Results

Blog

VoxEU:

Firms slice up global production to protect their knowhow

Imitation is a first-order concern for enterprises operating global production processes. Firms routinely source knowledge-intensive inputs from many countries, including those with weak intellectual property laws. This ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Defense promotion and industrial development

Major economies are rearming, and rearmament is itself industrial policy. I ask whether defense promotion?especially innovation policy?can drive industrial development beyond the defense sector. I synthesize evidence on ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Dynamic effects of trade

The existence of aggregate welfare gains from trade is one of the classic insights from international economics. However, these conventional welfare gains are static, in the sense that they take existing factor supplies ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Input uncertainty and firm performance: evidence from critical minerals

We study the effect of input uncertainty about critical minerals on firm performance, separating the second-moment risk channel from first-moment mineral sentiment and from general firm-level uncertainty. Using earnings-...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

China's accession to the WTO increased pollution via coal powerplants, not exporters or their suppliers and consumers

As countries consider trade deals to foster development, the question of how trade impacts pollution keeps resurfacing. This column examines how China's rapid entry into world markets in the early 2000s affected pollutio...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Polarisation is not a myth

Political views shape the creation and spread of technology...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Informing industrial strategy for clean technologies

Spillovers from innovation can boost regional growth...Read more...

Blog

Unibo Magazine :

Declining forests and rising greenhouse gases: the impact of multinationals in Africa

The expansion of multinationals in Africa is making a significant contribution to the loss of forest cover, the reduction of crop diversity and, in part, the rise in greenhouse gas emissions. These are the findings of a ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Returns to green tasks in Europe: evidence from online job vacancies

There is growing evidence that green jobs have higher skill requirements, but whether they offer sufficient wage incentives to encourage workers to acquire those skills remains unclear. We study the green wage premium an...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender equality and innovation: evidence from UK companies

We investigate the effect of intra-firm gender disparities on innovation using a unique longitudinal dataset of UK companies from 1996 to 2019. Utilising within-industry and within-firm variation, as well as an instrumen...Read more...

CEP report

Catalysing climate resilience

The UK is experiencing increasing impacts from climate change, including more frequent and severe floods, heatwaves and storms. It needs to prepare more for these impacts. It also needs to honour its pledge to support cl...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Health Economics:

The value of a park in crises: quantifying the health and wellbeing benefits of green spaces using exogenous variations in use values

Most people consider parks important for their quality of life, yet systematic causal evidence is missing. We exploit exogenous variations in their use values to estimate causal effects. Using a representative household ...Read more...

Blog

OECD blog:

While governments brace for another energy crisis, firms are leaving major energy savings on the table

New OECD research finds that some firms use 20 times more energy than their peers producing the same output. Reducing the gap could cut industrial energy use by more than half using technologies that already exist. This ...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...

CEP discussion paper

GRAPH-EE: building employer - employee panels from a knowledge graph and company microdata

Linked employer-employee datasets are a hugely powerful tool for researchers and policymakers across the social sciences. However, access to such data is typically highly restricted and the quality of data varies substan...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal:

Green belts and the inefficient allocation of land

Land is an economic resource, so the efficiency with which it is used is essentially an economic problem. This paper, therefore, approaches the issue from an economic perspective. Having surveyed the economic definitions...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Cleaner energy, higher risk?

Why critical materials are central to global strategic partnerships...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 report

Pathways to a productive and inclusive net zero

The transition to net zero can bring economic benefits - improving productivity and living standards while tackling climate change and this collection of briefing papers shows how. Pathways to productive and inclusive ne...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of the European Economic Association:

Innovation union: costs and benefits of innovation policy coordination

What is the scope for international cooperation in innovation policy in economies closely integrated via trade? We address this question by building a two-region innovation-driven growth model with endogenous technology ...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

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers:

Finding stars: mapping the geography of the world's scientific elites

This paper presents the first systematic city-level mapping of global scientific talent, analysing the top 200,000 star scientists across 3635 cities worldwide annually between 2019 and 2023. We use a novel Knowledge Gen...Read more...

