Results

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...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

Nobel lecture: The economics of creative destruction

The expression "creative destruction" was coined by Joseph Schumpeter to describe the process whereby new innovations displace old technologies. Schumpeter himself would acknowledge a filiation with Karl Marx, and more p...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...

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...

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...

Blog

Project Syndicate:

The Mismeasurement of Europe's Productivity

The Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman uses the wrong metric - purchasing power parity - to make the case that Europe is not lagging far behind the US in terms of productivity. The right metric shows that the gap is g...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...

CEP report

Hive of talent: what would it take to raise skills and productivity in Greater Manchester?

Finding enough highly-skilled workers to enable Greater Manchester to make a serious dent in its productivity gap with London will require action that goes beyond skills policy alone, a new report from the Centre for Eco...Read more...

Blog

Transform work:

Transform work with Raffaella Sadun, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (podcast)

Raffaella's work sits at the intersection of economics, leadership, and the future of work. Drawing on large-scale data and real-world field experiments inside major companies, she explores how hybrid work is reshaping l...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Spillovers from science

Quantifying spillovers from scientific knowledge to technology is important for understanding the social returns to science and for designing policy. A key challenge is how to credit scientific work with the value genera...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

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

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...

Blog

VoxEU:

Why inflation may respond faster to big shocks: The rise of state-dependent pricing

Macroeconomic models distinguish time-dependent pricing, where firms change prices at fixed intervals, from state-dependent pricing, where firms change prices in response to changing demand or costs. This column presents...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Accommodating emerging giants in the global economy

History provides many examples of large changes in the relative economic size of nations. This column examines the impact of rapid economic growth in emerging economies on the income and welfare of other nations and the ...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...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

Does getting richer make people happier?

The relationship between economic growth and happiness is not as straightforward as it first appears. While higher income is associated with greater wellbeing, other factors like healthcare and friendship are important t...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

Deglobalisation in disguise?

Brexit means that UK exporters of services now face more red tape and fewer opportunities....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...

Blog

UK in a Changing Europe:

Deglobalisation in disguise?

Shania Bhalotia, Swati Dhingra and Danyal Arnold explain their study on the effect of Brexit on the UK's ability to export services abroad. They argue that exporters now face higher trade costs, more red tape and fewer o...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...

Blog

What works centre for local economic growth:

Multiplying the benefits of Local Growth Plans

Last month the government published new guidance for Mayoral Strategic Authorities on Local Growth Plans. These are a key foundation of the new Industrial Strategy and the government's ambitions for devolution, as well a...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

The full returns to higher education in the UK

University education is known to generate significant earnings returns, but its full value may be understated without considering its wider effects on individual wellbeing. This paper estimates the complete lifetime retu...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

Strategic Management Society:

The cousin marriage tradition and how it affects business performance in Africa

In our new study, published in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, we explore how a specific pre-colonial family institution - the tradition of cousin marriage - and the subsequent shocks of colonisation jointly impa...Read more...

CentrePiece article

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

Over the past four decades, the United States has seen rising market power, slowing productivity growth and deepening wealth inequality. Giammario Impullitti and Pontus Rendahl explore how declining competition may be th...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Mapping Functions for Wellbeing Measures to Generate WELLBYs for Use in Economic Evaluation

Ideally, outcome measurements for interventions that affect wellbeing would report the standard, ONS recommended, life satisfaction question. Responses to this question directly correspond to WELLBYs, which can be moneti...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 USA PP:

How emigration shapes the diffusion of new technologies

The diffusion of new technologies across countries is a key driver of productivity growth and economic progress. Yet surprisingly, little is known about how technology moves across borders. Our research provides new evid...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

The C-WELLBY: Towards a Universal Measure of Children's Wellbeing for Policy Analysis

There is a pressing need for a universal measure of children's wellbeing, parallel to the WELLBY, for use in cost-benefit analysis. Currently, there is no consensus on how to value the wellbeing of children, raising conc...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Firm dynamics and growth with soft budget constraints

We develop a model of endogenous growth and firm dynamics with soft budget constraints, where firms differ in their innovation speed and slower firms need additional financing in order to eventually innovate. As creditor...Read more...

Blog

What works centre for local economic growth:

Recommendations for the evaluation of local growth policies

Rigorous evaluation improves our understanding of the effectiveness of local economic policies. Robust evaluation can be challenging but can answer many questions and lead to a more nuanced understanding. By learning fro...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

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...

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...

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...

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...

CEP discussion paper

Market power, growth and wealth inequality

In recent decades, the United States has experienced a notable rise in markups, a slowdown in productivity growth, and an increase in wealth inequality. We present a framework that unifies these trends into a common driv...Read more...

Journal article

Small Business Economics :

Realizing expectations? High-impact entrepreneurship across countries

Comparative international entrepreneurship research has often used measures of high-growth expectations entrepreneurship to proxy for the construct of high-impact entrepreneurship. We revisit this practice by assessing t...Read more...

Blog

What works centre for economic growth:

English Devolution: new responsibilities, new challenges

Just before the Christmas holidays, the government published their eagerly awaited white paper on English Devolution. The resulting English Devolution Bill will usher in the biggest reorganisation of local government for...Read more...

Blog

Project Syndicate:

What AI Means for Growth and Jobs

While many commentators warn that AI will undermine employment and offer only modest productivity gains, empirical studies continue to suggest otherwise. With the right policies in place, the technology holds immense pot...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...

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...

Blog

LSE Politics and Policy:

How to reform the planning system to support growth in the UK

The UK's planning system is a critical bottleneck for growth. Invest 2035, the government's proposed industrial strategy, states that planning reform is one of the fundamental shifts needed to help companies invest in th...Read more...

