Productivity

The proportion of UK people with university degrees tripled between 1993 and 2015. However, over the same period the time trend in the college wage premium has been extraordinarily flat. We show that these patterns cannot be explained by composition changes.

Whether the UK leaves the European Union, and if so on what terms, is a crucial issue andtherefore rightly should be the subject of much debate in the run-up to the generalelection on 12 December.

Business owners have been the fastest-growing part of the UK labour force since at least 2000. Between 2000–01 and 2015–16, the number of employees grew by 15%, while self-employment (including those operating as a sole trader or as a partner in a partnership) grew by 25% and the number of directors of companies with at most two directors more than doubled. The number of new businesses created in the UK between 2007–08 and 2015–16 was higher than in any other OECD country.

This paper develops a model of a growing open economy rich in non‐renewable resources, the extraction of which negatively impacts domestic productivity and whose sector competes with final production for capital.

This paper reviews UK industrial policy in the context of Brexit and weak productivity performance. It considers proposals made in a recent White Paper as well as more general arguments for reform

This paper examines how farmers adapt, in the short-run, to extreme heat. Using a production function approach and micro-data from Peruvian households, we find that high temperatures induce farmers to increase the use of inputs, such as land and domestic labor.