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Reports

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...

Raffaele Della Croce, Daisy Jameson, Maxwell Read, Esin Serin and Anna Valero

14 May 2026

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...

Aadya Bahl and Henry G. Overman

29 April 2026

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...

Pia Andres, Chiara Cavaglia, Sam Fankhauser, Ilya Ilin, Francois Lafond, Fulvia Marotta, Ralf Martin, Sandra McNally, Viet Nguyen-Tien, Alice Owen, Emilien Ravigne, Maxwell Read, Xiyu Ren, Misato Sato, Aurelien Saussay, Arjun Shah, Trang Thu Tran, Anna Valero, Guglielmo Ventura, Dennis Verhoeven, Francesco Vona and Golvine de Rochambeau

13 February 2026

CEP report
Road to recovery: Self-employed on the mend?

The eighth LSE-CEP survey of the self-employed shows weekly hours of the self-employed are now seeing some signs of recovery, compared with the last data collection in June 2023. The positive increase in work hours is tr...Read more...

Robert Blackburn, Stephen Machin and Maria Ventura

29 January 2026

CEP report
Pupil absence and the Covid-19 pandemic

A high level of school absence has persisted across many countries since the Covid-19 pandemic. We use English data to investigate how local health and social regulations affected pupil absence rates during the pandemic ...Read more...

Stephen Gibbons, Sandra McNally and Piero Montebruno

22 July 2025

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...

Josh Burke, Siyu Feng, Maxwell Read, Esin Serin and Ram Smaran Suresh Kumar

9 July 2025

CEP report
Innovation through crises in the 2020s: survey evidence on digital, AI and net zero innovation in UK firms

In this policy brief, we present new data from a survey of 373 UK firms conducted in May 2024 in partnership with the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). This is a follow-up to our two earlier surveys which revealed...Read more...

Juliana Oliveira-Cunha, Bruno Serra-Lorenzo and Anna Valero

2 April 2025

CEP report
Minimum wage effects: adjustment through labour market dynamics and alternative work arrangements

This report investigates the UK's 2016 National Living Wage (NLW) introduction, focusing on firm adjustment through labour market transitions and job contract amendments. The NLW boosted worker wages, and whilst there wa...Read more...

Pinjas Albagli, Rui Costa and Stephen Machin

4 February 2025

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...

Pia Andres, Ralf Martin, Maxwell Read, Esin Serin, Arjun Shah and Anna Valero

25 November 2024

CEP report
Absence and attainment: Evidence from pandemic policy

A high level of school absence has persisted across many countries since the COVID-19 pandemic. We use English data to investigate whether a student's absence during the pandemic had a causal impact on school attendance...Read more...

Stephen Gibbons, Sandra McNally and Piero Montebruno

6 September 2024

CEP report
Pupil absence and the pandemic

This report investigates lost education time during the COVID-19 pandemic in England. We look at the general factors affecting rates of absence during different stages of the pandemic and the consequences of specific pol...Read more...

Stephen Gibbons, Sandra McNally and Piero Montebruno

6 September 2024

CEP report
Overview: The pandemic, pupil attendance and achievement

School absences increased massively during the Covid-19 pandemic and remain high internationally. We investigate whether policy variation in restrictions influenced pupil absence during the pandemic and how this affected...Read more...

Stephen Gibbons, Sandra McNally and Piero Montebruno

6 September 2024

CEP report
Value for money: How to improve wellbeing and reduce misery

The government spends billions on our behalf. How do we want this money to be spent? This report reviews a range of policies and asks the fundamental question which should be asked of every policy: Does it deliver value ...Read more...

David Frayman, Christian Krekel, Richard Layard, Sara MacLennan and Isaac Parkes

3 September 2024

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

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

Esin Serin, Nicholas Stern, Anna Valero, John Van Reenen, Bob Ward and Dimitri Zenghelis

22 January 2024

CEP report
A new UK policy institution for growth and productivity: A blueprint

The UK has experienced 15 years of poor productivity performance relative to its own past and relative to its peers. Analysis of the UK's productivity problem points towards many contributing factors, discussed in this v...Read more...

