Can intangible investment explain the UK productivity puzzle? A response and comment

In this note Bill Martin and Bob Rowthorn of the Centre for Business Research (CBR) respond to the recent critique by Goodridge, Haskel & Wallis of their 2012 study of Britain’s productivity puzzle, Is the British Economy Supply Constrained II? A Renewed Critique of Productivity Pessimism.

They show that a correct reworking of the latest official data on changes in labour composition overturns Goodridge, Haskel & Wallis’s main criticism. They also question the strength of the empirical evidence offered by Goodridge, Haskel & Wallis in support of their alternative explanations of the productivity puzzle.

Follow the debate

Read the original study, Is the British Economy Supply Constrained II? A Renewed Critique of Productivity Pessimism, by Martin & Rowthorn, May 2012
Read the critique “Can intangible investment explain the UK productivity puzzle?” by Goodridge, Haskel & Wallis, National Economic Review, April 2013
Read the response and comment by Martin & Rowthorn, July 2013