Friday, 10 October 2025

UK TFP relative to other countries

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 1. The Fernald/Inklaar pape r is important.  It argues that the UK TFP levels problem not in manufacturing or market services.  It is  mini...
Thursday, 9 October 2025

Is Britain an low investment country?

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1.   Giles Wilkes shows this graph, drawn in turn from OECD via ONS for total investment as a share of GDP.  The UK is resoundingly at the ...
Tuesday, 7 October 2025

Notes on the UK Steel Industry

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 1. the ever-brilliant House of Commons Library published  British Steel and government special measures , June 23rd. Some notes. On 12 Apri...

R&D and productivity: some notes

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I'm kindly invited to the British Academy to discuss a report https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications/mapping-the-economic-retu...
Friday, 3 October 2025

How much are the UK R&D tax credit and Patent Box schemes costing? (Around 7.6 and 2.0 bn in 2023/4)

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 1. There are some new figures just out, 30th Sept 2025 (next ones due in a year):  " Research and Development Tax Credits Statistics: ...
Friday, 26 September 2025

How important are intangibles in accounting for productivity growth?

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1. I was asked today: if intangible capital deepening slows, is that a big effect on productivity growth?  This is part of a broader questio...

What has happened to R* recently?

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 The 2025 Brookings Papers conferenc e had a sesssion on this.   The slides from Lukasz Rachel and the discussants are available.  The disc...
Thursday, 18 September 2025

Will the Employment Rights Bill help or hurt growth?

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     1.       The Employment Rights Bill is making its way through the UK Parliament at the moment. There are a lot of details, set out in...
Wednesday, 17 September 2025

A portrait of UK R&D

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 Getting a handle on innovation support is hard with many schemes, funding etc.  Just looking at R&D, here is some data from Cambridge U...

Did persisently low interest rates post GFC lower productivity growth?

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Many allege that the long run of low interest rates post global financial crisis lowered productivity growth via zombie firms.  These low pr...