Results

CEP discussion paper

Firm-level technology adoption in times of crisis

We investigate the diffusion of frontier technologies across German firms before and during the Covid-19 crisis. Our analysis tracks the nature, timing, and pandemic-related motivations behind technology investments, usi...Read more...

Journal article

Management Science:

Communication Within Firms: Evidence from CEO Turnovers

This paper uses novel, firm-level communication measures derived from communications metadata several months before and after a CEO transition for 102 firms to study whether and how this organizational event is reflected...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

Fighting Climate Change: International Attitudes toward Climate Policies

This paper explores global perceptions and understanding of climate change and policies, examining factors that influence support for climate action and the impact of different types of information. We conduct large-scal...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...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Britain needs nerds

Science, technological, mathematical and engineering (STEM) skills have been crucial to economic growth in the UK in the past, but how important are they to the adoption of the latest digital technologies such as AI? Mir...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

The unequal health effects of smart tech in the workplace

How does technological progress affect workers' health? Melanie Arntz, Sebastian Findeisen, Stephan Maurer and Oliver Schlenker explore the effects of digitalisation and find evidence of worsening health among manual wor...Read more...

Blog

LSE EUROPP:

How China's rise has shaped innovation and exit among Europe's solar firms

Should the EU protect European firms by restricting imports of solar technology from China? Drawing on new research, Pia Andres finds that Chinese competition has resulted in many European firms going out of business, bu...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The new wave? The role of human capital and STEM skills in technology adoption in the UK

Which types of human capital influence the adoption of advanced technologies? We study the skill biased adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT) across two waves in the UK. Specifically, we compare th...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade, skills and productivity

We examine how firms adjust their production and technology in response to exogenous trade shocks. We develop a model in which revenue TFP can be distinguished from quantity TFP, and where skill upgrading is explicitly e...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics:

Technology Transfer in Global Value Chains

Global value chains create opportunities for North-South technology diffusion. This paper studies technology transfer in value chains when contracts are incomplete and input production technologies are imperfectly exclud...Read more...

Journal article

Annual Review of Economics:

Industrial Policy and the Great Divergence

We discuss recent work evaluating the role of the government in shaping the economy during the long nineteenth century, a practice we refer to as industrial policy. States deployed a vast variety of different policies ai...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Are we yet sick of new technologies? The unequal health effects of digitalization

This study quantifies the relationship between workplace digitalization, i.e., the increasing use of frontier technologies, and workers' health outcomes using novel and representative German linked employer-employee data...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economic Studies:

Using Disasters to Estimate the Impact of Uncertainty

Uncertainty rises in recessions and falls in booms. But what is the causal relationship? We construct cross-country panel data on stock market returns to proxy for first- and second-moment shocks and instrument these wit...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Development Economics:

The deforestation effects of trade and agricultural productivity in Brazil

This paper quantifies the relative footprint of trade and agricultural productivity on deforestation across Brazilian municipalities between 2000 and 2017. Using remote-sensing data, we identify distinct effects of these...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Geography:

Pay-as-they-get-in: attitudes toward migrants and pension systems

We study whether a better knowledge of the functioning of pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension systems and recent demographic trends affects natives’ attitudes toward immigration. In two online experiments conducted in Italy and...Read more...

Journal article

PLoS ONE:

Identifying technology clusters based on automated patent landscaping

We introduce a new general methodological approach for accurately and consistently retrieving a large set of patents related to specific technologies. We build upon the automated patent landscaping algorithm by incorpora...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Tickets to the global market: First US patent awards 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 U...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

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

Industrial policy and the great divergence

We discuss recent work evaluating the role of the government in shaping the economy during the long 19th century, a practice we refer to as industrial policy. We show that states deployed a vast variety of different poli...Read more...

Journal article

Management Science:

Information Spillovers in Experience Goods Competition

Trialing an experience good allows consumers to learn their value for the sampled good and also informs beliefs about their value for similar products. These demand-side information spillovers across products create a re...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Knowledge spillovers from clean innovation. A tradeoff between growth and climate?