Blog

East Asia Forum:

Rethinking industrial policy for resilience, sustainability and growth

When well designed and transparent, industrial policy can drive inclusive growth and resilience. When poorly governed, it risks inefficiency, capture and stagnation, writes Chiara Criscuolo....Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Political Economy: Macroeconomics:

Innovation and trade policy in a globalized world

What is the role of innovation policy in an open economy and how does it interact with foreign competition? We address this question employing a new innovation-driven growth model with two large open economies at differe...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Economics of climate innovation: technology, climate policy, and the clean energy transition

We examine the economics of climate innovation and its role in the clean technology transition. It outlines the incentives, market failures, and policy levers that shape the development and diffusion of clean technologie...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Cleaner energy, higher risk? Firm-level exposure to critical minerals

To what extent has the rise of clean energy technologies created new vulnerabilities in global supply chains? In this paper, I study the role of a new type of 'input uncertainty' associated with critical minerals that un...Read more...

Blog

LSE USAPP:

The US-China rare earths deal shows the importance of critical materials in a new era of strategic interdependence

The accelerating shift to clean energy and advanced technologies is redrawing the map of global economic power. As nations and firms race to secure critical minerals, rare earths - small in trade value but high in strate...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The value of green spaces

Using wellbeing data to assess benefits for residents....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...

Blog

What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth:

Understanding the drivers of productivity: Innovation

This blog is the third in our new series on the drivers of productivity. The drivers of productivity include skills, capital, innovation, enterprise and competition, and land. This blog focuses on innovation, and complem...Read more...

Chapter

Immigration, diversity and innovation in cities and regions

in A Research Agenda for Migration and Innovation

This chapter investigates the interplay between immigrant diversity and innovation, emphasizing the urban and regional dimensions where these effects are most pronounced. Cities and urban areas are pivotal to the generat...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Tickets to the global market: first US patent award and Chinese firm exports

We investigate how international patent activity enables firms from emerging economies to thrive in the global marketplace. We match Chinese customs data to US patent records, and leverage the quasi-random assignment of ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

On the shoulders of giants: financial spillovers in innovation networks

Do markets price knowledge spillovers? We show that patent grants influence the stock returns of firms that are connected through technological knowledge dependencies. Using directed patent citations among publicly liste...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Polarized Technologies

We study whether, and how, societal views about which problems are most important or worth solving are reflected in the direction of technological progress. Compared to Republican inventors, Democrats are more likely to ...Read more...

External report

Innovation in Green Technologies

Demand for cleaner, more efficient technologies is transforming global markets and with it, the geography of innovation. Over the last 15 years, markets for new energy technologies and climate resilience have outpaced gr...Read more...

CEP report

The innovation race on geological carbon removal: who is best placed to lead?

This report analyses innovation activity represented by patenting data for two carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies - bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and direct air carbon capture and storage (DACC...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Export strength does not equal tech strength: Rethinking EU comparative advantage

Amid geopolitical shocks, the EU is revisiting its industrial strategy. However, traditional metrics often paint a misleading picture of Europe's underlying strength. This column uses a new approach to measure the EU's r...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Return innovation: how migration shapes diffusion of new technologies

Novel products, processes and technologies are important drivers of economic growth. Davide Coluccia and Gaia Dossi show how migrants from Britain to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century not only too...Read more...

Blog

Centre for Cities:

A review of the Green Book review

While correctly rejecting criticisms that existing guidance is biased, the latest Green Book review suggests changes that should improve appraisal and decision making....Read more...

External report

Strengthening Monitoring and Evaluation of Innovation Programs in the EU : Creating Ecosystems for Innovation in a Post-Coal Region Evidence from an RCT in the Czech Republic (English)

The Usti nad Labem and Karlovy Vary regions face persistent structural challenges as they transition away from coal-based industries. In response to these challenges, national and EU institutions have launched a coordina...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The value of a park in crises: quantifying the health and wellbeing benefits of green spaces using exogenous variations in use values

Most people consider parks important for their quality of life, yet systematic causal evidence is missing. We exploit exogenous variations in their use values to estimate causal effects. Using a representative household ...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Fully remote work expands recruitment and boosts productivity

The Covid-19 pandemic sparked a large and lasting shift to remote work. This column draws on detailed administrative data from a major call centre in Turkiye to show that a permanent shift to fully remote work can expand...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

How an oil price crash sparked clean innovation: Insights from Norway

The transition to clean energy will require a significant reallocation of technological investments away from fossil energy sources towards cleaner alternatives. This column investigates whether leveraging the technologi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Creative destruction through innovation bursts

In theories of creative destruction, product innovation is a key driver of aggregate growth. In this paper, we confront the predictions of these theories about product dynamics with empirical patterns in product-level da...Read more...

