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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...
Davide M. Coluccia and Gaia Dossi
26 April 2025
Donald Trump's announcement of wide-ranging tariffs has threatened to upend the rules of global trade that have been in place for decades, impacting supply chains and businesses across the world. The US President's pla...Read more...
Jonathan Haskel
10 April 2025
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...
4 April 2025
Since 2021, developed countries have experienced a significant inflation episode. This column uses Decision Maker Panel data from UK CEOs and CFOs to study firms' inflation perceptions and expectations around monthly off...Read more...
Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov
2 April 2025
We constantly hear of exciting new ways AI tools can help to tackle economic problems and the productivity gains they bring. However, benefits can only materialize when firms actually use AI....Read more...
Antonin Bergeaud, Guzman Gonzalez-Torres Fernandez, Vincent Labhard and Richard Sellner
28 March 2025
The European Union's push to rearm in the face of growing external threats and the increasing disengagement of the United States has, so far, been primarily a push to spend more on defence and to find ways to facilitate ...Read more...
Philippe Aghion, Marco Buti, Giancarlo Corsetti, Marcello Messori and Andre Sapir
19 March 2025
Harvard Business School professor Raffaella Sadun's research has historically focused on digital reskilling. Now, rapid technological changes - like AI - are reshaping the nature of work. Raffaella's research has explore...Read more...
Raffaella Sadun
18 March 2025
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...
Xavier Jaravel
1 March 2025
Fast productivity growth in the UK car industry led to staff in the sector earning about 37% more than the average manufacturing employee by the 2010s. But Andreas Teichgraeber and Tim Obermeier show that while wages wen...Read more...
Tim Obermeier and Andreas Teichgraeber
20 February 2025
Large language models can conduct interviews at speed and at scale. Friedrich Geiecke and Xavier Jaravel present a new open source platform to support this innovative form of qualitative research....Read more...
Friedrich Geiecke and Xavier Jaravel
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...
Pia Andres
Innovators are most likely to be men from privileged backgrounds. Xavier Jaravel argues that democratisation and widening of access to innovative careers worldwide is key to boosting long-term growth and addressing today...Read more...
Differences in consumption patterns between lower- and higher-income households suggest the potential for inflation inequality, but evidence on the scale and drivers of this disparity remains scarce. This column uses 'di...Read more...
30 January 2025
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...
Philippe Aghion, Simon Bunel and Xavier Jaravel
14 January 2025
Some artificial intelligence technologies are more data intensive than others. This column examines how data privacy regulation shaped the trajectory of AI innovation across countries, looking at patent applications from...Read more...
Pia Andres, Carl Benedikt Frey and Giorgio Presidente
5 January 2025
Trade wars, industrial policy, and myriad other supply chain disruptions have fast become the 'new normal'. Yet, given the highly opaque and complex nature of production processes, knowing how to navigate this rise of de...Read more...
Bennet Feld, Thiemo Fetzer, Prashant Garg and Peter Lambert
24 December 2024
Central banks should prepare - both legally and operationally - to carry out direct transfers to households when conventional monetary policy fails. Recent research shows that stimulus payments would increase consumption...Read more...
Johannes Boehm and Xavier Jaravel
16 December 2024
The transition to a green economy will require large investments by firms. This column uses new survey data to study the importance of climate-related investment for UK firms. Over half of firms expect climate change to ...Read more...
Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Prachi Srivastava, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov
20 November 2024
In recent years, and during Covid-19 in particular, many countries have experimented with innovative approaches to fiscal stimulus. This column reports on an experiment in France in which individuals were given a debit c...Read more...
16 November 2024
When companies face steep carbon prices in a country, they often move production to places with lower or no pricing. To address this problem, the European Union created the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. But, for de...Read more...
Ram Smaran Suresh Kumar
11 November 2024
Productivity growth can play an important role in raising wages. The UK car industry experienced fast productivity growth over the past 40 years, and by the 2010s car workers were earning about 37 per cent more than the ...Read more...
5 November 2024
Remote work and geographic mobility have surged in the US since 2020. This column examines trends for both and discusses the potential electoral implications. The authors find that remote work opportunities are dispropor...Read more...
Peter Lambert and Chris Larkin
31 October 2024
Moody's recent decision to downgrade France's credit outlook underscores the urgent need to pass a budget that tackles the ballooning deficit. But without a parliamentary majority, Prime Minister Michel Barnier will have...Read more...
Philippe Aghion and Benedicte Berner
The interactional skill of large language models enables them to carry out qualitative research interviews at speed and scale. Demonstrating the ability of these new techniques in a range of qualitative enquiries, Friedr...Read more...
30 October 2024
Over the last two decades, the proportion of national income going to employees and the self-employed - the labour share - has declined in many advanced economies. This has not happened in the UK, which might seem like g...Read more...
Andreas Teichgraeber
28 October 2024
Can 'Economics 101' and radical incrementalism reshape local economic development? David and Mike explore this and more with Professor Henry Overman. Tune in for a deep dive into practical economic strategies and their i...Read more...
