Case study evidence suggests that exporting firms learn from their clients. But econometric evidence, mostly using exporting and TFP growth, is mixed. We use a UK panel data set with firm-level information on exporting and productivity. Our innovation is that we also have direct data on the...

We use the ARD micro level data set for UK manufacturing to document job creation and job destruction (JC&D). Due to data limitations, previous UK studies were unable to use entry and exit in calculations of JC&D and/or were are at the firm rather than establishment/plant level and/or used data...

A major puzzle is that despite the apparent importance of innovation around the "knowledge economy", UK macro performance appears unaffected: investment rates are flat, and productivity has slowed down. We investigate whether measurement issues might account for the puzzle. The standard National...

This paper examines the impact of international trade and technical change on changes in the UK skill premium. We first measure trade as changes in product prices and technical change as TFP growth. Then we relate price and TFP changes to a set of underlying forces. Among our results are (a)...

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...

We examine the relationships between productivity growth, IT investment and organisational change (∆O) using UK firm data. Consistent with the small number of other micro studies we find (a) IT appears to have high returns in a growth accounting sense when ∆O is omitted; when ∆O is included...

We document the role of small firms in explaining the growth of the skilled/unskilled wage premium in UK manufacturing over the 1980s. Our major findings are (i) the share of manufacturing employment in small firms' (0-99) employees has risen by 35 percent over this period; (ii) small firms pay...

We attempt to replicate for the UK the Corrado, Hulten and Sichel (2005, 2006) work on spending on intangible assets in the US. Their work suggests private sector expenditure (investment) on intangibles is about 13% (11%) of US GDP 1998-2000, with intangible investment about equal to tangible...

The usual analysis of privatization and X-inefficiency uses agency theory to model managerial effort. The authors model worker effort as determined by a bargain between firms and workers. Workers dislike effort because it lowers utility. Firms prefer high effort because it raises productivity....

An enormous number of empirical papers have estimated technical efficiency, the distance of firms inside a frontier, following the model of Farrell (1957). We propose a theory that explains the distance these empirical papers seek to measure. The theory is based on the idea that workers can...