Innovation policy faces a tradeoff between growth and climate objectives when the knowledge spillover externality from clean innovation is low compared to other sectors. To make such a comparison, we use patent data to e...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

Globalization and pandemics

We provide theory and evidence on the relationship between globalization and pandemics. Business travel facilitates trade and travel leads to human interactions that transmit disease. Trade-motivated travel generates an ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Pay-as-they-get-in: attitudes towards migrants and pension systems

We study whether a better knowledge of the functioning of pay-as-you-go pension systems and recent demographic trends in the hosting country affects natives' attitudes towards immigration. In two online experiments in It...Read more...

Journal article

Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science : Forthcoming

Modeling clusters from the ground up: a web data approach

This paper proposes a new methodological framework to identify economic clusters over space and time. We employ a unique open source dataset of geolocated and archived business webpages and interrogate them using Natural...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...

Journal article

Research Policy:

Does light touch cluster policy work? Evaluating the tech city programme

Cluster policies are popular with policymakers, but we know surprisingly little about their effectiveness. This paper evaluates the causal impact of a flagship UK technology cluster programme that uses ‘light touch’, mar...Read more...

Blog

Macroscope, South China Morning Post:

To become a world leader in innovation, China needs to loosen the economic reins

In a push for more tech breakthroughs, China is ramping up state spending on research and development. But without creating space for private sector innovation, China is unlikely to achieve the kind of results it wants....Read more...

Submission to a parliamentary inquiry and government consultation

Submission to the independent review of the UK Government's approach to net zero

Read more...

CentrePiece article

Clean technologies for growth and equity

Public investment in developing energy sources that don’t cause climate change is a strategy for economic growth that could also contribute to the UK’s levelling up agenda, says Ralf Martin. His analysis indicates that s...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Communication costs, science, and innovation

It seems obvious that lowering the cost of communication among innovators would facilitate scientific and technological progress. Yet, few studies examine this relationship. This column explores the introduction of the f...Read more...

Journal article

Economica:

Information provision and postgraduate studies

This is the first paper to examine experimentally effects of information provision on beliefs about pecuniary and non-pecuniary returns of postgraduate education, enrolment intentions and realized enrolment. We find that...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 Insights

Jobs and wages

Most working-age adults depend on earnings from jobs as their main source of income. Understanding the labour market has always been a central part of research at CEP and its predecessor the Centre for Labour Economics....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...

CEP discussion paper

Knowledge spillovers from clean and emerging technologies in the UK

The UK government has committed to increase R&D support for clean technologies in an effort to meet its net-zero target by 2050. The opportunity cost of such programs crucially depends on the value of knowledge spillover...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Omnia Juncta in Uno*: foreign powers and trademark protection in Shanghai's concession era

We investigate how firms and markets adapt to trademark protection, an extensively utilized but under-examined form of IP protection to address asymmetric information, by exploring a historical precedent: China's 1923 tr...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Technology transfer in global value chains

Firm-to-firm relationships in global value chains create opportunities for North-South technology diffusion. This paper studies technology transfer in value chains when contracts are incomplete and in-put production tech...Read more...

Blog

Brookings:

Gone digital: technology diffusion in the digital era

Flavio Calvino and Chiara Criscuolo examine the reasons for low productivity growth in a period of fast advancement in technological progress and the spread of digital technologies....Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

'Potential capital', working from home, and economic resilience

Janice Eberly, Jonathan Haskel and Paul Mizen estimate the potential capital and labour saved through working from home that would otherwise have been lost during the Covid-19 pandemic....Read more...

Blog

Innovation Growth Lab:

Lessons on designing tech RCTs with SMEs

Capucine Riom, Anna Valero and Juliana Oliveira-Cunha look at how new technology based on artificial intelligence can be used to help small and medium-sized businesses improve productivity....Read more...

