Recent trends in firm‐level total factor productivity in the UK: new measures, new puzzles
利用英国2008-2019年制造业和ICT企业的微观数据，通过结构框架估计质量调整后的全要素生产率，发现企业内TFP显著下降，但行业间资源再配置效应不同，为理解英国生产率谜题提供新视角。
Abstract Understanding the poor productivity performance of the UK economy since the financial crisis is complicated by the well‐known challenges in estimating total factor productivity (TFP) using only revenue data. We develop a structural framework to infer quality‐adjusted TFP from an estimated firm‐level revenue function. We use microdata for two sectors previously identified as being significant contributors to the UK's productivity growth slowdown—manufacturing and ICT—from 2008 to 2019. The revenue function is estimated using the Blundell–Bond System GMM estimator. We also use an alternative cost‐shares approach to identifying and measuring TFP. For both methods, we find an overall fall in TFP levels in manufacturing and a rise in ICT. We find a striking decline of between 13% and 18% in the level of within‐firm manufacturing TFP, and of between 11% and 16% in ICT, although with reallocation effects differing between the two sectors. The finding of declining within‐firm TFP is robust, although the magnitude varies between methods. We discuss a possible explanation for this extended UK productivity puzzle based on the relative underperformance of UK firms in international markets.