We use linked employer-employee microdata for New Zealand to examine the relationship between firm-level productivity, wages and workforce composition. Jointly estimating production functions and firm- level wage bill equations, we compare migrant workers with NZ-born workers, through the lens...

Accounts information that businesses supply to Inland Revenue for tax purposes provide over 96% of the observations in the productivity dataset in the Longitudinal Business Database. In 2013, material changes in the data collected halted the annual updating of the productivity dataset. This...

Recent discussions of New Zealand's relative economic performance have drawn a link between firm-level productivity dispersion and a lack of competitive pressure. This note describes a simple example using New Zealand firm-level data which casts doubt on the assertion that New Zealand has a...

Theory and international evidence suggest that firms at the New Zealand productivity frontiermay be especially important for the diffusion of knowledge from the global productivity frontier,acting as a conduit for new technologies and ideas to flow into the domestic economy. Weidentify the NZ...

This chapter examines the link between firm productivity and the population composition of the areas in which firms operate. We combine annual firm-level microdata on production, covering a large proportion of the New Zealand economy, with area-level workforce characteristics obtained from...