Henry G. Overman
24 October 2024
Are businesses in the UK embracing artificial intelligence? And what are they doing to meet net-zero targets? Juliana Oliveira-Cunha, Bruno Serra-Lorenzo and Anna Valero report on how employers believe the two big upheav...Read more...
Juliana Oliveira-Cunha, Bruno Serra-Lorenzo and Anna Valero
18 October 2024
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 Muûls and Ulrich Wagner explain why analysing ...Read more...
Jonathan Colmer, Ralf Martin, Mirabelle Muûls and Ulrich J. Wagner
Voluntary carbon markets are an important tool in the fight against climate change, but several issues make them less effective. Carbon offsets often overstate emissions reductions, and firms use these as a cheaper alter...Read more...
Should the EU protect European firms by restricting imports of solar technology from China? Drawing on new research, Pia Andres finds that Chinese competition has resulted in many European firms going out of business, bu...Read more...
14 October 2024
Nobel Prizes and the "Nobel Prize in Economics", more accurately known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, are awarded every year in October. This month, the LSE IQ podcast sp...Read more...
Christopher A. Pissarides
9 October 2024
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...
Philippe Aghion, Mathias Dewatripont and Jean Tirole
7 October 2024
Many of today's global problems, such as sustainability, technology, skills, and diversity can only be solved by organisations. This column argues that more work is needed to understand strategic management by firms, how...Read more...
Ghazala Azmat, Florian Englmaier, Alfonso Gambardella, Maria Guadalupe, Raffaella Sadun and Catherine Thomas
9 September 2024
Economics is famous for being the dismal science. Sadly, recent work highlighting the slowdown in productivity growth stretching back to the 1950s is no exception. But here Nicholas Bloom takes a more cheerful view becau...Read more...
Nicholas Bloom
4 September 2024
Following the release of the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers, there has been renewed research into profit shifting by multinational firms. This column utilises a novel dataset to show that well-managed subsidiaries...Read more...
Katarzyna Bilicka and Daniela Scur
In this episode, our guest is Sabrina Howell who is a Professor of Finance at the NYU Stern. We talk about how to finance innovations, fintechs, venture capitalists, private and public equity, and the role of government!...Read more...
Ruveyda Nur Gozen, Sabrina T. Howell and John Van Reenen
The underrepresentation of disadvantaged groups, particularly women, in the innovation process and entrepreneurial activities is an ongoing issue across the globe. Despite making up 50 percent of the population, women co...Read more...
Ruveyda Nur Gozen
15 August 2024
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...
Pia Andres and Esin Serin
14 August 2024
Human-induced climate change is making disasters more frequent and more intense. Policy could help reduce the economic costs of climate change by helping firms withstand extreme weather events. This column explores how m...Read more...
Agnes Norris Keiller and John Van Reenen
8 August 2024
Firm inflation expectations are a key driver of future price growth. This column uses a large economy-wide business survey to understand the response of firms to monthly CPI inflation releases in the UK. Firms' CPI infla...Read more...
6 August 2024
In this article, written as a follow up to the award-winning "Reskilling in the Age of AI", the authors report the results of a reskilling survey that they conducted with chief human resource officers from approximately ...Read more...
Leila Doumi, Sagar Goel, Orsolya Kovacs-Ondrejkovic, Raffaella Sadun and Jorge Tamayo
10 July 2024
Wage inequality has increased dramatically in the US since the 1970s, largely driven by within-firm earnings inequality. This column uses combined data from three large micro datasets to study the drivers and implication...Read more...
Nicholas Bloom, Scott W. Ohlmacher, Cristina J. Tello-Trillo and Melanie Wallskog
7 July 2024
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...
3 July 2024
The crises and changes of the 2020s have provided many challenges for UK firms, and these occurred against a background of stagnant productivity since the financial crisis. But crises can also force productivity-enhancin...Read more...
2 July 2024
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...
Anna Valero and Bart van Ark
20 June 2024
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...
Anna Valero and John Van Reenen
12 June 2024
Which firms are infiltrated by organised crime, and why? We know that organised crime has links to some firms in the legal economy. But how big is this infiltration, and what do they gain from it? Rocco Macchiavello tell...Read more...
Rocco Macchiavello and Tim Phillips
7 June 2024
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...
Anna Valero
24 May 2024
A shining city on a hill. America the beautiful. The United States has long been mythologised as the land of dreams and opportunity. And since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s it has been undisputedly the ...Read more...
Elizabeth O'Brien Ingleson, Ashley J. Tellis and John Van Reenen
21 May 2024
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly accelerated the shift to work from home around the world, but with significant cross-country variations. This column explores how factors such as lockdown stringency, population densit...Read more...
Cevat Giray Aksoy, Jose Maria Barrero, Nicholas Bloom, Steven J. Davis, Mathias Dolls and Pablo Zarate
30 April 2024
As the UK gears up for a General Election, there is no lack of advice on what any new government's priorities need to be. While the margins for policy manoeuvre are perceived to be rather narrow, we can be certain that g...Read more...
