We investigate the relationship between export market shares and relative unit labour costs using a long panel of 12 manufacturing industries across 14 OECD countries. We ask how sensitive are export market shares to changes in relative costs and what determines this sensitivity? Both costs and...

We use data from the airline industry to examine the extent to which the costs of airline operations are affected by rents accruing to workers, and the extent to which these rents depend inter alia upon the degree of competition in the industry. Our empirical results based on a panel of twelve...

This paper examines the impact of international trade and technical change on changes in the UK skill premium. We first measure trade as changes in product prices and technical change as TFP growth. Then we relate price and TFP changes to a set of underlying forces. Among our results are (a)...

In this paper the authors examine the effect of skilled labor shortages on productivity in the UK. They develop a simple model that explains how skill shortages might reduce productivity and its rate of growth. Shortages may lead firms to substitute unskilled for skilled workers thereby reducing...

The authors use two U.K. panel data sets to investigate skill-upgrading in the United Kingdom and how it has been affected by computerization. Census data reveals that most aggregate skill-upgrading is explained by within-establishment rises in skill composition. Such upgrading is significantly...

We analyse productivity growth in UK manufacturing 1980-92 using the newly available ARD panel of establishments drawn from the Census of Production. We examine the contribution to productivity growth of 'internal' restructuring (such as new technology and organisational change among survivors)...