It is widely felt that skill shortages are a serious problem in the United Kingdom. This paper investigates the causes of skill shortages. The authors' empirical work is based on job matching theory so that shortages correspond to long duration vacancies. They argue that shortages depend on...

Following D. Kreps and J. Scheinkman (1983), it is common to view the difference between Cournot and Bertrand competition as depending on production capacity. Bertrand undercutting is only feasible if firms have capacity to serve the market gained. If firms are capacity constrained, the Cournot...

In this paper, the authors study how firms react to demand shocks, examining how different aspects of flexibility shape their responses. Their main findings are that very few firms choose to adjust to price in response to a demand shock and that firms with more flexibility are more likely to...

In this paper the authors examine the effect of skilled labor shortages on productivity in the UK. They develop a simple model that explains how skill shortages might reduce productivity and its rate of growth. Shortages may lead firms to substitute unskilled for skilled workers thereby reducing...

Why have skill shortages continue to persist despite increases in training and the skill levels of the workforce? We argue that technical progress has raised the demand for skilled labour to match the observed increase in supply. We provide econometric evidence in support of this hypothesis,...

We estimate mark-ups of price over marginal cost for UK manufacturing, based on the approach of Hall (1988). We also extend his method to allow for varying mark-ups over industries and the cycle. Using data on 16 two-digit industries, 1968-89, we find: (1) the average mark-up in UK manufacturing...