In this paper, I introduce new estimates of Anglo-Italian labour productivity levels in manufacturing during the late 1930s. The relatively high level of detail of the industrial censuses of the two countries, allows to retrieve also input data, enabling the use of the more sophisticated double...

We study the determination of market power at the firm and industry levels when heterogeneous firms compete for sales to ex ante homogeneous buyers in a market with both directed and random search and free entry of firms that differ in productivity. Search and the distribution of productivity...

We examine the implications of robots and artificial intelligence (AI) for employment and productivity, using a rich firm-level database from the Survey of Business Activities provided by Statistics Korea. While previous studies have explored the effects of robots and AI separately, we...

We document a Kuznets curve for construction productivity in 20th-century America. Homes built per construction worker remained stagnant between 1900 and 1940, boomed after World War II, and then plummeted after 1970. The productivity boom from 1940 to 1970 shows that nothing makes technological...

We examine how demographic factors influence potential output, focusing on how the age distribution of the working-age population and the old-age dependency ratio affect aggregate productivity. Following Feyrer (2007), we emphasize that the contribution to aggregate productivity varies by age...

Passenger transportation in Japan's main metropolitan areas is operated by the JR companies, which were privatized and divested from Japan National Railways (JNR) in 1987 and by 16 major private railway companies with large-scale operations. Although their core business is transportation, the...

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) are an essential subject of economic activity in any country because, without their participation, the development and formation of the very structure of the economy are almost impossible. The role of SMEs is significant since these businesses allow for...

Productivity growth depends not only on technological innovation but also on production networks that amplify its impact. Theory and cross-country evidence indicate a positive relationship between productivity growth and the use of intermediate inputs, a measure of network connectedness. We find...

Europe faces a well-known productivity malaise, with a large and widening aggregate productivity gap relative to the U.S. In this paper, we provide a novel diagnosis of the firm-level roots of Europe's productivity growth slowdown through an analysis of data covering the universe of firms in...

This paper examines competitiveness and productivity in the Baltics. Focusing on recent developments, it asks why Russia's war in Ukraine led to a prolonged recession and strong decline in competitiveness in Estonia, while Latvia and Lithuania shielded their economies more effectively. The paper...

Household heterogeneity has been shown to be an important driver of aggregate demand. In this research, we demonstrate that it also impacts the supply side. We build a model in which heterogeneous households vary in their extent to which they supply production factors (labor and capital). Our...

The paper evaluates the impact of the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) grants on profit‐oriented firms' post‐treatment performance. Using a quasi‐experimental design and a dataset covering applicants from 46 countries, we find that FP7 grants increase firms' sales...

Defensive hiring of researchers by incumbent firms with monopsony power reduces creative destruction. This mechanism helps explain the simultaneous rise in R&D spending and decline in TFP growth in the US economy over recent decades. We develop a simple model highlighting the critical role of...

This paper is aimed at understanding the possibility of applying ergonomics in the reorganisation of the work environment with the aim to improve working conditions and to increase the productivity of the examined workplace in an industrial company. Due to constant changes in markets, industrial...