This paper provides new evidence on the main characteristics of laggard firms - firms in the bottom 40% of the productivity distribution - and their potential for productivity growth. It finds that laggards are on average younger and smaller than more productive firms, and matter for aggregate...

In this paper, we aim to bring the debate on the global productivity slowdown – which has largely been conducted from a macroeconomic perspective – to a more micro-level. We show that a particularly striking feature of the productivity slowdown is not so much a lower productivity growth at...

This chapter discusses different approaches pursued to explore three broad questions related to technology diffusion: what general patterns characterize the diffusion of technologies, and how have they changed over time?; what are the key drivers of technology?; and what are the macroeconomic...