Donal Curtin • Feb 16, 2015 •
The Productivity Commission has just come out this morning with an interesting new Working Paper, "Who benefits from productivity growth? –The labour income share in New Zealand", and if life's too short, there's an accompanying "cut to the chase" summary. The labour income share, by the way, is as it sounds - "The labour income share (LIS) … Read More
James Zuccollo • Jan 22, 2015 •
In December last year The Work Foundation released a comprehensive review of performance-related pay in the public sector: PRP schemes can be effective in improving outcomes across the three public services for which evidence is available (health, education and the civil service), although the central conclusion is that the outcomes from PRP are mixed, which […] … Read More
Paul Walker • Jan 05, 2015 •
The following comes from an interview with Stanford University economist Nicholas Bloom available online at "Econ Focus", the economics magazine of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.EF: Another branch of your research has focused on how management practices affect firm and country productivity. Why do you think management practices are so important?Bloom: My personal … Read More
Patrick Nolan • Dec 22, 2014 •
On the 8th of December this year Martin Weale, of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, highlighted concerns with the UK’s recent productivity growth. In the UK total output per worker is now no higher that it was 6 years ago. The UK is not the only country experiencing weak productivity growth. Many OECD […] … Read More
Paul Walker • Aug 28, 2014 •
An obvious and important question in industrial economics is does competition raise productivity and if so, through what mechanism? In a 2010 working paper, Does Competition Raise Productivity Through Improving Management Quality?, John Van Reenen sets... Read More
Eric Crampton • Jul 09, 2014 •
Perhaps satisficing under conditions of low competition can take some of the blame for New Zealand's low productivity rates.Donal Curtin at EconomicsNZ wonders about productivity in our service sector:If business innovation is important for growth... Read More
Donal Curtin • Jul 08, 2014 •
People have been banging their heads for some time against New Zealand's "productivity paradox" - we've got good institutions, good policies, and ready access to the best technology, but can't seem to generate the same income from those opportunities t... Read More
Matt Nolan • Jun 06, 2014 •
I see that Patrick Nolan has an article in Public Finance talking about UK and New Zealand productivity. Go read it, but come back here to comment as they don’t seem to have a comment system. As we are a NZ audience, I’ll quote this bit: While New Zealand faces different challenges, its experience can throw light […] … Read More
Donal Curtin • May 22, 2014 •
Professor Norman Gemmell at Victoria has done some really interesting work on how New Zealand prices compare with those overseas. This has been done primarily for the Productivity Commission, which is interested in issues such as the degree to which expensive domestic inputs might be hobbling our export competitiveness, but it's also been a long time research interest of … Read More
Donal Curtin • Mar 19, 2014 •
Yesterday Stats came out with the latest productivity statistics. They're very important numbers: in the long run, it's productivity that largely determines our standard of living, and if you've ever engaged, or want to engage, with why incomes here se... Read More