IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cep/cepdps/dp0488.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Technological Innovation and Performance in the United Kingdom

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen Nickell
  • John Van Reenen

Abstract

Over the period since 1970, Britain has improved its relative productivity performance, but there remains a significant gap in market sector productivity between Britain and both Continental Europe and the United States. Much of the gap between Britain and Continental Europe is due to lower levels of capital intensity and skill. However, even taking these into account, there remains a significant gap between Britain and the United States. This reflects not just a weakness in high tech areas but an inability to absorb best-practice techniques and methods in wide swathes of the market sector. Part of this is due to a weakness in technological innovation despite a high quality science base. This includes comparatively low and falling levels of R\&D and patenting as well as a distinct lag in the diffusion of innovations relative to other countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen Nickell & John Van Reenen, 2001. "Technological Innovation and Performance in the United Kingdom," CEP Discussion Papers dp0488, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    • Handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0488
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/DP0488.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rachel Griffith & Stephen Redding & John Van Reenen, 2004. "Mapping the Two Faces of R&D: Productivity Growth in a Panel of OECD Industries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(4), pages 883-895, November.
    2. Stephen Bond & Dietmar Harhoff & John Van Reenen, 2010. "Investment, R&D and Financial Constraints in Britain and Germany," NBER Chapters, in: Contributions in Memory of Zvi Griliches, pages 433-460, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Layard, R & Nickell, S, 1989. "The Thatcher Miracle?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(2), pages 215-219, May.
    4. Stephen Bond & Julie Elston & Jacques Mairesse & Benoit Mulkay, 1997. "Financial factors and investment in Belgium, France, German and the UK: A comparison using company panel data," IFS Working Papers W97/08, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    5. Geroski, P A, 1990. "Innovation, Technological Opportunity, and Market Structure," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 42(3), pages 586-602, July.
    6. Timothy F. Bresnahan & Erik Brynjolfsson & Lorin M. Hitt, 2002. "Information Technology, Workplace Organization, and the Demand for Skilled Labor: Firm-Level Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(1), pages 339-376.
    7. Bloom, Nick & Griffith, Rachel & Van Reenen, John, 2002. "Do R&D tax credits work? Evidence from a panel of countries 1979-1997," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 1-31, July.
    8. Bean, Charles R & Crafts, Nicholas, 1995. "British Economic Growth Since 1945: Relative Economic Decline .... and Renaissance?," CEPR Discussion Papers 1092, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Van Reenen, John, 1997. "Why has Britain had slower R&D growth?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4-5), pages 493-507, December.
    10. Miles, David, 1993. "Testing for Short Termisn in the UK Stock Market," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(421), pages 1379-1396, November.
    11. Crafts,Nicholas & Toniolo,Gianni (ed.), 1996. "Economic Growth in Europe since 1945," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521499644, September.
    12. Bond, Stephen R & Jenkinson, Tim, 1996. "The Assessment: Investment Performance and Policy," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 12(2), pages 1-29, Summer.
    13. Nicholas Crafts & Mary O'Mahony, 2001. "A perspective on UK productivity performance," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 271-306, September.
    14. Nickell, Stephen J, 1996. "Competition and Corporate Performance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(4), pages 724-746, August.
    15. Hilary Steedman, 1999. "Looking into the Qualifications Black Box: What can International Surveys Tell Us About Basic Competence?," CEP Discussion Papers dp0431, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    16. Crafts, Nicholas & Toniolo, Gianni, 1995. "Post-war Growth: An Overview," CEPR Discussion Papers 1095, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. McConnell, John J. & Muscarella, Chris J., 1985. "Corporate capital expenditure decisions and the market value of the firm," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 399-422, September.
    18. Robert N. McCauley & Steven A. Zimmer, 1989. "Explaining international differences in the cost of capital," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 14(Sum), pages 7-28.
    19. Nickell, Stephen & Wadhwani, Sushil & Wall, Martin, 1992. "Productivity growth in U.K. companies, 1975-1986," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 1055-1085, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stephen Redding & Mercedes Vera-Martin, 2006. "Factor Endowments and Production in European Regions," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 142(1), pages 1-32, April.
    2. Rafael Gomez & Seymour Martin Lipset & Noah Meltz, 2001. "Frustrated Demand for Unionisation: the Case of the United States and Canada Revisited," CEP Discussion Papers dp0492, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    3. Stefania Lionetti, 2010. "Tourism productivity: incentives and obstacles to fostering growth," Quaderni della facoltà di Scienze economiche dell'Università di Lugano 1009, USI Università della Svizzera italiana.
    4. Gomez, Rafael & Gunderson, Morley & Meltz, Noah, 2001. "From 'playstations' to 'workstations': youth preferences for unionisation in Canada," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20100, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Burgess, Simon & Profit, Stefan, 2001. "Externalities in the matching of workers and firms in ritain," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 313-333, June.