Anna Valero and Bart van Ark

27 November 2023

CEP report
Cracking the Productivity Code: An international comparison of UK productivity

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

John Van Reenen and Xuyi Yang

27 November 2023

CEP report
Seizing sustainable growth opportunities from tidal stream energy in the UK

This is the decade for managing the immense risks of climate change, and delivery on net zero. That means rapidly increasing the share of renewable sources in our energy mix alongside a step-change in energy and resource...Read more...

Pia Andres, Ralf Martin, Esin Serin, Arjun Shah and Anna Valero

22 June 2023

CEP report
Are 'green' jobs good jobs?

The transition to net-zero will have far-reaching but unequal effects, as 'dirty' jobs disappear while new jobs aligned with or supportive of the net-zero objective - which we refer to as 'green' - are created. As govern...Read more...

Mirko Draca, Jiaqi Li, Sabrina Muller, Viet Nguyen-Tien, Capucine Riom and Anna Valero

28 October 2021

CEP report
Seizing sustainable growth opportunities from carbon capture, usage and storage in the UK

Seizing opportunities from the CCUS value chain can be part of an economy-wide, net-zero-aligned growth path in the UK. The UK has responded to the climate emergency facing the world with an economy-wide target to reach...Read more...

Pia Andres, Ralf Martin, Penny Mealy, Esin Serin, Arjun Shah and Anna Valero

22 September 2021

CEP report
Seizing sustainable growth opportunities from zero emission passenger vehicles in the UK

This is a Special report for the LSE Growth Commission, produced with the Centre for Economic Performance, that provides a set of actionable recommendations to the UK government to drive sustainable growth in the context...Read more...

Ralf Martin, Sam Unsworth, Anna Valero and Dennis Verhoeven

13 February 2020

CEP report
Urban Capacity and Economic Output

This report was commissioned by the National Infrastructure Commission as part of the evidence base for the National Infrastructure Assessment. The views expressed and recommendations set out in this report are the autho...Read more...

Stephen Gibbons and Daniel J. Graham

9 August 2018

CEP report
Brexit and the future of globalisation?

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

John Van Reenen

27 September 2017

CEP report
Industry in Britain - an atlas

Living near a productive company can have considerable economic benefits. It means the chance of well-paid jobs, creates opportunities for suppliers of goods and services, and can be a boost to local retailers. This comm...Read more...

Sandra Bernick, Richard Davies and Anna Valero

22 September 2017

CEP report
Why Governments Won't Invest

The UK Government is currently exerting a sharp and tightening squeeze on public investment at a time when borrowing for public investment has never, historically, been cheaper with interest rates close to zero in real t...Read more...

Sir Vince Cable

17 March 2016

CEP report
Internationalization and Innovation of Firms: Evidence and Policy

We use a representative and cross-country comparable sample of manufacturing firms (EFIGE) to document patterns of interaction among firm-level internationalization, innovation and productivity across seven European coun...Read more...

Carlo Altomonte, Tommaso Aquilante, Gabor Bekes and Gianmarco I. P. Ottaviano

11 April 2014

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

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

Joao Paulo Pessoa and John Van Reenen

5 June 2013

CEP report
Education in a Devolved Scotland: A Quantitative Analysis

Education is an area that is highly devolved in the UK, and the fact that all four constituent countries have pursued very different policies in the recent past provides a good testing ground to undertake a comparative r...Read more...

Stephen Machin, Sandra McNally and Gill Wyness

21 May 2013

CEP report
School Structure, School Autonomy and the Tail

In this paper, we survey the UK-based literature on school structures and school autonomy to identify settings in which alternative and more autonomous school arrangements can improve the educational attainments of pupil...Read more...