Anna Valero, Andy Westwood and Bart van Ark
Firms across many advanced economies have faced a significant increase in the interest rates paid on borrowing and received on deposits since 2021. Krishan Shah, Nick Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Gregory Thwaites and ...Read more...
Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Krishan Shah, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov
26 April 2024
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...
Philippe Aghion and Alexandra Roulet
25 April 2024
We talk about Marx, Schumpeter, creative destruction, capital accumulation, history, middle income countries, political economy, and more....Read more...
Philippe Aghion, Ruveyda Nur Gozen and John Van Reenen
1 April 2024
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...
28 March 2024
While hand-wringing about AI's implications for work and labour markets is understandable, economic history and current data make clear that the most common fears are largely overblown. Current applications are nowhere n...Read more...
11 March 2024
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...
Esin Serin, Anna Valero and Dimitri Zenghelis
6 March 2024
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...
27 February 2024
The potentially negative effects of market concentration on consumers and workers has received much attention, but Mary Amiti, Cédric Duprez, Jozef Konings and John Van Reenen find that big firms can also promote product...Read more...
Mary Amiti, Cedric Duprez, Jozef Konings and John Van Reenen
20 February 2024
Krishan Shah, Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Gregory Thwaites, and Ivan Yotzov analyse new firm-level data to explore future remote work trends. Managers expect 2028 remote work levels to mirror those of 2023, ...Read more...
18 February 2024
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...
Anna Valero and Dimitri Zenghelis
9 February 2024
Comparatively sluggish productivity growth is one of the UK's biggest policy challenges. Past strategies to solve the problem have lacked commitment and proper evaluation. One solution could be to establish a growth and ...Read more...
25 January 2024
The literature on inequality often focuses on household income, but this measure has several limitations for assessing individual wellbeing. Tim Obermeier develops a new collective household model which simultaneously ac...Read more...
Tim Obermeier
11 January 2024
The UK faces a productivity crisis and tackling this will be crucial to regaining sustainable increases in living standards. In response, the Autumn Statement announced a large number of measures to try and boost busines...Read more...
23 November 2023
The price of renewables has fallen much faster than other sources of energy, making it a more accessible option for governments in low- and middle-income countries. In this episode of VoxDevTalks, Mar Reguant and John Va...Read more...
Mar Reguant and John Van Reenen
21 November 2023
Developing countries compete to attract multinationals to induce development. Becoming suppliers to multinationals could improve domestic firms' technology and managerial practices, and the host country's economy could b...Read more...
Alonso Alfaro-Urena, Isabela Manelici and Jose P Vasquez
An incredible coincidence: Lots of folks who don't like innovative, entrepreneurial market-technocapitalism ... think the only way to tackle climate change is to abandon innovative, entrepreneurial market-technocapitalis...Read more...
John Van Reenen
Growth will be a key focus of the forthcoming Autumn Statement, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer will deliver this Wednesday. Anna Valero, Esin Serin and Brendan Curran argue that effective measures to promote green...Read more...
Brendan Curran, Esin Serin and Anna Valero
20 November 2023
By automating non-routine tasks, AI may have a profound effect on the jobs we do, and even whether those jobs exist. How much should we fear, and how much should we welcome this change? In the second of our podcasts from...Read more...
13 November 2023
How do we measure innovation and compare it across countries? And how can it be that the UK is doing so well as an innovation nation, while we seem to be underperforming on productivity?...Read more...
Anna Valero, Sacha Wunsch-Vincent and Bart van Ark
9 November 2023
This week's King's Speech has paved the way for a further weakening of climate policy in the UK by introducing a bill to support future oil and gas drilling in the North Sea. Esin Serin and Anna Valero explain how this a...Read more...
Esin Serin and Anna Valero
8 November 2023
Steven Davis and Nick Bloom discuss the big shift to work from home, what it means for productivity, why perceptions in this regard often differ between managers and workers, and why - on balance - the big shift is a ble...Read more...
Nicholas Bloom and Steven J. Davis
2 November 2023
The rising dominance of large firms in many industrialised countries over the last few decades has received much attention, largely focusing on the potential negative effects of this increased market concentration. Using...Read more...
31 October 2023
The UK investment ecosystem needs rewiring across the board to increase firms' desire to invest in productive and sustainable assets, and to enhance their ability to do so. Paul Brandily, Mimosa Distefano, Krishan Shah, ...Read more...
Paul Brandily, Mimosa Distefano, Krishan Shah, Gregory Thwaites and Anna Valero
24 October 2023
When faced with catastrophic events, do people turn to religion or science? Enrico Berkes, Davide Coluccia, Gaia Dossi and Mara Squicciarini find that both reactions can occur at the same time: people affected by the flu...Read more...