Blog

LSE Politics and Policy:

AI for Good - impact through ethical technology

Artificial Intelligence is set to change our lives, but there are many doubts about whether this will be for the better. By looking at a case of non-surveillance application of AI used to help with crowd management, Tom ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Politics and Policy:

How emigration shapes the diffusion of new technologies

A central driver of economic growth is new technology. Gaia Dossi and Davide Coluccia show how migrants from Britain to the US in the late 19th and early 20th century not only brought new ideas with them but helped US in...Read more...

Blog

MIT Sloan Management Review:

Reskilling the Workforce With AI: Harvard Business School's Raffaella Sadun (podcast)

Harvard Business School professor Raffaella Sadun's research has historically focused on digital reskilling. Now, rapid technological changes - like AI - are reshaping the nature of work. Raffaella's research has explore...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

The price of power: Why rising markups hurt innovation and widen inequality

Over the past four decades, the US has seen rising market power, slowing productivity growth, and deepening wealth inequality. This column explores how declining competition may be the common culprit. Weak competition le...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management:

Air pollution and innovation

If air pollution harms innovation - and therefore future productivity - existing assessments of its economic cost are incomplete. We estimate the effect of fine particulate matter concentration on inventive output in 977...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Multinational firms and global innovation

This paper provides an integrated analysis of multinational companies' global production and innovation. We establish novel stylized facts using rich data on the network of production affiliates and patent activity of Ge...Read more...

Blog

IMF Finance and Development magazine :

Innovation's Unseen Frontier

Notwithstanding Plato's 2,400-year-old proverb, necessity alone is not the mother of invention. It also requires opportunity. An individual's likelihood of becoming an innovator reflects parental background in terms of i...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review: Insights:

Induced innovation, inventors, and the energy transition

We study how individual inventors respond to incentives to work on ?clean? electricity technologies. Using natural gas price variation, we estimate output and entry elasticities of inventors and measure the medium-term i...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Firm climate investment: a glass half-full

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

Blog

LSE Impact of Social Sciences:

The next innovation revolution should be democratisation

Innovators are most likely to be men from privileged backgrounds. Xavier Jaravel argues that democratisation and widening of access to innovative careers worldwide is key to boosting long-term growth and addressing today...Read more...

CentrePiece article

How China?s rise has shaped innovation and exit among European solar firms

Should policymakers protect European firms by restricting imports of solar technology from China? Pia Andres finds that Chinese competition has resulted in many European firms going out of business, but it has also promp...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Migration and innovation: the impact of East German investors on West Germany's technological development

We investigate the causal relationship between inventor migration and regional innovation in the context of the large-scale migration shock from East to West Germany between World War II and the construction of the Berli...Read more...

Blog

LSE Politics and Policy:

How to make Labour's National Wealth Fund work

Labour's plans for growth include the creation of a National Wealth Fund. A closer look at the proposals reveals that this is not like other Sovereign Wealth Funds, but is in fact more like a Green Investment Bank, meant...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Technology spillovers, diffusion, and rivalry in firm networks

Quantifying technology adoption, spillovers, and diffusion across firms is crucial for understanding industry dynamics, and in turn countries' growth. This column combines firm-level input-output VAT data from Turkey wit...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Return innovation: the knowledge spillovers of the British migration to the United States, 1870-1940

This paper documents that out-migration promotes the diffusion of innovation from the country of destination to the country of origin of migrants. Between 1870 and 1940, nearly four million British immigrants settled in ...Read more...

Journal article

Industrial and Corporate Change:

More or the same? Radical, disruptive, discontinuous, and breakthrough innovation

This paper addresses the conceptual ambiguity in the literature on exceptional innovations, labeled ?radical,? ?disruptive,? ?breakthrough,? or ?discontinuous.? A bibliometric analysis of 4407 articles shows that differe...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Redirecting AI: Privacy regulation and the future of artificial intelligence

Some artificial intelligence technologies are more data intensive than others. This column examines how data privacy regulation shaped the trajectory of AI innovation across countries, looking at patent applications from...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Shock therapy for clean innovation: within-firm reallocation of R&D investments

We analyze how a major negative shock to the producers of fossil fuels may lead to a shift from dirty to clean R&D along the supply chain. First, we develop a theoretical framework of directed technical change, showing t...Read more...

