The impacts of rising competition on innovation remain unclear, and often depend on country context. This column analyses the impact of increased import competition from China on innovation by Chilean firms. It finds a negative overall impact of competition on innovation indicators. Low-productivity firms in particular see declines across all innovation measures, while the
While large businesses in Japan have seen a gradual increase in labour productivity since the global financial crisis, the productivity of SMEs remains stagnant. This column investigates the effects of the Japanese government’s Business Sustainable Subsidy programme, launched in response to this situation, on SMEs’ performance. The findings suggest that application to the
Despite clear economic benefits of new digital technologies, slow median wage growth has led many to worry that these new technologies are failing to deliver for the average worker. This column develops a new model of global automation and technological change to study the long-term consequences of these trends. It finds that automation can boost output and growth, but these
Richard Baldwin
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic required extreme measures limiting freedom of movement, driving most countries to impose a lockdown of non-essential economic activities. Western industrialised countries had not witnessed an event of such magnitude since the Spanish Influenza, so the policy measures were novel and unprecedented.
Italy was the first country to introduce these measures. The first official case of COVID-19 was found on 21 February 2020. Initially, restrictions were confined to 11 municipalities in Lombardy and Veneto, which were declared ‘red zones’,
1 soon after which the government issued a series of emergency decrees (DPCM). On 8 March, the red zone status was extended to 15 additional provinces, and within three days the measures of social distancing were applied to the whole country (the ‘stay at home’ campaign). Sunday 22 March marked the introduction of the nationwide lockdown, consisting of the shutting down of plants producing
Romesh Vaitilingam 08 February 2021
The UK’s exit from the EU was finally completed on 1 January 2021. The IGM Forum at Chicago Booth invited its panels of leading European and US economists to express their views on the likely long-term effects of Brexit on both the UK economy and the aggregate economy of the remaining 27 EU members. As this column reports, a strong majority (86% of the panellists) agrees that the UK economy is likely to be at least several percentage points smaller in 2030 than it otherwise would have been. Views are more divided on the EU-27 economy: nearly a quarter of respondents agree that it will be at least several percentage points smaller in 2030 than it otherwise would have been; but more than a third are uncertain; while 41% do not expect the impact to be that strongly negative.