Enrico Berkes, Davide M. Coluccia, Gaia Dossi and Mara P. Squicciarini
20 October 2023
Mary Amiti, Cedric Duprez, Jozef Konings and John Van Reenen investigate whether large firms also generate positive effects. Using firm-to-firm transaction data for an industrialised country, Belgium, they find that larg...Read more...
12 October 2023
Autocracies and weak democracies are more likely to import facial recognition AI from China, particularly in years when they experience domestic unrest, say Martin Beraja, Andrew Kao, David Yang and Noam Yuchtman....Read more...
Martin Beraja, Andrew Kao, David Y. Yang and Noam Yuchtman
9 October 2023
John Van Reenen introduces his new book, The Economics of Creative Destruction, co-edited with Ufuk Akcigit, which explores how technological innovation can be used to drive growth and tackle problems from inequality to ...Read more...
25 September 2023
Rishi Sunak was propelled into explaining his new position in a hastily arranged press conference after details of plans to adjust (water down) his commitment to green policies were leaked to the BBC. Anna Valero and Lor...Read more...
20 September 2023
The UK government appears to be watering down its commitments to net zero, breaking the cross-party consensus on the need for Britain to lead in the global battle against climate change. Yet now is the time to double dow...Read more...
Esin Serin, Anna Valero and John Van Reenen
The rapid developments in artificial intelligence have been causing fears that many jobs will disappear. But Christopher Pissarides sees reason for optimism. In this Q&A with Maayan Arad, he says that the need to deal wi...Read more...
Maayan Arad and Christopher A. Pissarides
18 September 2023
Maayan Arad speaks to experts about Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the courtroom, and what might happen if robots take over the roles of judges. And explore how journalism and other professional fields could be affected...Read more...
Maayan Arad, Charlie Beckett, Giulia Gentile and Christopher A. Pissarides
7 September 2023
Morten Bennedsen, Birthe Larsen, Ian Schmutte and Daniela Scur discuss how the furlough schemes implemented during the pandemic yielded benefits even after Covid-19 restrictions ended and helped firms thrive....Read more...
Morten Bennedsen, Berthe Larsen, Ian M. Schmutte and Daniela Scur
5 September 2023
What do we mean when we talk about inequality between firms? Are inequalities between firms limiting UK business dynamism? And do governments need to step in and enforce competition rules? In this podcast episode, John V...Read more...
30 August 2023
It's Friday afternoon in the city. There are office blocks all around and a restaurant or bar on every corner... so where is everyone? If occupancy and travel data are anything to go by, they're probably at home. Nick Bl...Read more...
29 August 2023
As the pace of technological change continues to increase, millions of workers may need to be not just upskilled but reskilled. Companies have a critical role to play in addressing this challenge. To learn more about wha...Read more...
18 August 2023
Since 2021, inflation rates have increased sharply in many advanced economies. Philip Bunn, Nicholas Bloom, Paul Mizen, Ozgen Ozturk, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov study firm pricing strategies during the recent perio...Read more...
Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Gregory Thwaites, Ivan Yotzov and Özgen Öztürk
7 August 2023
In this Social Science Bites podcast, Raffaella Sadun discusses her research findings with host David Edmonds, on what exactly we mean by 'management' and what effective management looks like in a workplace....Read more...
1 August 2023
Across a range of everyday markets, consumers make recurrent tariff choices in the face of a multitude of fees and plans, leading to concerns they may fail to make optimal choices of suppliers or contracts. Christos Gena...Read more...
Christos Genakos, Costas Roumanias and Tommaso Valletti
21 July 2023
This is a decisive decade for addressing the UK's longstanding productivity problems, large and persistent inequalities across and within regions, and delivering on net zero commitments. Anna Valero has contributed this ...Read more...
19 July 2023
Is innovation our best hope for dealing with climate change and, if so, how can we stimulate the sort of innovation that we need to make the green energy transition? Philippe Aghion tells Tim Phillips that we need both c...Read more...
Philippe Aghion and Tim Phillips
In 2001, Romania gave an income tax break to a select group of software programmers. Isabela Manelici explains how this particular industrial policy helped stem Romania's "brain drain" problem, transformed the country's ...Read more...
Isabela Manelici
9 July 2023
The rising demand for electric vehicles is changing the geopolitical landscape, as the world pivots away from fossil fuels towards the materials critical to the EV supply chain. As manufacturers and countries race to sec...Read more...
Robert J.R. Elliott, Gavin Harper, Benjamin Jones and Viet Nguyen-Tien
27 June 2023
Although theoretical analysis shows that competition is a key determinant of how firms pass through changes in tax rates to consumers, empirical evidence is scant. This column explores changes in the excise duty on petro...Read more...
Lydia Dimitrakopoulou, Christos Genakos, Themistoklis Kampouris, Blair Yuan Lyu, Mario Pagliero and Stella Papadokonstantaki
22 June 2023
The leading US firms in many industries have increased their national market share substantially over the last four decades - making these industries more concentrated. But locally the picture is more complex. David Auto...Read more...