Journal article

Science and Public Policy:

Systems of innovation, diversification, and the R&D trap: A case study of Kuwait

The relationship between research and development (R&D) investment and economic development is well established. Yet, at a global scale, the resource-rich countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council are consistent outliers...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...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Government policy fails to join the dots on the key challenges of innovation, net zero, and levelling up

Anna Valero writes that funding clean technologies, such as ocean and wind energy, can be a triple win, helping to address climate change, generating growth, and contributing to levelling up. Yet the 2021 Budget failed t...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... UK gender pay gap reporting: a crude but effective policy

Forcing employers to reveal their gender pay gap has been effective in its main goal of narrowing the gap, according to research by Jack Blundell who finds the difference between women and men's pay has shrunk by just un...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...

Blog

VoxEU:

How disruptive technologies diffuse

Nicholas Bloom, Tarek Hassan, Aakash Kalyani, Josh Lerner, Ahmed Tahoun question how technical progress influences income and wealth inequality in the US and its affects on higher and lower-skilled hiring rates....Read more...

Journal article

German Economic Review:

Trade and the size distribution of firms: Evidence from the German Empire

What effect did trade have on the size distribution of firms during the first wave of globalization? Three historical datasets from the German Empire between 1875 and 1907 were collected and harmonized to answer this que...Read more...

Journal article

Small Business Economics:

Soft and hard information in equity crowdfunding: network effects in the digitalization of entrepreneurial finance

As a digital financial innovation, equity crowdfunding (ECF) allows investors to exploit the complementarity of information provision and network effects in a reduced transaction cost environment. We build on the underly...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Innovation, growth and the transition to net-zero emissions

The climate crisis and the global economic impact of the Covid-19 crisis occur against a background of slowing growth and widening inequalities, which together imply an urgent need for a new environmentally sustainable a...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Working from home is revolutionising the UK labour market

Attitudes towards working from home have changed substantially since the start of the pandemic. This column discusses the findings from a survey of 5,000 working adults in the UK in January and February 2021, which sugge...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Wage responses to gender pay gap reporting requirements

In this paper I study a policy in which employers are required to publicly report gender pay gap statistics. Proponents argue that increasing the information available to workers and consumers places pressure on firms to...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

Market tremors: Shale gas exploration, earthquakes, and their impact on house prices

Shale gas has grown to become a major new source of energy in countries around the globe. While its importance for energy supply is well recognized, there has also been public concern over potential risks from hydraulic ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Increasing support for clean innovation: a win-win-win strategy?

Political support for government spending to deal with the economic aftermath of the COVID pandemic has grown. It is now greater than during the 2008 financial crisis, and 'build back better' pledges have multiplied. Ral...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...

Blog

FE Week:

Why urgent support is needed to address UK skills deficit

New incentives are needed for businesses to train their employees for a post-Covid world, writes Guglielmo Ventura....Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

How leading economists view antitrust in the digital economy

US and European experts discuss internet giants, and Google's dominance of search and operating practices, writes Romesh Vaitilingam...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Covid has forced many firms to innovate, with possible lasting impacts

A survey reveals greater UK innovation rates than what we might have expected in the absence of a pandemic, write Capucine Riom and Anna Valero....Read more...

Journal article

Education Economics:

Minority report: the impact of predicted grades on university admissions of disadvantaged groups

We study the UK's university application system, in which students apply based on predicted examination grades, rather than actual results. Using three years of UK university applications data we find that only 16% of ap...Read more...

Journal article

European Journal of Finance:

Is firm-level clean or dirty innovation valued more?

We examine how Tobin's Q is linked to 'clean' and 'dirty' innovation and innovation efficiency at the firm level. Clean innovation relates to patented technologies in areas such as renewable energy generation and electri...Read more...

Journal article

Heliyon:

Estimating the impact of the Internet of Things on productivity in Europe

The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to interconnected devices and objects that collect and transmit data via the Internet. The IoT is an evolving technology, promising to revolutionise industries, but also demanding far-...Read more...

Journal article

Education Policy Analysis Archives:

Using global observation protocols to inform research on teaching effectiveness and school improvement: Strengths and emerging limitations [Uso de protocolos globais de observação em pesquisas sobre a eficácia do professor e melhoria da escola: Pontos for

An essential feature of many modern teacher observation protocols is their “global” approach to measuring instruction. Global protocols provide a summary evaluation of multiple domains of instruction from observers’ over...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Labor demand in the past, present and future

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, technological change has led to the automation of existing tasks and the creation of new ones, as well as the reallocation of labor across occupations and industries. The...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Swings and silicon roundabouts: does cluster policy work?

