Firm Dynamics, Market Power and Productivity Puzzles

诺贝尔奖得主保罗·克鲁格曼有句名言：“生产率不是一切，但从长远来看，它几乎是一切。”他指的是这样一种观点，即生产力决定了社会从给定数量的投入中生产更多产出的能力，例如，从给定数量的土地上生产更多的作物。最终，持续的生产力提高提高了社会的健康和生活水平，并为子孙后代提供了更好的生活。2007年金融危机之后，英国的劳动生产率在两年内下降了4%，直到2015年才恢复。2015年的生产率比危机前的趋势持续下去的水平低16%。但造成这种生产率表现不佳的原因尚不完全清楚。这就是所谓的英国生产率之谜。我们的研究探索了这个生产力之谜，并对英国生产力行为进行了新的解释。我们研究市场支配地位的上升是否削弱了生产率。更大的市场支配地位，经济学家称之为“市场力量”，允许企业收取更高的价格，这可能会削弱生产率。利用英国公司的数据，我们统计分析了英国的市场力量及其与生产力的关系。传统上，政策制定者独立分析经济中每个行业的竞争。但越来越多的研究正在认识到市场力量对经济的整体影响。这对英国来说至关重要，因为它正在脱离欧盟，这影响了竞争政策，同时，颠覆性技术正在创造新的行业，这些行业的主导企业和竞争对手很少。

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman famously remarked that 'productivity isn't everything, but in the long run it is almost everything'. He is referring to the idea that productivity dictates society's ability to produce more output from a given amount of inputs, for example, more crops from a given amount of land. Ultimately, sustained productivity improvement increases society's health and living standards and offers future generations a better life. After the 2007 financial crisis, UK labour productivity fell four per cent in two years, only returning in 2015. In 2015 productivity was 16% below the level it would have been if pre-crisis trends had continued. But the causes of this weak productivity performance are not fully understood. This is called the UK's productivity puzzle. Our research explores this productivity puzzle and investigates a new explanation for UK productivity behaviour. We study whether a rise in market dominance has weakened productivity. Greater market dominance, which economists call 'market power', allows firms to charge higher prices which can weaken productivity. Using data on UK firms, we statistically analyse UK market power and its relationship to productivity.Traditionally policymakers analyse competition in each industry of the economy independently. But increasingly research is recognizing the overall impact that market power can have on an economy. This is crucial in the UK at a time when it moves away from the EU, which influenced competition policy, and at a time when disruptive technologies are creating new industries with dominant firms and few competitors.