increasing dispersion in wages and productivity using a unique micro-aggregated firm-level data source, representative for the full population of firms in 12 countries. First, we d...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Market size, markups and international price dispersion in the cement industry

Prices for several intermediate inputs, including cement, are higher in developing economies - particularly in Africa. Combining data from the International Comparison Program with a global directory of cement plants we ...Read more...

Journal article

International Journal of Industrial Organization:

Flex cars and competition in fuel retail markets

We study how the diffusion of flex (bi-fuel) cars affected competition on ethanol and gasoline retail markets. We propose a model of price competition in which the two fuels become closer substitutes as flex cars penetra...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... What the Berlin Wall can teach us about urban development

Award-winning CEP research considers what can be learned from the division and reunification of Berlin....Read more...

CentrePiece article

The growing inequality between firms

Some firms pay well while others don’t; and some are highly productive while many aren’t. New research describes an emerging pattern of increasing inequality of wages and productivity between firms in the manufacturing a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The great divergence(s)

This report provides new evidence on the increasing dispersion in wages and productivity using novel micro-aggregated firm-level data from 16 countries. First, the report documents an increase in wage and productivity di...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...

CEP discussion paper

Flex cars and competition in ethanol and gasoline retail markets

In Brazil, gasoline and ethanol coexist as automotive fuels and are becoming closer substitutes as flex cars become more widely adopted. We employ this source of variation in a large panel of weekly prices at the station...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

The Economics of Density: Evidence from the Berlin Wall

This paper develops a quantitative model of city structure to separate agglomeration forces, dispersion forces and fundamentals as determinants of location choices. The model remains tractable and amenable to empirical a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Economics of Density: Evidence from the Berlin Wall

This paper develops a quantitative model of city structure to separate agglomeration forces, dispersion forces and fundamentals as determinants of location choices. The model remains tractable and amenable to empirical a...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Team performance and the optimal spread of talent

Alex Bryson and colleagues use US baseball data to investigate whether performance suffers if there is too wide a gap between the skills of a team's stars and the rest....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Heterogeneous Worker Ability and Team-Based Production: Evidence from Major League Baseball, 1920-2009

A detailed longitudinal dataset is assembled containing annual performance and biographical data for every player over the entire history of professional major league baseball. The data are then aggregated to the team le...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Productivity Spreads, Market Power Spreads and Trade

Much of recent Trade theory focuses on heterogeneity of firms and the differential impact trade policy might have on firms with different levels of productivity. A common problem is that most firm level dataset do not co...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

The De-Collectivisation of Pay Setting in Britain 1990-1998: Incidence, Determinants and Impact

Overall, collective bargaining coverage has dropped by around fourteen percentage points. This paper investigates the causes and consequences of the decline in collective bargaining in Britain between 1990 and 1998. One ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Productivity Dispersion, Competition and Productivity Measurement

A startling fact of firm level productivity analysis is the large and persistent differences in both labour productivity and total factor productivity (TFP) between firms in narrowly defined sectoral classes. The competi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Poverty and Worklessness in Britain

Relative poverty in the UK has risen massively since 1979 mainly because of increasing worklessness, rising earnings dispersion and benefits indexed to prices, not wages. So poverty is now at a very high level. The econo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Structure of Wages in What Should be a Competitive Labour Market

This paper examines the structure of wages in a very specific labour market, for care assistants in residential homes for the elderly on England's 'sunshine coast'. This sector corresponds closely to economists' notion...Read more...