Despite scepticism among researchers, policies to promote geographical clusters of firms in the same sector remain popular. Max Nathan evaluates a flagship programme set up a decade ago to accelerate the growth of Tech C...Read more...

Blog

LSE News:

Artificial intelligence could help protect victims of domestic violence

Ria Ivandic finds in the United States, roughly one in four women experience serious intimate partner violence over their lifetimes...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

European Economic Review:

Strategic inattention, delegation and endogenous market structure

We model an industry in which a discrete number of firms choose the output of their differentiated products, deciding whether or not to consider the impact of their decisions on aggregate output. The firm's choice of ign...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does light touch cluster policy work? Evaluating the tech city programme

Despite academic scepticism, cluster policies remain popular with policymakers. This paper evaluates the causal impact of a flagship UK technology cluster programme. I build a simple framework and identify effects using ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Technology gaps, trade and income

This paper studies the origins and consequences of international technology gaps. I develop an endogenous growth model where R&D efficiency varies across countries and productivity differences emerge from firm-level tech...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review: Insights:

Robot Arithmetic: New Technology and Wages

Existing economic models show how new technology can cause large changes in relative wages and inequality. But there are also claims, based largely on verbal expositions, that new technology can harm workers on average o...Read more...

Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

Protests as strategic games: Experimental evidence from Hong Kong's antiauthoritarian movement

Social scientists have long viewed the decision to protest as strategic, with an individual's participation a function of their beliefs about others' turnout. We conduct a framed field experiment that recalibrates indivi...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Europe's transformation after Gutenberg: the impact of new media and competition

Jeremiah Dittmar explores the effects of the printing press and the new forms of competition that accompanied its introduction....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Making smart meters smarter the smart way

We report first results from a large scale randomized control trial of different forms of energy consumption feedback facilitated by smart meters and smart phone feedback apps. Nearly 40,000 customers of a large energy r...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

New media and competition: printing and Europe's transformation after Gutenberg

We study the role of book content in economic, religious, and institutional development after the introduction of printing, and the role of competition in determining the amount and content of local printing. We focus on...Read more...

Journal article

The Lancet:

Transparency about the outcomes of mental health services (IAPT approach): an analysis of public data

Background: Internationally, the clinical outcomes of routine mental health services are rarely recorded or reported; however, an exception is the English Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) service, which...Read more...

Journal article

Small Business Economics:

Entrepreneurship, institutional economics, and economic growth: an ecosystem perspective

We analyze conceptually and in an empirical counterpart the relationship between economic growth, factor inputs, institutions, and entrepreneurship. In particular, we investigate whether entrepreneurship and institutions...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Robot arithmetic: can new technology harm all workers or the average worker?

It is well-established that new technology can cause large changes in relative wages and inequality. But there are also claims, based largely on verbal expositions, that new technology will harm workers on average or eve...Read more...

Journal article

The World Economy:

Service Trade and Occupational Tasks: An Empirical Investigation

Using microdata for Belgium, we investigate the relationship between changes in the task content of production and the rise in the number of service exporters. We show that occupational tasks changes display an extremely...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

Trade and the size distribution of firms: evidence from the German Empire

What is the effect of trade on the size distribution of firms? We collect historical data between 1882 and 1907 from the German Empire to address this question. Our data allow us to match three data sets according to the...Read more...

CentrePiece article

High-speed rail in China

Encouraging innovation is a perennial policy goal – and one common approach is to promote the adoption of foreign technology. Yatang Lin and colleagues examine the impact of China’s technology transfer policy, which has ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Faster broadband: are there any educational benefits?

Governments around the world are committing substantial public funds to upgrading their broadband infrastructure, partly in the hope of promoting education. Research findings by Rosa Sanchis-Guarner and colleagues raise ...Read more...

Journal article

Energy Policy:

Competition and norms: a self-defeating combination?

