Productivity growth has slowed across most OECD economies since the mid-2000s. While important aspects of New Zealand …’s economic performance have improved over this period, productivity growth is still comparatively low. This continues a long …-run trend of poor productivity in New Zealand, which is the key reason why average incomes are still below the OECD average …

Using a cross-country firm level panel dataset from 1995 to 2015, this paper revisits the finance–productivity nexus by … result, financial frictions are expected to be more binding for productivity growth in sectors where intangibles have become … level. We provide evidence that financial frictions act as a drag on productivity growth and especially so with respect to …