European business services has witnessed about two decades of virtual productivity stagnation. The paper investigates whether this is caused by weak dynamic market selection. The time pattern of scale-related inefficiencies is used as an indicator for the effectiveness of market selection. We...

This paper discusses welfare costs of a decrease in productivity and argues that there are two important channels which cause a reduction in welfare: a decrease in output per firm (intensive margin) and a decrease in number of operating firms (extensive margin). Traditional Dixit-Stiglitz...

We use an online real-effort experiment to investigate how bonus-based pay and worker productivity interact with workplace cheating. Firms often use bonus-based compensation plans, such as group bonuses and firm-wide profit sharing, that induce considerable uncertainty in how much workers are...

Average hourly productivity has often been used to draw conclusions on long run per capita GDP growth, based on the assumption of full utilization of labour resources. In this paper, we argue that a failure to recognize the potentially significant wedges among the two variables – even in the...

ICT could help the New Member States catch up with EU-15 in economic terms. The report documents the potential of ICT for improved productivity performance in the Central and Eastern Europe countries (CEE) at the macro and industry level, in relation to the EU-15 and the US.

British cities are becoming more culturally diverse, with migration a main driver. Is this growing diversity good for urban economies? This paper explores, using a new 16-year panel of UK cities. Over time, net migration affects both local labour markets and the wider economy. Average labour...

This paper investigates the role of information and communication technology (ICT) as a driver of improved productivity performance of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries and Russia (CEER) relative to the EU-15 and the U.S. during the 1990s. The paper investigates how, and to what...

The paper analyzes the multi-channel contribution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to output and labour productivity growth in eight transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), i.e. Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia...

The present study examines cross-national and sectoral differences in Total Factor Productivity (TFP) in fourteen European countries and ten sectors from 1995 to 2007. The main aim is to ascertain the role of employment protection of temporary contracts on TFP by estimating their effects with a...

Since the mid 1900’s, economist have come to recognize the role of innovative activity in firms productivity growth, particularly in the competitive market economies. However, the most conducive market environment for innovative activity has also become a subject of interest. Thus, a major...