This paper discusses the paper "The Source of Historical Economic Fluctuations: An Analysis using Long-Run Restrictions" by Neville Francis and Valerie A. Ramey. It argues that these authors have made great progress both in the precise measurement of labor input as well as determining the effect...

This paper examines to what extent recent empirical evidence can collectively andsystematically substantiate the claim that entrepreneurship has important economic value.Hence, a systematic review is provided that answers the question: What is the contribution ofentrepreneurs to the economy in...

On 30th October 2003, at a joint Forum of the Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM) and the Councilfor Industry and Higher Education (CIHE) academics, practitioners and policy makers discussed dimensions of theUK’s skills challenge. This report, which summarises the discussions that...

Considering Cournot competition, this note shows that, if the firms differ inlabor productivities, the equilibrium wage rates under a centralized labor union are notindependent of the number of firms and product differentiation if the labor unioncharges a uniform wage rate. However, if the...

[...]As we documented in a longer version of this paper (Triplettand Bosworth forthcoming), labor productivity growth in theservices industries after 1995 was a broad acceleration, not justconfined to one or two industries, as has sometimes beensupposed. Using the 1977-95 period as the base, we...

In this paper, we analyze the transition to the labour market of participants in vocational training in Madeira Island. In a first stage, we investigate how the employment status at different dates (one month, one year, and two years after the completion of the training program) depends on...

The size and strength of the Royal Navy experienced a punctuated evolution into the largest and most powerful Navy in the world by 1815.Most historians tend to represent its superiority in conflicts at sea as an indication of several factors that would be conceptualized by economists as...

This paper examines patterns of structural change and labour productivity growth in the late nineteenth-century Habsburg Empire. Using shift-share analysis and a set of basic measures to account for the contribution of physical and human capital growth, it seeks to address three questions:...

New data on individual worker’s outputs show that New England ring spinners exhibited substantial on the job learning c. 1905. Despite this, variable capital-labour ratios meant high labour turnover reduced aggregate labour productivity only fractionally. The combination of variable...

Theory predicts that mandated employment protections may reduce productivity by distortingproduction choices. Firms facing (non-Coasean) worker dismissal costs will curtail hiringbelow efficient levels and retain unproductive workers, both of which should affectproductivity. These theoretical...