Chapter

The green transition: understanding and managing impacts for workers

in Handbook on Labour Markets in Transition: Promoting Resilience in a World in Flux.

The transition to net zero will have far-reaching and unequal effects on labour markets, as some jobs disappear, existing jobs change, and new jobs aligned with or supportive of the net-zero objective are created. The ev...Read more...

Government consultation

Invest 2035: the UK's modern industrial strategy

This document presents the submission made in response to the consultation on "Invest 2035: the UK's modern industrial strategy." The consultation was conducted by the Department for Business and Trade from 14 October 20...Read more...

CEP report

The green industrial policy matrix: Informing an industrial strategy for clean energy technologies

This paper presents new evidence to inform industrial strategy prioritisation of clean energy technologies in the UK. It focuses on seven technology categories relevant for reducing emissions across power, heat and indus...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Achieving net zero by 2050 requires changes to the UK skills landscape

As COP29 brings climate action into focus, it's clear that policy must go beyond carbon trading and finance. To make net zero a reality, the workforce must be equipped with the right skills. Aadya Bahl examines what this...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

New venture creation: innovativeness, speed-to-breakeven and revenue tradeoffs

We present a Schumpeterian growth model with new venture creation, under uncertainty, which explains the tradeoff between speed-to-breakeven, revenue-at-breakeven and relates this to the level of innovation. We then expl...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Distance from innovation is a barrier to the adoption of artificial intelligence

While distance may seem unimportant in the face of technological progress in transportation and communication, several studies have found that distance is a barrier to the diffusion of inventive activity and technology a...Read more...

CentrePiece article

in brief... Designing carbon markets that deliver change

Ever since the European Union created its market-based carbon policy, governments and businesses have been keen to assess its impact. Jonathan Colmer, Ralf Martin, Mirabelle Muuls and Ulrich Wagner explain why analysing ...Read more...

Blog

Project Syndicate:

Can Europe create an innovation economy?

After the 30 "glorious" years of economic growth following World War II, European policymakers failed to adopt the institutions and policies to promote disruptive innovation. Now, Europe urgently needs to adopt a new eco...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Global environmental cooperation and innovation

In the ongoing debate on climate change, one of the most pressing challenges is fostering effective international cooperation. This column examines the success of the 1987 'Montreal Protocol' in phasing out harmful chlor...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

LSE Politics and Policy:

Labour's planning reforms - building on grey belts and missed opportunities

Perhaps the proposal that people are most aware of when it comes to Labour's planning reform plans, the one that hit the headlines, is the idea of potentially re-defining small areas of green belts as "grey belt land". T...Read more...

Blog

Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment:

Harnessing the UK's strengths for green growth

Esin Serin and Pia Andres set out evidence on the UK's sectoral and technological strengths to assist policymakers as they consider how to allocate support across the economy in a way that maximises green growth opportun...Read more...

Journal article

Oxford Open Economics:

Innovation and inequalities

Innovation is a key source of sustainable growth, but it can affect inequalities in many ways?increasing some inequalities and decreasing others. The impact of any particular innovation on inequalities will depend import...Read more...

Blog

Jam Tomorrow (Podcast):

The Green Belt: Fields forever? (podcast)

Ros Taylor talks to LSE professor Paul Cheshire and journalist Jonn Elledge about the problems facing Labour as it tries to persuade Britons of the need for more housing and infrastructure. And Paul Cheshire sets out a p...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Transition to green technology along the supply chain

We analyze a model of green technological transition along a supply chain. In each layer, a good is produced with a dirty technology, or, if the required "electrification" innovation has occurred, with a clean technology...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

What an LSE-CBI survey reveals about net-zero action in UK firms

Sustainability is the focus of this second blog post about the survey of UK businesses carried out by LSE's Centre for Economic Performance and the Confederation of British Industry. Juliana Oliveira-Cunha, Bruno Serra-L...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Energy and climate change

The scale of change and investment required for net zero is challenging, but early action is the most cost-effective way to achieve the 2050 target and could bring opportunities....Read more...

Journal article

Management Science :

Managerial and financial barriers to the green transition

Using data on 10,776 firms across 22 emerging markets, we show that both credit constraints and weak green management hold back corporate investment in green technologies embodied in new machinery, equipment, and vehicle...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

Imperial College Business School:

Do carbon markets work?

