The Rise of Robots in China
China is the world’s largest user of industrial robots. In 2016, sales of industrial robots in China reached 87,000 units, accounting for around 30 percent of the global market. To…
Inclusive and sustainable economic growth can drive progress and generate the means to implement the Sustainable Development Goals. Globally, labour productivity has increased and unemployment is back to pre-financial crisis levels. However, the global economy is growing at a slower rate. More progress is needed to increase employment opportunities, particularly for young people, reduce informal employment and the gender pay gap and promote safe and secure working environments to create decent work for all.
Reviving America’s Forgotten Innovation System: Fostering US Growth through Incremental Product and Process Innovation
Everyone in Washington agrees on the need to promote “innovation” to ensure economic prosperity. However, high levels of unemployment have eroded confidence in the ability of our innovation system to…
The Effect of Pollution on Worker Productivity: Evidence from Call Center Workers in China
We investigate the effect of pollution on worker productivity in the service sector by focusing on two call centers in China. Using precise measures of each worker’s daily output linked…
In the Eye of the Beholder: Institutions, Political Risk, and Emerging-Market Multinational Corporations
This paper argues that the strategies firms employ to cope with political risks in authoritarian countries are often, due to a lack of institutionalized political access and credible commitments in…
Innovation and product reallocation in the great recession
We use detailed product- and firm-level data to study the sources of innovation and the patterns of productivity growth over the period from 2007 to 2013. We document several new…
Protecting Workers Abroad and Industries at Home: Rights-based Conditionality in Trade Preference Programs
A growing number of developed country governments link good governance, including human rights, to developing countries’ access to aid, trade, and investment. We consider whether governments enforce these conditions sincerely,…
Public‐Sector Unions and the Size of Government
Public‐sector unions are generally thought to increase the size of government through collective bargaining. This article challenges this idea for the case of teacher unions in the United States and…
Open for Business: Building the New Cuban Economy
This book examines the Cuban economy as it makes its early steps into developing a more dynamic market economy.
The Current Wave of State Enterprise Reform in China: A Preliminary Appraisal
State enterprise reforms are underway in China, and include some positive and overdue corporate governance reform. However, the potential effectiveness of the reforms is compromised by the attempt of policy-makers…
Team Production in International Labor Markets: Experimental Evidence from the Field
Coworkers are increasingly diverse in their nationality and skill sets. This paper studies the effect of diversity on how workers are organized using data from a field experiment conducted in…