David Autor, Christina Patterson and John Van Reenen
20 June 2023
The central task for the global economy since Adam Smith's times has been to provide for an exploding population. Life expectancy has doubled, the global headcount has risen more than ten-fold, yet economic output has in...Read more...
Denes Csala, Richard Davies and Charlie Meyrick
8 June 2023
Enrico Berkes, Davide Coluccia, Gaia Dossi and Mara Squicciarini investigate whether a destructive event - such as a pandemic - leads to either an increase in religiosity or a boost in innovation efforts. They find that ...Read more...
24 May 2023
Growth and productivity are often talked about in UK politics but how are they linked and what effect do they have on the economy? John Van Reenen explains....Read more...
19 May 2023
Ahead of COP26 in 2021, Richard Davies talked to Dr Jane Goodall DBE, one of the world's leading environmentalists, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and a United Nations Messenger of Peace....Read more...
Richard Davies and Jane Goodall
12 May 2023
Formal debt financing is an important source of external financing for startups, but creditors face information gaps, as startups lack a proven track record. Felix Bracht, Jeroen Mahieu and Steven Vanhaverbeke argue that...Read more...
Felix Bracht, Jeroen Mahieu and Steven Vanhaverbeke
4 May 2023
Many scholars have been concerned that slower growth in countries with heavy labour regulations could be due to firms' reluctance to innovate given the burden of red tape. Philippe Aghion, Antonin Bergeaud and John Van R...Read more...
Philippe Aghion, Antonin Bergeaud and John Van Reenen
19 April 2023
The COVID pandemic initiated an enduring shift to remote work. But there is little evidence to explain where this shift is taking place at a micro level because the sample sizes are too small. Stephen Hansen, Peter Lambe...Read more...
Nicholas Bloom, Steven J. Davis, Stephen Hansen, Peter Lambert, Raffaella Sadun and Bledi Taska
18 April 2023
The national market shares of the leading US firms in many industries have risen substantially over the last four decades - ie, these industries have become more concentrated. David Autor, Christina Patterson and John Va...Read more...
12 April 2023
In light of the climate crisis, the energy and cost-of-living crises, and longstanding productivity problems urgently needed addressing, the Spring 2023 Budget was a key moment for the government to make progress in prov...Read more...
16 March 2023
Leaving the European Union has undoubtedly had effects on the UK economy. The most obvious ones will be on international trade. But Brexit might also have an impact on business investment, which is crucial for the econom...Read more...
Jonathan Haskel and Josh Martin
13 March 2023
The political equilibrium in Hong Kong was fundamentally altered in June 2020, when the Chinese Communist Party began coercively suppressing all protest. Noam Yuchtman provides a first-hand account of watching civil libe...Read more...
Noam Yuchtman
1 March 2023
The technology frontier that was dominated by the United States, Europe and Japan in the early 2000s is now much more polarised between the American and Chinese patent offices. Antonin Bergeaud and Cyril Verluise show th...Read more...
Antonin Bergeaud and Cyril Verluise
21 February 2023
The UK has been particularly exposed to the global energy crisis - partly due to the country's dependence on gas for heating and electricity generation, and partly its poorly insulated housing stock. After predictions th...Read more...
Industrial policy was once so old-fashioned that it was jokingly called "the policy that shall not be named". Now it's back in a big way. On issues ranging from clean energy to semiconductors to Covid-19, governments are...Read more...
14 February 2023
The large shift to work from home during the Covid-19 pandemic reduced the amount of time that workers spend commuting. This column reports on a global survey of workers in 27 countries showing that working from home sav...Read more...
24 January 2023
There is growing pressure on multinational enterprises to implement 'responsible sourcing' requirements for their suppliers in low- and middle-income countries. These include minimum standards on working conditions, such...Read more...
Alonso Alfaro-Urena, Benjamin Faber, Cecile Gaubert, Isabela Manelici and Jose P Vasquez
20 December 2022
Tracking uncertainty at a high frequency is useful in the context of the multiple shocks that have hit the global economy over the past years and to disentangle the sources of uncertainty. This column presents a new mont...Read more...
Hites Ahir, Nicholas Bloom and Davide Furceri
17 December 2022
Inflation rates and short-term inflation expectations in the UK have increased significantly since 2021. This column uses quantitative and text data from the Decision Maker Panel to analyse the factors affecting inflatio...Read more...
8 December 2022
What happens when lots of people lose their jobs? Why might wages be low even though everyone who wants a job, has one? What do we mean by employment and unemployment and what does 'economic inactivity' mean? What is pro...Read more...
Richard Davies and Tim Harford
29 November 2022
Investing in innovation is key to the future prosperity of an advanced economy such as the UK. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's 17 November autumn statement confirmed a commitment to raising public investments in science. Despit...Read more...
28 November 2022
China's technological strength has been increasing since the late 2000s, accounting for a significant share of patents. Antonin Bergeaud and Cyril Verluise show that while China's share of patents is increasing in quanti...Read more...