    6. Jonathan Michie & Christine Oughton & Mario Pianta, 2002. "Innovation and the Economy," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(3), pages 253-264.
    7. Hilary Steedman, 2001. "Benchmarking Apprenticeship: UK and Continental Europe Compared," CEP Discussion Papers dp0513, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    8. Dickens & David T. Ellwood, 2004. "Whither Poverty in Great Britain and the United States? The Determinants of Changing Poverty and Whether Work Will Work," NBER Chapters, in: Seeking a Premier Economy: The Economic Effects of British Economic Reforms, 1980–2000, pages 313-370, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2005. "From sectoral to functional urban specialisation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 343-370, March.
    10. Combes, Pierre-Philippe & Duranton, Gilles, 2006. "Labour pooling, labour poaching, and spatial clustering," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 1-28, January.
    11. Keil, Manfred & Robertson, Donald & Symons, James, 2001. "Minimum wages and employment," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20119, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Di Liberto, Adriana, 2008. "Education and Italian regional development," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 94-107, February.
    13. Alan Manning, 2006. "A Generalised Model of Monopsony," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(508), pages 84-100, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nickell, S. J. & Van Reenen, John, 2001. "Technological innovation and economic performance in the United Kingdom," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 783, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Rachel Griffith & Helen Simpson, 2004. "Characteristics of Foreign-Owned Firms in British Manufacturing," NBER Chapters, in: Seeking a Premier Economy: The Economic Effects of British Economic Reforms, 1980–2000, pages 147-180, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Bettina Becker, 2013. "The Determinants of R&D Investment: A Survey of the Empirical Research," Discussion Paper Series 2013_09, Department of Economics, Loughborough University, revised Sep 2013.
    4. Eric Bartelsman & Andrea Bassanini & John Haltiwanger & Ron Jarmin & Stefano Scarpetta & Thorsten Schank, 2002. "The Spread of ICT and Productivity Growth: Is Europe Really Lagging Behind in the New Economy?," CEPN Working Papers halshs-00289168, HAL.
    5. T. Gries & R. Grundmann & I. Palnau & M. Redlin, 2017. "Innovations, growth and participation in advanced economies - a review of major concepts and findings," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 293-351, April.
    6. Patrik Gustavsson Tingvall & Andreas Poldahl, 2006. "Is there really an inverted U-shaped relation between competition and R&D?," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 101-118.
    7. Nicholas Crafts & Mary O'Mahony, 2001. "A perspective on UK productivity performance," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 271-306, September.
    8. Scarpetta, Stefano & Tressel, Thierry, 2004. "Boosting productivity via innovation and adoption of new technologies : any role for labor market institutions?," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 29144, The World Bank.
    9. John Van Reenen, 2001. "The new economy: reality and policy," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 307-336, September.
    10. Barry Eichengreen & Albrecht Ritschl, 2009. "Understanding West German economic growth in the 1950s," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 3(3), pages 191-219, October.
    11. MARSCHINSKI Robert & DE AMORES HERNANDEZ Antonio & AMOROSO Sara & BAUER Peter & CARDANI Roberta & CSEFALVAY Zoltan & GENTY Aurelien & GKOTSIS Petros & GREGORI Wildmer & GRASSANO Nicola & HERNANDEZ GUE, 2021. "EU competitiveness: recent trends, drivers, and links to economic policy: A Synthesis Report," JRC Research Reports JRC123232, Joint Research Centre.
    12. Sara Barcenilla-Visús & José-María Gómez-Sancho & Carmen López-Pueyo & María-Jesús Mancebón & Jaime Sanaú, 2013. "Technical Change, Efficiency Change and Institutions: Empirical Evidence for a Sample of OECD Countries," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 89(285), pages 207-227, June.
    13. Stephen Bond & Dietmar Harhoff & John Van Reenen, 2010. "Investment, R&D and Financial Constraints in Britain and Germany," NBER Chapters, in: Contributions in Memory of Zvi Griliches, pages 433-460, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Gustavo Crespi & Chiara Criscuolo & Jonathan Haskel, 2006. "Information Technology, Organisational Change and Productivity Growth: Evidence from UK Firms," Working Papers 558, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    15. Bond, Stephen & Harhoff, Dietmar & Van Reenen, John, 2003. "Corporate R&D and productivity in Germany and the United Kingdom," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 770, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Bettina Becker & Nigel Pain, 2008. "What Determines Industrial R&D Expenditure In The Uk?," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 76(1), pages 66-87, January.
    17. Crafts, Nicholas, 2017. "The Postwar British Productivity Failure," Economic Research Papers 269090, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    18. Crafts, Nicholas, 2011. "British Relative Economic Decline Revisited," CEPR Discussion Papers 8384, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Patrik Gustavsson Tingvall & Patrik Karpaty, 2011. "Service-sector competition, innovation and R&D," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 63-88.
    20. Bettina Becker & Stephen Hall, 2013. "Do R&D strategies in high-tech sectors differ from those in low-tech sectors? An alternative approach to testing the pooling assumption," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 183-202, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0488. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/discussion-papers/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.