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The UK productivity puzzle 2008-13: evidence from British businesses

Author

Listed:
  • Riley, Rebecca

    (Natioinal Institute of Economic and Social Research and Centre for Macroeconomics)

  • Rosazza-Bondibene, Chiara

    (Natioinal Institute of Economic and Social Research and Centre for Macroeconomics)

  • Young, Garry

    (Bank of England)

Abstract
In many larger advanced economies labour productivity growth slowed sharply and remained subdued for years after the credit crisis of 2007/08. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the United Kingdom. We examine the dynamics of productivity among British businesses that lie behind this stagnation. The most striking feature is the widespread weakness in total factor productivity within firms, pointing to the importance of a common factor in explaining productivity weakness. In addition,we find that the positive correlation between surviving firms’ employment growth and their relative productivity ranking broke down after 2007/08, as would be expected if an adverse credit supply shock had caused inefficiencies in resource allocation across firms. Indeed, during the immediate recession years 2008/09, this shift was most apparent in sectors with many small and bank dependent businesses. But subsequently, while the contribution of external reallocation to aggregate productivity growth in 2010/13 was smaller than in previous years, this was not obviously associated with sectoral bank dependence. We illustrate the sensitivity of these findings to the choice of decomposition method.

Suggested Citation

  • Riley, Rebecca & Rosazza-Bondibene, Chiara & Young, Garry, 2015. "The UK productivity puzzle 2008-13: evidence from British businesses," Bank of England working papers 531, Bank of England.
    • Handle: RePEc:boe:boeewp:0531
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    2. Gamberoni, Elisa & Giordano, Claire & Lopez-Garcia, Paloma, 2016. "Capital and labour (mis)allocation in the euro area: some stylized facts and determinants," Working Paper Series 1981, European Central Bank.
    3. Yojiro Ito & Daisuke Miyakawa, 2022. "Performance of Exiting Firms in Japan: An Empirical Analysis Using Exit Mode Data," IMES Discussion Paper Series 22-E-07, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    4. Clymo, AJ, 2017. "Heterogeneous Firms, Wages, and the Effects of Financial Crises," Economics Discussion Papers 20572, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    5. Florian Gerth, 2017. "Allocative efficiency of UK firms during the Great Recession," Studies in Economics 1714, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    6. Anderson, Gareth & Riley, Rebecca & Young, Garry, 2019. "Distressed banks, distorted decisions?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100947, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Dacic, Nikola & Melolinna, Marko, 2019. "The empirics of granular origins: some challenges and solutions with an application to the UK," Bank of England working papers 842, Bank of England.
    8. Marta Lopresto & Garry Young, 2019. "Measuring the Cycle and Structural Shocks," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 50(1), pages 103-117.
    9. Nikola Dacic & Marko Melolinna, 2022. "The empirics of granular origins: some challenges and solutions with an application to the UK," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 151-170, December.
    10. Dacic, Nikola & Melolinna, Marko, 2022. "The size-centrality relationship in production networks," Bank of England working papers 994, Bank of England.
    11. Bańbura, Marta & Albani, Maria & Ambrocio, Gene & Bursian, Dirk & Buss, Ginters & de Winter, Jasper & Gavura, Miroslav & Giordano, Claire & Júlio, Paulo & Le Roux, Julien & Lozej, Matija & Malthe-Thag, 2018. "Business investment in EU countries," Occasional Paper Series 215, European Central Bank.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Productivity growth; productivity decomposition; resource allocation; credit shock; Great Recession; Great Stagnation.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E03 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Behavioral Macroeconomics
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

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