Stephen Machin and Olmo Silva

13 March 2013

CEP report
UK growth: a new chapter

The UK Economy is at a critical juncture. Leaving the EU creates economic challenges that necessitate widespread policy change. But this also generates an opportunity to tackle some of the long-standing challenges which ...Read more...

Philippe Aghion, Terra Allas, Timothy Besley, John Browne, Francesco Caselli, Richard Davies, Richard Lambert, Rachel Lomax, Stephen Machin, Gianmarco I. P. Ottaviano, Christopher A. Pissarides, Isabelle Roland, Xavier Rolet, Nicholas Stern and Anna Valero

2 February 2017

CEP report
Investing for Prosperity: Skills, Infrastructure and Innovation

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

Philippe Aghion, Timothy Besley, John Browne, Francesco Caselli, Richard Lambert, Rachel Lomax, Christopher A. Pissarides, Nicholas Stern and John Van Reenen

31 January 2013

CEP report
Fiscal consolidation during a depression

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

Nitika Bagaria, Dawn Holland and John Van Reenen

3 August 2012

CEP report
How mental illness loses out in the NHS a report by the Centre for Economic Performance's Mental Health Policy Group

Mental illness accounts for a massive share of the total burden of disease. Even when we include the burden of premature death mental illness accounts for 23% of the total burden of disease. Yet, despite the existence of...Read more...

Richard Layard

18 June 2012

CEP report
The political economy of the Greek debt crisis: a tale of two bailouts

We review the events that led to the May 2010 and July 2011 bailout agreements. We interpret the bailouts as outcomes of political-economy equilibria. We argue that the second bailout was not on the Pareto frontier and s...Read more...

Silvia Ardagna and Francesco Caselli

20 March 2012

CEP report
UK economic performance since 1997: growth, productivity and jobs

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

Dan Corry, Anna Valero and John Van Reenen

6 December 2011

CEP report
Measuring subjective wellbeing for public policy: recommendations on measures

The measurement of wellbeing is central to public policy. There are three uses for any measure: 1) monitoring progress; 2) informing policy design; and 3) policy appraisal. There has been increasing interest in the UK an...Read more...

Paul Dolan, Richard Layard and Robert Metcalfe

March 2011

CEP report
The State of Apprenticeship in 2010: International Comparisons - Australia, Austria, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland. A Report for the Apprenticeship Ambassadors Network.

Forward by Sir Roy Gardner (Chairman, Compass Group plc; Chairman, Apprenticeship Ambassadors Network) August 2010: I am pleased to commend this report, commissioned by the Apprenticeship Ambassadors Network, of which I ...Read more...

Hilary Steedman

September 2010

CEP report
Bankers' Pay and Extreme Wage Inequality in the UK

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

Brian Bell and John Van Reenen

April 2010

CEP report
Interoperability and Market Foreclosure In the European Microsoft Case

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

Kai Uwe Kuhn and John Van Reenen

February 2008

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

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

Kai Uwe Kuhn and John Van Reenen

February 2008

CEP report
Changes in Wage Inequality

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

Stephen Machin and John Van Reenen

April 2007

CEP report
Management Practices Across Firms and Nations

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Nicholas Bloom, Stephen Dorgan, John Dowdy, Tom Rippin and John Van Reenen

June 2005

CEP report
Work-Life Balance, Management Practices and Productivity

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

Nicholas Bloom, Tobias Kretschmer and John Van Reenen

January 2006

CEP report
The Depression Report: A New Deal for Depression and Anxiety Disorders

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Richard Layard & CEP Mental Health Policy Group

June 2006

CEP report
Pathway From Poverty? Intellectual Property And Developing Countries

This new report, published in association with the IPI is the first wide-ranging analysis of the economic studies done on intellectual property laws. It concludes that there are some benefits from intellectual property p...Read more...

