Does publicly-financed R&D spill over to private sector productivity growth? We document a robust correlation between UK public-sector financed R&D disbursed via research councils and market sector total factor productivity growth.

This note responds to a critique of our recent paper, “Can Intangible Investment Explain the UK Productivity Puzzle?â€. In that critique Martin and Rowthorn (MR) present a re-working of data on labour composition which they feel refutes an element of our argument. In this response we...

This paper investigates whether intangibles might explain the UK productivity puzzle. We note that since the recession: (a) firms have upskilled faster than before; (b) intangible investment in R&D and software has risen whereas tangible investment has fallen; and (c) intangible and telecoms...