23 November 2022
There's a view out there - call it the "superhero" theory of leadership - in which the individual vision, charisma, and brilliance of a CEO makes or breaks a company. That view is dangerous - not so much because CEOs don...Read more...
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt faces a difficult balancing act to try and delay many measures while doing enough in the short run to appease the markets. John Van Reenen comments briefly on what can be expected in the Autumn Sta...Read more...
16 November 2022
Europe is punching below its weight in the climate-technology competition. The continent needs to facilitate risk capital markets and to invest more in research and development. This is the 4th post in a series of climat...Read more...
Philippe Aghion, Lena Boneva, Johannes Breckenfelder, Luc Laeven, Conny Olovsson, Alexander Popov and Elena Rancoita
15 November 2022
In this episode, Tim Harford explains why the banks charge interest when we borrow money and explains why the Bank of England might put interest rates up. Richard Davies is a guest on this episode of Understand: The Econ...Read more...
3 November 2022
Understanding inflation can help understand why our shopping is getting more and more expensive and why prices rarely seem to come down. Tim Harford explains why the inflation figure we see on the TV might not reflect th...Read more...
31 October 2022
Public investment in developing energy sources that don't cause climate change is a strategy for economic growth that could also contribute to the UK's levelling up agenda, says Ralf Martin. His analysis indicates that s...Read more...
Ralf Martin
24 October 2022
Public investment in developing energy sources that don’t cause climate change is a strategy for economic growth that could also contribute to the UK’s levelling up agenda, says Ralf Martin. His analysis indicates that s...Read more...
20 October 2022
The management of firms in developing countries is typically of lower quality than in richer parts of the world. A study of Mexico by Nicholas Bloom, Leonardo Iacovone, Mariana Pereira-López and John Van Reenen indicates...Read more...
Nicholas Bloom, Leonardo Iacovone, Mariana Pereira-Lopez and John Van Reenen
The UK is particularly exposed to the energy crisis sweeping across the world. After predictions that annual household bills were due to rise from around £1,000 to £3,500 in October 2022, the government announced it woul...Read more...
Britain has suffered from a turbulent policy environment for a while. Following chancellor Jeremy Hunt's reversal of nearly all of the mini-budget tax measures and reigned in energy support, difficult spending cuts are c...Read more...
How knowledge spillovers operate between academia and private firms remains an open question. Antonin Bergeaud, Arthur Guillouzouic, Emeric Henry and Clement Malgouyres find strong spillovers through the contracting, mob...Read more...
Antonin Bergeaud, Arthur Guillouzouic, Emeric Henry and Clement Malgouyres
19 October 2022
Rising energy bills drive up the cost of living. LSE's Anna Valero explains what led to the current energy crisis and how the transition to net zero emissions will help. ...Read more...
12 October 2022
Markets have reacted poorly to the UK government's new "mini-budget" combining energy price caps with tax cuts for the well off. The government's search for a quick fix to economic growth is a mistake. In fact, restartin...Read more...
3 October 2022
New technologies will play a vital role in achieving net zero. Getting them on stream and in widespread use fast enough to prevent climate catastrophe calls for bold and urgent action to unblock essential investment....Read more...
27 September 2022
The UK has recently announced tax cuts and spending increases which exceed those implemented during the pandemic. John Van Reenen believes a reckoning will be unavoidable. He writes that policies for good growth are a lo...Read more...
26 September 2022
Britain faces crises in energy and productivity, both of which have been crushing people's living standards. However, neither is being addressed by the two leadership candidates, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss. Anna Valero an...Read more...
2 September 2022
Inflation rates in the UK and US are currently at their highest levels in over 30 years. This column uses firm-level data from the Decision Maker Panel to study inflation dynamics in the UK, and in particular since the s...Read more...
Lena Anayi, Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Gregory Thwaites and Ivan Yotzov
26 August 2022
A decade of stagnant living standards, weak productivity and low investment combined with a coming decade of major change - driven by Covid-19, Brexit and the need for accelerated action on Net Zero - mean that it is cru...Read more...
Josh De Lyon, Ralf Martin, Juliana Oliveira-Cunha, Arjun Shah, Krishan Shah, Gregory Thwaites and Anna Valero
25 August 2022
The UK needs an electric vehicle (EV) battery recycling industry. This could strengthen the British EV supply chain and support the future development of UK-based gigafactories (large-scale battery factories) and electri...Read more...
Robert J.R. Elliott, Gavin Harper, Laura Lander and Viet Nguyen-Tien
7 July 2022
In 2010, the French corporation tax known as the local economic contribution or CET (contribution economique territoriale) replaced the business tax (TP - taxe professionnelle). This latter tax on production had come und...Read more...
Antonin Bergeaud, Edouard Jousselin and Clement Malgouyres
1 July 2022
The UK's experience of structural change through deindustrialisation during the 1970s and 1980s drove up unemployment, concentrated among particular parts of the population, and left deep scars on some parts of the count...Read more...