This paper investigates the effects of information feedback mechanisms on electricity and heating usage at a student hall of residence in London. In a randomised control trial, we formulate different treatments such as f...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economic Studies:

Landing the first job: The value of intermediaries in online hiring

Online markets for remote labour services allow workers and firms to contract with each other directly. Despite this, intermediaries-called outsourcing agencies-have emerged in these markets. This article shows that agen...Read more...

Journal article

Labour Economics:

Ill communication: technology, distraction and student performance

This paper investigates the impact of schools banning mobile phones on student test scores. By surveying schools in four English cities regarding their mobile phone policies and combining it with administrative data, we ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Online hiring of offshore workers: the value of intermediaries

‘Old boy networks’ have not been rendered obsolete by modern communications technology. That is one of the conclusions of a study of global online labour markets by Christopher Stanton and Catherine Thomas. Their researc...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

International technology transfer and domestic innovation: evidence from the high-speed rail sector in China

How does the transfer of advanced technology spur innovation in developing countries? This paper exploits the large-scale introduction of high-speed railway (HSR) technology into China in 2004 as a natural experiment to ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Information frictions and adverse selection: policy interventions in health insurance markets

This paper develops and implements a general framework to study insurance market equilibrium and evaluate policy interventions in the presence of choice frictions. Friction-reducing policies can increase welfare by facil...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

ICT and Education: Evidence from Student Home Addresses

Governments are making it a priority to upgrade information and communication technologies (ICT) with the aim to increase available internet connection speeds. This paper presents a new empirical strategy to estimate the...Read more...

Journal article

Economics of Education Review:

Student satisfaction, league tables and university applications: Evidence from Britain

We investigate the impact of information about student satisfaction on university choice, using data from the UK's National Student Survey (NSS) and on applications to undergraduate degrees. We show that NSS scores have ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Media, markets and institutional change: evidence from the protestant reformation

This research studies the role of competition in the diffusion of radical ideas and institutional change during the Protestant Reformation. We construct a new measure of religious content in the media using data on all k...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

New media, competition and growth: European cities After Gutenberg

This research studies how variations in competition and in media content characterized the use and impact of Gutenberg's printing press technology during the European Renaissance. The research constructs annual firm-leve...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Phone home: should mobiles be banned in schools?

Louis-Philippe Beland and Richard Murphy look at the impact of mobile phone bans on pupils' academic achievement in four cities in England....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

ICT and education: evidence from student home addresses

Governments are making it a priority to upgrade information and communication technologies (ICT) with the aim to increase available internet connection speeds. This paper presents a new strategy to estimate the causal ef...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Ill communication: technology, distraction and student performance

This paper investigates the impact of schools banning mobile phones on student test scores. By surveying schools in four English cities regarding their mobile phone policies and combining it with administrative data, we ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Napoleonic protectionism: how France's cotton industry gained

Can temporary protection from trade with advanced economies foster the development of ‘infant industries’ in developing countries? Reka Juhasz considers a natural experiment: Napoleon’s wartime blockade of British export...Read more...

Journal article

Water Economics and Policy:

Invention and Diffusion of Water Supply and Water Efficiency Technologies: Insights from a Global Patent Dataset

This paper identifies over 50,000 patents filed worldwide in various water-related technologies between 1990 and 2010, distinguishing between those related to availability (supply) and conservation (demand) technologies....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Landing the first job: the value of intermediaries in online hiring

Online markets for remote labor services allow workers and firms to contract with each other directly. Despite this, intermediaries - called outsourcing agencies - have emerged in these markets. This paper shows that age...Read more...

CEP policy analysis

The impact of 'clean innovation' on economic growth: evidence from the transport and energy industries'

Policies on climate change that encourage 'clean innovation' while displacing 'dirty innovation' could have a positive impact on short-term economic growth while avoiding the potentially disastrous reduction in GDP that ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Knowledge spillovers from clean and dirty technologies

How much should governments subsidize the development of new clean technologies? We use patent citation data to investigate the relative intensity of knowledge spillovers in clean and dirty technologies in two technologi...Read more...