We use a new regulatory dataset to measure the intensity competition in the UK deposit-taking sector. The novelty of this study is two-fold. First, the dataset allows us to explore trends in competition intensity over an extended, 24-year period from 1989 to 2013 using data for UK-regulated...

The paper develops a static model to explore how, under platform competition, heterogeneous levels of switching costs can give rise to an incumbency advantage. The key condition required for the coexistence of both platforms on the market, to have effective competition, relies on the relative...

I analyse the post-crisis slowdown in UK productivity growth using a novel decomposition framework, applied to firm-level data. The framework tracks flexibly defined distributions over time, and links changes in the shape of these distributions to aggregate movements. It encompasses many...

The presence of sticky, often labelled ‘unengaged', consumers is arguably one of the most intractable issues faced by competition regulators, in that it entrenches incumbency advantage. We develop a spatial linear model of heterogeneous switching costs that allows for asymmetric distributions...

In many larger advanced economies labour productivity growth slowed sharply and remained subdued for years after the credit crisis of 2007/08. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the United Kingdom. We examine the dynamics of productivity among British businesses that lie behind this...

In this paper, we assess the cyclicality of mark-ups and profit margins within the United Kingdom, at both the aggregate and industry level. We find that the private sector labour share moves countercyclically, suggesting that the aggregate mark-up moves procyclically. This result survives when...

Labour productivity in the United Kingdom has been exceptionally weak since the 2007/08 financial crisis. This paper uses firm-level data from the Office for National Statistics Annual Business Survey and the Inter-Departmental Business Register to better understand the nature of this weakness....

The presence of sticky, often labelled ‘unengaged', consumers is arguably one of the most intractable issues faced by competition regulators, in that it entrenches incumbency advantage. We develop a spatial linear model of heterogeneous switching costs that allows for asymmetric distributions...

Can policymakers improve macroeconomic performance by encouraging the entry of high‑performance start‑ups? To answer this question, we construct a novel and comprehensive data set on 1.3 million start‑ups in 10 European countries. We apply cluster analysis to identify distinct start‑up...

Long-term fixed-rate mortgage contracts protect households against interest rate risk, yet most countries have relatively short interest rate fixation lengths. Using administrative data from the UK, the paper finds that the choice of fixation length tracks the life-cycle decline of credit risk...