Regional Productivity Differences in the UK and France: From the Micro to the Macro

Kauma, Bridget; Mion, Giordano

Abstract

We propose a new data resource that attempts to overcome limitations of standard firm-level datasets for the United Kingdom (like the ARD/ABS) by building on administrative data covering the population of UK firms with at least one employee. We also construct a similar dataset for France and use both datasets to (1) provide some highlights of the data and an overall picture of the evolution of aggregate UK and French productivity and markups; (2) analyse the spatial distribution of productivity in both countries at a fine level of detail—228 Travel to Work Areas (TTWAs) for the United Kingdom and 297 Zones d'emploi (ZEs) for France—while focusing on the role of economic density. Our findings suggest that differences in firm productivity across regions are magnified in the aggregate by an increasing productivity return of density along the productivity distribution.

Citation

Kauma, B., & Mion, G. (2025). Regional Productivity Differences in the UK and France: From the Micro to the Macro. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, https://doi.org/10.1111/obes.12689

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 20, 2025
• Online Publication Date: Jun 12, 2025
• Publication Date: Jun 12, 2025
• Deposit Date: May 29, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 13, 2027
• Journal: Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics
• Print ISSN: 0305-9049
• Electronic ISSN: 1468-0084
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/obes.12689
• Keywords: Firm-level dataset; Merging; BSD; FAME; VAT; FICUS, FARE; Productivity; Markups; UK; France; regional disparities; density JEL classification: R12, D24
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/49558733
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14680084