Sectoral productivity vis-à-vis the US and heterogeneity within the EU27: the role of firm size distribution and firm demographics
David Martínez Turégano
No JRC122059, JRC Research Reports from Joint Research Centre
Abstract:
Labour productivity growth in developed economies has slowed down during the last decade relative to the pre-Great Recession period. The EU27 has been no exception to this trend, keeping both a large negative gap relative to the US and strong country heterogeneity following an uneven convergence process between Member States. Based on these stylized facts, in this paper we investigate which are the main explanatory variables accounting for productivity heterogeneity within the EU, both in level and growth terms. From a policy perspective, our findings suggest a number of areas in which action seems to be warranted, improving technological adoption, increasing innovation intensity, boosting the capital triad (human, tangible and intangible assets), and, with respect to the two micro-structural characteristics we put a focus on, eliminating barriers to growth in firm size and facilitating the entry and exit of enterprises. These same recommendations are even more valid in the specific case of business services, for which productivity performance and convergence seem more sensitive to progress in those policy areas.
Keywords: Productivity; convergence; sectoral heterogeneity; firm structure; business demographics. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J24 L11 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2020-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-eff, nep-eur, nep-lma, nep-mac, nep-sbm and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC122059 (application/pdf)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc122059
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in JRC Research Reports from Joint Research Centre Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Publication Officer ().