Ever since the EU created its market-based carbon policy, governments and businesses have been keen to see an impact. But analysing how effective policies can be on a noisy economic and global stage is complex - and hard...Read more...

Blog

IFS Zooms In (podcast):

Election 2024: How to grow the economy (podcast)

After years of sluggish growth and flatlining productivity, a rare political consensus has emerged that growing the economy is one of the key priorities of the next government. With an election on the way, we're bound to...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economics and Statistics:

The heterogeneous impact of market size on innovation: evidence from French firm-level exports

We analyze how demand conditions faced by a firm in its export markets affect its innovation decisions. We exploit exogenous firm-level export demand shocks and find that firms respond by patenting more; furthermore, thi...Read more...

Journal article

Town Planning Review:

Pushing water uphill: containment policies doomed to fail

London has had a green belt for seventy years making it the `canary in the coal mine? for `zero land take?. Because of strong demand for housing space, rising prosperity underlies rising urban land demand so rigid physic...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Business groups, strategic acquisitions and innovation

We build a novel worldwide database merging information on patent-citations of firms paired with information on firms' affiliation to Business Groups (BGs). We exploit these data to document how BGs appropriate knowledge...Read more...

Blog

INSEAD Knowledge:

Consumers' green conscience fosters clean innovation

Alexandra Roulet and Philippe Aghion explain how consumers' green conscience can foster clean innovation and provide tips for how companies can reach green goals in a highly competitive market....Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Cool cities: The value of urban trees

Cities are warming faster than their rural surroundings. But the ecosystem support provided by urban forestry is often omitted from climate policies due to the difficulty in assigning to it a credible monetary sum. Lu Ha...Read more...

External report

Labour Economics: Thinking through Labour's economic agenda

With the Labour Party having vowed to achieve the fastest growth in the G7, the Social Market Foundation has brought together leading economic experts to provide independent analysis of the party's proposed approach - an...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...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Mais lecture - a serious approach for sustainable and inclusive growth

In her Mais lecture, the Shadow Chancellor diagnosed the UK's problems of economic stagnation, persistent inequality and the instability that geopolitical shocks and climate change bring. Anna Valero outlines what a solu...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Industry Competition and Trade:

A new approach for better industrial strategies

Industrial policy is back. After having been considered a taboo since the 1970s, ?new industrial policies? are at the core of governments? strategies to support countries during crises and enable the green and digital tr...Read more...

Blog

LSE USAPP:

Book Review: Innovation for the Masses: How to Share the Benefits of the High-Tech Economy by Neil Lee

In 'Innovation for the Masses: How to Share the Benefits of the High-Tech Economy' Neil Lee proposes abandoning the Silicon Valley-style innovation hub, which concentrates its wealth, for alternative, more equitable mode...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Cleaner Production:

The interplay between innovation, standards and regulation in a globalising economy

To examine the different roles of regulation and standards in the age of globalisation, we hypothesize and investigate the relation of regulation and national and international standards on the one hand with innovation i...Read more...

Blog

Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment:

The UK's Spring Budget 2024: more of the same on growth and net zero?

The Spring Budget 2024 prioritised short-run tax cuts, with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt taking an extra 2% off national insurance contributions. This was anticipated, given we are in an election year - but it marks another mi...Read more...

Journal article

LSE Public Policy Review:

Net zero and the labour market: evidence from the UK

The urgent need for tackling climate change brings with it the need to understand the impacts of net zero policies on the labour market. Various approaches have been taken in attempts to measure and describe green jobs, ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Ending stagnation

What can be done to address Britain?s relative economic decline over the past decade and a half? The final report of the Economy 2030 Inquiry presents an ambitious strategy for reversing decades of under-investment, by t...Read more...

Blog

Grantham Research Institute commentary:

Sustainable investment is good macroeconomics and fiscally prudent for the UK

In the global race for supremacy in 21st century markets, the UK must create expertise in building and deploying new energy technologies, and access the opportunities for stronger and more resilient growth that will brin...Read more...

CEP Insights

Insights: condensed

The Insights series is an introduction to the work of the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP). Each Insight highlights the contribution of CEP researchers to both academic understanding and policymaking in one area of ...Read more...