John Moffat

The Impact of Higher Education Institution–Firm Knowledge Links on Establishment‐Level Productivity in British Regions

This paper estimates whether sourcing knowledge from and/or cooperating on innovation with higher education institutions impacts on establishment-level TFP and whether this impact differs across domestically-owned and foreign-owned establishments and across the regions of Great Britain. Using propensity score matching, the results show overall a positive and statistically significant impact although there are differences in the strength of this impact across production and non-production industries, across domestically-owned and foreign-owned firms, and across regions. These results highlight the importance of absorptive capacity in determining the extent to which establishments can benefit from linkages with higher education institutions.

Is Productivity Higher in British Cities

This paper examines the determinants of total factor productivity (TFP) using a GB plant‐level data set. The main findings relate to whether spatial spillovers and “place” effects are important: plants located in cities generally perform better than plants in the same region outside of these cities; but with the exception of Bristol, no city has significantly higher TFP levels than the South East. This suggests that spatial externalities associated with city location are not as important as the benefits of being situated in the South East region.

The Impact of Higher Education Institution-Firm Knowledge Links on Firm-level Productivity in Britain

This article estimates whether knowledge links with universities impact on establishment-level Total Factor Productivity (TFP). Using propensity score matching, the results show a positive and statistically significant impact although there are differences across production and nonproduction industries and domestically and foreign-owned firms.

Total Factor Productivity Growth in Local Enterprise Partnership Regions in Britain, 1997–2008

Harris R. and Moffat J. Total factor productivity growth in Local Enterprise Partnership regions in Britain, 1997–2008, Regional Studies. This paper decomposes aggregate total factor productivity (TFP) growth in Britain for 1997–2008 to show the contribution of different Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) as well as manufacturing and services and UK- and foreign-owned plants within LEPs. These contributions are further decomposed to show the role of productivity growth in continuing plants vis-à-vis reallocations in output shares. The results show that the largest LEPs, in population terms, with higher levels of job density, a greater reliance on manufacturing, more skilled and better qualified workers, and a lower turnover of businesses achieved the highest TFP growth. This is mostly the result of reallocations of output shares towards high productivity plants.

Intangible assets, absorbing knowledge and its impact on firm performance: theory, measurement and policy implications

The use of intangible assets (IA) is widely recognised as a key driver of enterprise performance. A concept that is closely linked to IA is absorptive capacity, which is defined as the ability to exploit knowledge that is embodied in IA. The main objective of this paper is to explore what is meant by absorptive capacity, before examining the empirical relationship between absorptive capacity and various dimensions of firm performance. The latter is not straightforward because there is no agreed approach to measuring absorptive capacity. The approach taken here is to use data on whether firms sourced knowledge or collaborated externally from the UK Community Innovation Survey. This allows us to show that there is a clear and important link between absorptive capacity and various dimensions of firm performance. In this paper, we aim to contribute to the special issue by focusing on the role mobilising knowledge can play in improving the performance of firms in the private sector, which has a particular resonance in these difficult economic times. Our central message is that for firms to perform better in hard times, they need to mobilise their absorptive capacity. Government must therefore consider whether they should focus their efforts on helping firms directly to increase their own absorptive capacity or on improving the flow of (local) knowledge through supporting networks. Our view is that, while maintaining existing policies that aim to increase connections and encourage collaborations between firms, there should be a greater emphasis on the firm because evidence shows that unless firms have sufficient absorptive capacity, they will not be able to fully internalise the benefits of any knowledge spillovers, no matter how large such spillovers may potentially be.

Muscle drain versus brain gain in association football: technology transfer through player emigration and manager immigration

To test theories of migration and economic development, this article examines whether international football teams benefit from having players playing abroad in stronger leagues and from employing managers from countries with stronger leagues. The results provide evidence in support of the former effect. However, there is a negative impact from employing managers from countries with superior leagues.

Regional Selective Assistance in Scotland: Does it make a difference to plant productivity?

This paper examines whether receipt of a Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) grant has a causal impact on plant total factor productivity (TFP). To tackle the problem of self-selection into the treatment group, propensity score matching is employed. In order to control for the endogeneity of other variables in the model, estimations are performed using the system GMM estimator. The results show that for low technology manufacturing, receipt of an RSA grant leads to a fall in TFP.

The sources of the Scotland–Rest of the UK productivity gap: implications for policy

ABSTRACT The sources of the Scotland–Rest of the UK productivity gap: implications for policy. Regional Studies. This paper finds that aggregate total factor productivity (TFP) in Scotland was 16% below the ‘rest of the UK’ in 2012. This is mainly due to negative ‘non-place’ effects in the service sector. It also finds that new plant start-ups and foreign-owned plants contributed negatively to TFP growth during 1997–2012. This casts doubt on whether continuing to focus on increasing the rate of new firm formation and foreign investment will result in a ‘step change’ in productivity growth.

The Impact of Exporting and Importing Goods and Services on Productivity in the UK

This paper investigates the impact of exporting and importing on productivity for UK plantsusing a combination of regression and propensity score matching. Unlike earlier papers, the data allows us to distinguish the effects of trade in goods and services. In confirmation of the results from other countries, we find that plants that both export and import have higher productivity than plants that only do one of these activities. In manufacturing, this is the case regardless of whether the trade is in goods or services (which suggests that servitisation of manufacturing is beneficial).In services, the results are more mixed and the benefits from involvement in international goods networks that are seen in manufacturing do not occur to the same extent (however, for the wholesale and retail sectors, trade in both goods and services is generally productivity enhancing).

Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) in Scotland: Does It Make a Difference to Plant Survival?

Moffat J. Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) in Scotland: does it make a difference to plant survival, Regional Studies. This paper examines whether receipt of a Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) grant in Scotland has a causal impact on plant survival. The dataset is created by linking a register of grant recipients into the Annual Respondents Database. In order to control for the consequences of self-selection into the ‘treatment’ group, the Cox proportional hazards model is estimated using a sample created by propensity score matching. The preferred estimates suggest that receiving an RSA grant reduces the probability of closure.