Molly Broome, Stefano Cellini, Kathleen Henehan, Charlie McCurdy, Capucine Riom, Anna Valero and Guglielmo Ventura
30 June 2022
Confusing consumers can be profitable for companies, particularly in a highly competitive market. Christos Genakos, Tobias Kretschmer and Ambre Nicolle find evidence that, for a period, phone operators decreased the tran...Read more...
Christos Genakos, Tobias Kretschmer and Ambre Nicolle
21 June 2022
Policymakers frequently use education as a welfare policy instrument. But can these policies have unintended consequences? Christos Genakos and Eleni Kyrkopoulou present findings from a case study in Greece where a socia...Read more...
Christos Genakos and Eleni Kyrkopoulou
25 May 2022
Research shows that small firms are more likely to report they are at risk of failing in recent months, amid growing concerns about challenges such as Brexit controls, the Ukraine crisis and energy price hikes....Read more...
Peter Lambert, Apolline Marion and John Van Reenen
24 May 2022
John Van Reenen, Nicholas Bloom, and Raffaella Sadun explain how the World Management Survey provides the evidence needed for designing industrial strategies to tackle low productivity....Read more...
Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
20 May 2022
Anna Valero notes that universities play a special role in driving social and economic progress and shows how they can do even more to benefit their local communities....Read more...
17 May 2022
Managers worked longer hours during the pandemic and changed how they used their time, find Thomaz Teodorovicz, Raffaella Sadun, Andrew L. Kun, and Orit Shaer. They suggest how better technology, including AI, could help...Read more...
Andrew L. Kun, Raffaella Sadun, Orit Shaer and Thomaz Teodorovicz
29 April 2022
The work organisation in companies is increasingly "fragmented" due to the growing use of outsourcing of activities that are not considered as "core business". Outsourcing is the process whereby a company separates itsel...Read more...
Antonin Bergeaud and Clement Mazet-Sonilhac
14 April 2022
Philippe Aghion, Reda Cherif and Fuad Hasanov explain how economic dynamism is crucial for achieving inclusive growth and shared prosperity....Read more...
Philippe Aghion, Reda Cherif and Fuad Hasanov
20 January 2022
As remote working became more common during Covid-19, Antonin Bergeaud, Jean Benoit Eymeoud, Thomas Garcia and Dorian Henricot examine how corporate real-estate market participants adjusted to the growth of teleworking i...Read more...
Antonin Bergeaud, Jean Benoit Eymeoud, Thomas Garcia and Dorian Henricot
18 January 2022
Despite the current wave of US hospital mergers, it is unclear how they change behaviour and performance. Martin Gaynor, Adam Sacarny, Raffaella Sadun, Chad Syverson and Shruthi Venkatesh show that while mergers have ach...Read more...
Martin Gaynor, Adam Sacarny, Raffaella Sadun, Chad Syverson and Shruthi Venkatesh
16 January 2022
Janice Eberly, Jonathan Haskel and Paul Mizen estimate the potential capital and labour saved through working from home that would otherwise have been lost during the Covid-19 pandemic....Read more...
Janice Eberly, Jonathan Haskel and Paul Mizen
13 January 2022
Domestic outsourcing has grown substantially in developed countries over the past two decades. One reason for this is technological change that allows work to be done externally. Antonin Bergeaud, Clement Malgouyres, Cle...Read more...
Antonin Bergeaud, Clement Malgouyres, Clement Mazet-Sonilhac and Sara Signorelli
13 December 2021
Confusing consumers can be profitable for companies, in particular in a competitive market where they can hardly increase their prices without losing their consumers. Ambre Nicolle, Christos Genakos, and Tobias Kretschme...Read more...
8 December 2021
One of the COVID-19 pandemic's most important economic lessons is that innovation and inclusion need not be mutually exclusive. By pursuing the right policies, Western governments can promote both and thereby help to bri...Read more...
Philippe Aghion and Aymann Mhammedi
25 November 2021
Health information and communication technology (HICT) holds enormous potential to improve productivity. Several countries, the UK and the US included, have embraced this idea and spent billions of dollars on promoting H...Read more...
Ari Bronsoler, Joseph Doyle and John Van Reenen
10 November 2021
The UK government has delivered on its promise to publish a strategy for driving the country's economy towards net zero emissions by 2050. Esin Serin and Anna Valero write that the economy-wide Net Zero Strategy provides...Read more...
29 October 2021
Many countries have plans for a 'green recovery' from the pandemic. Anna Valero reviews 30 years of CEP research into how environmental and industrial policies can be combined to achieve economic growth that is strong, s...Read more...
15 October 2021
Dr Anna Valero - ESRC innovation fellow at London School of Economics - is a guest on 'Emissions: Impossible?' a podcast showcasing some of the most ground-breaking research and innovation in climate change, to reveal wh...Read more...
11 October 2021
CEO turnovers are significant organisational events that typically mark a discontinuity in firm strategy and operations. These likely changes are visible in internal communication flows. Stephen Michael Impink, Andrea Pr...Read more...
