IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nsr/escoed/escoe-dp-2022-21.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Digital Concrete: Productivity in Infrastructure Construction

Author

Listed:
  • Diane Coyle
  • Rehema Msulwa

Abstract

Construction is a large sector of the UK economy and official statistics show that construction productivity has flatlined despite adoption of advances in digital technology and increased outsourcing. We examine the evolution of the UK infrastructure construction industry and the scope for its digitization, describing the changing industry structure and the range of digital technologies being adopted. We consider the implications of technological innovation for productivity, both actual and measured. We focus on two possible explanations for this particular piece of the productivity puzzle: time lags and different potential sources of mismeasurement.

Suggested Citation

  • Diane Coyle & Rehema Msulwa, 2022. "Digital Concrete: Productivity in Infrastructure Construction," Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) Discussion Papers ESCoE DP-2022-21, Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE).
    • Handle: RePEc:nsr:escoed:escoe-dp-2022-21
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://escoe-website.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/29145152/ESCoE-DP-2022-21.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oliver Lewis & Avner Offer, 2022. "Railways as patient capital [‘Top Wealth Shares in the UK Over More than a Century’]," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 38(2), pages 260-277.
    2. Zvi Griliches, 1998. "R&D and Productivity: The Econometric Evidence," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gril98-1, March.
    3. Kevin J. Stiroh & Dale W. Jorgenson, 2000. "U.S. Economic Growth at the Industry Level," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 161-167, May.
    4. Finn Orstavik, 2014. "Innovation as re-institutionalization: a case study of technological change in housebuilding in Norway," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(9), pages 857-873, September.
    5. Paul Goodrum & Carl Haas & Robert Glover, 2002. "The divergence in aggregate and activity estimates of US construction productivity," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(5), pages 415-423.
    6. Daniel M. Hall & Jennifer K. Whyte & Jerker Lessing, 2020. "Mirror-breaking strategies to enable digital manufacturing in Silicon Valley construction firms: a comparative case study," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(4), pages 322-339, April.
    7. Griliches, Zvi, 1998. "R&D and Productivity," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226308869, December.
    8. Editors The, 2007. "From the Editors," Basic Income Studies, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 1-5, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Huffman, Wallace E. & Evenson, Robert E., 2003. "New Econometric Evidence On Agricultural Total Factor Productivity Determinants: Impact Of Funding Sources," Working Papers 18201, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    2. Valeria Costantini & Francesco Crespi & Giovanni Marin & Elena Paglialunga, 2016. "Eco-innovation, sustainable supply chains and environmental performance in European industries," LEM Papers Series 2016/19, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    3. Kumar, Sanjesh & Singh, Baljeet, 2019. "Barriers to the international diffusion of technological innovations," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 74-86.
    4. Georgios Gioldasis & Antonio Musolesi & Michel Simioni, 2020. "Model uncertainty, nonlinearities and out-of-sample comparison: evidence from international technology diffusion," Working Papers hal-02790523, HAL.
    5. Ayhan, Fatih & Elal, Onuray, 2023. "The IMPACTS of technological change on employment: Evidence from OECD countries with panel data analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    6. Cassiman, Bruno & Perez-Castrillo, David & Veugelers, Reinhilde, 2002. "Endogenizing know-how flows through the nature of R&D investments," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 775-799, June.
    7. Ufuk Akcigit & Douglas Hanley & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2022. "Optimal Taxation and R&D Policies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(2), pages 645-684, March.
    8. Thomas Bolli & Martin Woerter, 2013. "Technological Diversification and Innovation Performance," KOF Working papers 13-336, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    9. Link, Albert N. & Siegel, Donald S. & Van Fleet, David D., 2011. "Public science and public innovation: Assessing the relationship between patenting at U.S. National Laboratories and the Bayh-Dole Act," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 1094-1099, October.
    10. Pietro Moncada-Paternò-Castello, 2022. "Top R&D investors, structural change and the R&D growth performance of young and old firms," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 12(1), pages 1-33, March.
    11. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/941 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Beatriz Pereira Almeida & Eduardo Gonçalves & André Suriane Silva & Raquel Coelho Reis, 2021. "Internalization of knowledge spillovers by regions: a measure based on self-citation patents," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 66(2), pages 309-330, April.
    13. Antonelli, Cristiano, 2017. "Digital knowledge generation and the appropriability trade-off," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(10), pages 991-1002.
    14. Sarah Guillou, 2006. "Competitiveness and export market shares in high tech industries in the US and the EMU countries: a comparative study," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2006-18, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    15. Ramesh Chandra Das & Sujata Mukherjee, 2020. "Do Spending on R&D Influence Income? An Enquiry on the World’s Leading Economies and Groups," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 11(4), pages 1295-1315, December.
    16. Soumyananda Dinda, 2018. "Production technology and carbon emission: long-run relation with short-run dynamics," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 106-121, January.
    17. Stavins, Robert & Jaffe, Adam & Newell, Richard, 2000. "Technological Change and the Environment," Working Paper Series rwp00-002, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    18. Tan, Yafei & Zhu, Zhaohui, 2022. "The effect of ESG rating events on corporate green innovation in China: The mediating role of financial constraints and managers' environmental awareness," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    19. Hana Kim & Eungdo Kim, 2018. "How an Open Innovation Strategy for Commercialization Affects the Firm Performance of Korean Healthcare IT SMEs," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-14, July.
    20. Criscuolo, Chiara & Mariagrazia, Squicciarini & Olavi, Lehtoranta, 2010. "R&D, innovation and productivity, and the CIS: sampling, specification and comparability issues," MPRA Paper 39261, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Viroj Jienwatcharamongkhol & Mohammad Hossein Tavassoli, 2012. "Bridging Firm’s Innovation, Productivity and Export: An Analysis using Swedish CIS data," ERSA conference papers ersa12p885, European Regional Science Association.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    construction; digitisation; infrastructure; productivity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L10 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - General
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L16 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics; Macroeconomic Industrial Structure

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:nsr:escoed:escoe-dp-2022-21. 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: ESCoE Centre Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/escoeuk.html .

    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.