What Can Wages and Employment Tell Us about the UK's Productivity Puzzle?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Blundell, Richard; Crawford, Claire; Jin, Wenchao
• 署名单位: University of London; University College London; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; University of Warwick
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1111/ecoj.12138
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 377-407
• 关键词: labor-market; immigration; IMPACT; work; families; britain; CRISIS

摘要

As in many European countries, labour productivity in the UK has been stagnant since the start of the Great Recession. This article uses individual data on employment and wages to try to understand whether real wage flexibility can help shed light on the UK's productivity puzzle. It finds, perhaps unsurprisingly, that workforce composition cannot explain the reduction in wages and hence productivity that we observe, even compared to previous recessions; instead, real wages have fallen significantly within jobs this time round. Why? One possibility we investigate is that the labour supply in the UK is higher compared to previous recessions.