Louise C. Keely

April 2000

CEP report
World Financial Reform

In July 1999, the CEP held a second meeting of policymakers and thinkers to examine in greater detail aspects of the international financial architecture and proposals for its reform. This Special Report includes revised...Read more...

Olivier Davanne, Andrew Haldane, Graham Ingham, Peter B. Kenen and Ken Rogoff

December 1999

CEP report
International Financial Reform

In the wake of the Asian and Russian financial crises, the CEP convened a one day meeting of policymakers and academics to examine the prospects for reform of the international monetary system in December 1998. This Spec...Read more...

Stanley Fischer

December 1998

CEP report
Apprenticeship: A Strategy For Growth

Referring to issues raised by recent reforms and future expansion of apprenticeship, this report reveals the consequences serious skills shortages have on the economy as a whole. It calls for radical improvements to the ...Read more...

Howard Gospel, Paul Ryan and Hilary Steedman

October 1998

CEP report
What A Performance: Performance Related Pay In The Public Services

A groundbreaking study of performance related pay schemes in the Inland Revenue, the Employment Service, NHS Trust Hospitals and Head Teachers.Performance related pay has played a central role in the reform of performanc...Read more...

Stephen French and David Marsden

July 1998

CEP report
Employability And Exclusion: What Governments Can Do

An edited version of a major one day conference hosted by the Centre for Economic Performance ahead of the Birmingham G8 Summit in May. Contributors include:Rt Hon. David Blunkett, Secretary of State for Education and Em...Read more...

Peter Robinson

May 1998

CEP report
Literacy, Numeracy And Economic Performance

Robinson raises a series of questions about the Government's priorities, challenging the key policies of target-setting and raising average achievement. (The Times). This report, which attracted much media coverage, exa...Read more...

Peter Robinson

September 1997

CEP report
Restructuring Or Restrukturierung? Corporate Restructuring In Britain And Germany

A report resulting from extensive study, undertaken in association with the Financial Times, on restructuring activities in the largest British and German companies since 1986....Read more...

Ansgar Richter

May 1997

CEP report
Into The 21st Century: An Assessment Of British Skill Profiles And Prospects

In spite of progress in improving skills levels over the past decade, Britain still lags far behind many of its main competitors in key areas. Andy Green and Hilary Steedman report on the results of work carried out at t...Read more...

Andy Green and Hilary Steedman

March 1997

CEP report
Assessment, Qualifications And Standards: UK Compared To France, Germany, Singapore And The US

This Annex contains the technical work which underpins Into the 21st Century. It describes in detail the assessment procedures and qualifications offered in France, Germany, Singapore and USA compared to the UK....Read more...

Olivier Bertrand, Andy Green, Ansgar Richter, Marcus Rubin, Hilary Steedman and Klaus Weber

March 1997

CEP report
Investment Prospects In Russia

Contributors to this report on a recent CEP conferene include Sir Rodric Braithwaite, Sergei Vasiliev, Michael Emerson and Peter Boone. There is too much ill-informed and erroneous reporting of Russia and its companies....Read more...

Richard Layard and George Lucas

February 1997

CEP report
Jobs, Wages And Poverty: Patterns Of Persistence And Mobility In The Flexible Labour Market

A new study underlining the extent to which poverty persists over time in Britain. It presents evidence, together for the first time, from longitudinal labour market data on jobs, poverty and pay....Read more...

Paul Gregg

January 1997

CEP report
Low Pay And Minimum Wages: The British Evidence

Sue Fernie and David Metcalf survey the economic evidence concerning the impact on pay, jobs and poverty of a minimum wage set at different levels. Minimum wages are probably the most controversial political and economic...Read more...

Sue Fernie and David Metcalf

September 1996

CEP report
Rhetoric And Reality: Britain's New Vocational Qualifications

Based on research commissioned by the Gatsby Foundation, this report examines the impact of the new systems of vocational qualifications and provoked a lively debate in the letters pages of the Financial Times....Read more...

Peter Robinson

January 1996