Stephen Michael Impink, Andrea Prat and Raffaella Sadun
27 September 2021
Research by Peter Lambert, Apolline Marion and John Van Reenen find that the number of firms at risk of failing has fallen from that earlier in the pandemic, but that one million jobs are still at risk and advancements c...Read more...
15 August 2021
In the second anniversary lecture marking 30 years since CEP began, former director John Van Reenen focused on productivity, an issue that has been at the heart of the Centre's work for three decades. He sets out how tec...Read more...
15 June 2021
It is widely feared that private sector innovation is constrained by 'red tape'. Philippe Aghion and colleagues test that view on data from France, where firms of more than 50 employees face far heavier regulatory obliga...Read more...
Philippe Aghion
A fundamental issue in economics is how firms deal with unexpected cost increases, perhaps arising from taxes, exchange rate fluctuations or rising input prices: what drives the extent to which they pass the costs throug...Read more...
Christos Genakos and Mario Pagliero
Philippe Aghion and Isabelle Laporte explain how, with the proper safeguards, creative destruction - the process by which the new replaces the old - remains the way to greater economic growth and prosperity....Read more...
Philippe Aghion and Isabelle Laporte
14 June 2021
In recent decades, US defence R&D seems to have lost its lustre. To combat the declining innovation, in 2018 the US Air Force reformed its contracting procedures to allow applicants more freedom to suggest projects with ...Read more...
Sabrina T. Howell, Jason Rathje, John Van Reenen and Jun Wong
8 May 2021
Peter Lambert and John Van Reenen track how UK businesses view their risks of bankruptcy over the next three months, finding extensions to COVID support schemes have helped avert a wave of bankruptcies, but risks remain....Read more...
Peter Lambert and John Van Reenen
27 April 2021
Working from home has become more common during the pandemic, but only in certain sectors. Jonathan Haskel writes about the likelihood that the practice will be permanently adopted depends on perceptions of workforce pro...Read more...
20 April 2021
Many countries are striving for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, requiring massive investments over the next decades. But many companies, especially smaller ones, will not be able or willing to invest in cleaner techno...Read more...
Ralph De Haas, Ralf Martin, Mirabelle Muûls and Helena Schweiger
19 March 2021
Anna Valero writes that the underlying and urgent issues that were facing the UK economy before the pandemic, such as high levels of inequality and weak productivity, are still present, and are indeed more pressing than ...Read more...
4 March 2021
The new US administration has the opportunity to reset an economic model that has failed to deliver prosperity for millions of Americans for decades. John Van Reenen calls for a Grand Innovation Challenge Fund – federal ...Read more...
1 March 2021
As the pandemic drags on, employers have got better at organising their staff to work from home, says Daniela Scur (Cornell University and LSE). Not all will return to the office, and many will never go back to the five-...Read more...
Daniela Scur
The idea that economic growth is incompatible with tackling the climate emergency is wrong, says John Van Reenen (LSE). He sets out how technological innovation and better management can bring about sustainable growth....Read more...
18 February 2021
Political support for government spending to deal with the economic aftermath of the COVID pandemic has grown. It is now greater than during the 2008 financial crisis, and 'build back better' pledges have multiplied. Ral...Read more...
Ralf Martin, Sam Unsworth, Anna Valero and Dennis Verhoeven
11 February 2021
While there is suggestive evidence that regulations may have a stifling effect on innovation, there is as yet no rigorous economic framework to quantify the magnitude of such regulatory effects on innovation and the aggr...Read more...
1 February 2021
Anna Valero and Professor John Van Reenen examine the evidence on technology adoption through the pandemic and what it means for the UK's future of work and productivity crisis. New evidence offers a basis for guarded te...Read more...
7 January 2021
Businesses have rapidly adopted new technologies and new ways of working in response to the massive disruptions caused by the pandemic. A CEP report by Capucine Riom and Anna Valero suggests that if such innovation conti...Read more...
Capucine Riom and Anna Valero
2 November 2020
Whether we face Hard Brexit or No Deal, the long-run costs to the economy are likely to be more than twice that of COVID-19 - at least 2,000 GBP per person, warns John Van Reenen (LSE). He advocates delaying the exit fr...Read more...
22 October 2020
Unemployment is going up and will rise further. In an extract from a new LSE Centre for Economic Performance report, Nicholas Stern (LSE) sets out how investment in zero-carbon goods and services can create jobs and rede...Read more...
Nicholas Stern
19 October 2020
A survey reveals greater UK innovation rates than what we might have expected in the absence of a pandemic, write Capucine Riom and Anna Valero....Read more...
1 October 2020
Article by Alex Bell, Raj Chetty, Xavier Jaravel, Neviana Petkova and John Van Reenen: Relatively little is known about the factors that induce people to become inventors. Using data on the lives of over one million inv...Read more...
Alexander Bell, Raj Chetty, Xavier Jaravel, Neviana Petkova and John Van Reenen
24 December 2017