Blog

Economics that really matters:

Shared costs, Shared Gains: Experimental Evidence from Female Export Consortia

This is our eighth blog post for our Job Market Paper Series blog for 2024-2025. Florian Anselm Munch is a postdoc at the London School of Economics. His research focuses on technology adoption and innovation, and export...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...

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

Imperial College Business School:

What's holding back the green transition?

New research from Imperial College Business School reveals what's stopping businesses from taking action to protect our overheated planet....Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Changes to firms' service delivery post-Brexit

Services can be supplied through cross-border trade, consumption abroad, commercial presence, and the presence of a natural person. The choice of delivery mode and the extent to which service traders can switch between m...Read more...

Blog

What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth:

Budgeting for evaluation

In the budget last week, the government set out increased funding for public services and investment. The gamble is that increased public spending can successfully spur the growth needed to pay for it down the line. Impa...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Informal entrepreneurs create jobs. Here's how to support them

Informal firms provide between 60 and 90 per cent of non-agricultural employment in emerging markets. This type of business exists everywhere, but it's in developing countries that the highest rates of informality and in...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...

Government consultation

Industry and Regulators Committee

The UK is a service-led economy, with strengths in sectors such as financial and business services, the creative and cultural industries, and life sciences, which together employ 20% of the workforce. To build on these s...Read more...

Blog

What works Centre for Local Economic Growth:

What might plans for a new industrial strategy mean for local growth?

On Monday, the Government published their green paper for a new national industrial strategy. This sets out the broad direction of their plan for industrial strategy and the thinking behind it, before the full strategy w...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...

CEP discussion paper

Is distance from innovation a barrier to the adoption of artificial intelligence

Using our own data on artificial intelligence publications merged with Burning Glass vacancy data for 2007-2019, we investigate whether online vacancies for jobs requiring AI skills grow more slowly in US locations farth...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Can firm subsidies spread growth?

How do firms diffuse resources and do they spillover outside headquarter intensive areas? We show R&D subsidies induce French firms to hire new workers, often in new establishments and commuting zones. Using subsidy indu...Read more...

Blog

Vox Talks (podcast):

The economics of strategy (podcast)

Organisations don't just provide employment: they solve, or attempt to solve, important problems in our society. Organizational economics has made some impressive strides in recent years to show what choices organisation...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...

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

What works Centre for Local Economic Growth:

Why the new government needs to be clearheaded on local growth

There are lots of local disparities in the UK. Health, education, levels of crime, employment rates and more diverge significantly across places. These disparities came into focus at the time of the 2019 election, where ...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...

Blog

What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth:

How can the next government ensure better evidence use for achieving economic growth?

Whichever party wins this week's election will face big challenges, including achieving stronger local economic growth. Knowing how to do this - which mix of interventions will be most effective, and where to target them...Read more...

CentrePiece article

in brief... Could a new policy institution help solve the UK?s productivity problem?

Comparatively sluggish productivity growth is one of the UK?s biggest policy challenges. Past strategies to solve the problem have lacked both sustained commitment and proper evaluation. Anna Valero and Bart van Ark call...Read more...

Blog

What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth:

Spatial disparities in productivity are central to the future of levelling up

In the run-up to the election, our colleagues at the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) are running a series of election analysis articles, where world-leading economists give their take on the state of different area...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

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

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

Accounting for the evolution of China's production and trade patterns

This paper studies the evolution of China's production and trade patterns during its integration into the global economy. We document and explain new facts concerning changes in production and exports at the industry and...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...

CEP discussion paper

Fantastic beasts and where to find them

Fantastic beasts are magical creatures that cannot be seen unless one looks for them with the eye of the wizard, but that still play a significant role in the world. The fantastic beasts we hunt and find in the present p...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...

Chapter

Inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems

in Entrepreneurial ecosystems in cities and regions: emergence, evolution, and future

Cities and regions with the strongest entrepreneurial ecosystems are often marked by high levels of inequality. These inequalities have, however, often been overlooked in policy and academic circles. Seeking to remedy th...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...

Blog

Resolution Foundation:

Investing in Britain's future - An economic strategy for Britain (video)

Investing too little for one year is manageable, but doing so year after year is a recipe for relative decline. This is precisely what the UK has been doing and where it finds itself. Anna Valero and James Smith discuss ...Read more...

Blog

What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth:

Making sense of services

Will Brett-Harding outlines a two-step approach for thinking about what high growth potential services look like at the local level....Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

How polarised are citizens? Measuring ideology from the ground-up

We investigate whether the ideological polarisation of citizens has increased in Western democracies. We propose a novel methodology to identify individual ideologies by applying Latent Dirichlet Allocation to political ...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...

Blog

What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth:

Lessons for business support schemes from a large RCT in the UK

Productivity in the UK is stagnant and improving firm performance a key policy objective. Almost a decade ago, the UK government undertook an ambitious randomised control trial - the Growth Vouchers Programme - which pro...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...

CEP discussion paper

Firms in product space: adoption, growth and competition

Which products are potentially produced together? When demand for a product increases, which firms will supply it? Using multi-product production patterns within and across firms, we recover a continuous cost based dista...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

A novel way to estimate car longevity shows that electric vehicles' life mileage is increasing fast

A car's longevity is important for consumers' budgets as well as for the environment. But reliable evidence on the longevity of electric vehicles is hard to come by. Viet Nguyen-Tien and Robert Elliot, with fellow author...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Neoclassical growth in an interdependent world

The neoclassical growth model remains a crucial reference point for economists thinking about cross-country income dynamics, but it imposes strong assumptions about goods and capital markets. Benny Kleinman, Ernest Liu, ...Read more...