A diverse community of
leading experts, policymakers
and practitioners

The Institute’s key research themes
are led by ten academic partners
spread across the UK.

Businesses are crucial to solving
the UK’s productivity problems.

We’re a UK-wide research
organisation exploring what
productivity means for business

Businesses are crucial to solving
the UK’s productivity problems.

Research

Working papers

Graphic of circular economy

Green growth and net zero policy in the UK: some conceptual and measurement issues

A discussion of some of the fundamental issues related to the future growth of productivity under net zero climate change policies.

Knowledge Capital
Jul 26, 2022
Gas storage

Changing times: Incentive regulation, corporate reorganisations, and productivity in Great Britain’s gas networks

Two separate productivity analyses are undertaken to examine the effects of changes of regulations and ownership in the GB gas industry.

Knowledge Capital
Jul 20, 2022
Graphic of cogs

Accounting for the slowdown in UK innovation and productivity

A comprehensive sources-of-growth analysis for the UK non-farm market sector, 2000 to 2019, using the latest ONS data.

Knowledge Capital
Jun 27, 2022
Map of UK from an atlas with a pushpin

Tradability, Productivity and Regional Disparities: theory and UK evidence

This paper develops an analytical framework on how sectors determine regional outcomes and captures the impact of shocks from the 1970s.

Geography & Place
Jun 27, 2022
British flag and globe

The UK Productivity “Puzzle” in an International Comparative Perspective

The United States and northern Europe have experienced very similar productivity slowdowns to the UK since 2007.

Macroeconomic trends & policy
Apr 1, 2022

You’re not speaking my language: policy discontinuity and coordination gaps between the UK’s national economic strategies and its place-based policies.

Evidence from text analysis of a startling lack of coordination in Government policy with a special focus on the Levelling Up White Paper and its other recent national economic policy documents.

Knowledge Capital
Mar 17, 2022
Picture of toy truck with boxes and downwards arrow

Diagnosing the UK Productivity Slowdown: Which Sectors Matter and Why?

Exploring the slowdown in UK productivity from 2008 by decomposing the changes in labour productivity into contributions from different sectors of the economy.

Knowledge Capital
Mar 17, 2022
Health care worker

Healthcare as social infrastructure: productivity and the UK NHS during and after Covid-19

The implications of the demand surge experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic for the UK's rationed, largely free at the point of need, NHS.

Knowledge Capital
Feb 17, 2022
Artwork of planet with green energy

Do climate policies explain the productivity puzzle?

Has productivity in advanced economies been affected by increased stringency of environmental regulations?

Knowledge Capital
Jan 25, 2022
Downing St and Whitehall

The Politics of Productivity: institutions, governance and policy

The theme paper for TPI's Institutions & Governance research theme; the political institutions, governance systems and policies that have shaped the UK’s poor productivity performance.

Institutions & Governance
Dec 13, 2021
Laptop with image of currencies overlayed

Inward investment and UK productivity

How and why foreign direct investment can improve productivity and how this affects policymaking.

Organisational Capital
Nov 15, 2021
Image of electricity pylons and wind turbines

Incentive regulation, productivity growth and environmental effects: the case of electricity networks in Great Britain

An analysis of the productivity growth of electricity transmission and distribution networks in Great Britain and how changes in incentive mechanism have influenced the measured total factor productivity.

Knowledge Capital
Nov 10, 2021
A hand using a touch screen

Understanding productivity: Organisational Capital perspectives

The theme paper for TPI's Organisational Capital research theme; focusing on the three ways of improving firm level productivity in a given environment.

Organisational Capital
Nov 8, 2021
Illustrated image of Foreign Direct Investment

Leveraging the benefits of location decisions into performance: A global view from matched MNEs

Examining how firms leverage their resources, through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) decisions, into profits growth.

Organisational Capital
Oct 18, 2021
Robots on a yellow backgroun

Productivity Growth and Capital Deepening in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Will the Covid-19 pandemic be sufficiently disruptive to deliver fundamental transformation, resulting in improved economic performance and more stable political and social arrangements?

Human Capital
Sep 28, 2021
Industrial units and wind turbines

Productivity opportunities and risks in a transformative, low-carbon and digital age

The theme paper for TPI's Transitions research theme; how low-carbon and digital transitions are likely to deeply transform the productivity of economies and societies in the coming decades.

Transitions
Sep 28, 2021
Climate change and finance

Climate change and fiscal responsibility

Presenting a taxonomy for tracing the physical and transition impacts of climate change through to impacts on sovereign risk, including productivity.

Knowledge Capital
Sep 13, 2021

Human Capital and productivity: a call for new interdisciplinary research

The theme paper for TPI's Human Capital research theme, calling for an interdisciplinary approach to understanding its contribution to productivity.

Human Capital
Aug 5, 2021
Mobile phone displaying government Covid support website

Covid-19 business support and SME productivity in the UK

How did the UK's Covid-19 emergency public support measures influence firms' future investment intentions and employee well-being?

Organisational Capital
Jun 22, 2021
Grass growing out of a briefcase

Public investments in COVID-19 green recovery packages

The size, sectoral allocation and implementation choices of green recovery spending plans in France, Germany and the UK differ markedly.

Transitions
Jun 22, 2021
Drawing of light bulb in front of ideas board

The idea of productivity

The theme paper for TPI's Knowledge Capital research theme, examining how ideas fundamentally drive productivity.

Knowledge Capital
Jun 22, 2021
Graphic of a puzzle missing a piece

A concerted effort to tackle the productivity puzzle during the post-COVID era

The Productivity Institute aims to bring together researchers, business executives and policy makers in the UK to provide solutions to the UK’s long-term productivity puzzle.

Productivity Studies
Apr 22, 2021
Medical staff in PPE

Productivity in UK healthcare during and after the Covid-19 pandemic

The impact of Covid-19 treatment pressures along with substantial falls in non-Covid-19 health care activities on measured productivity.

Knowledge Capital
Apr 22, 2021