Criscuolo, C., Ito, K., and J. Timmis (2026) “The changing structure of global value chains and technological change: evidence from the firm-level patent data”, Review of World Economics, Volume 162, pages 539–566
This paper explores how changes in the relative position in the Global Value Chains (GVCs) affect firms’ innovation activities. The analysis shows that centrality in GVC networks is positively linked with firms’ innovation output and technological diversification for firms with initially higher technological capabilities. Only firms with sufficient absorptive capacity are likely to realize higher quality innovation.
Bajgar, M., Criscuolo, C., and J. Timmis (2025). “Intangibles and Industry Concentration: A Cross-Country Analysis”, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Volume88, Issue2, April 2026, Pages 258-274.
This paper presents new evidence on the growing scale of large businesses in the United States, Japan and 11 European countries. It documents a broad increase in industry concentration strongly linked to investment in intangibles—particularly innovative assets; and software and data—and this relationship is magnified in more globalised industries. The results are consistent with intangibles disproportionately benefiting large firms, enabling them to scale up and increase their market shares.
Presented at ASSA Annual Meeting 2020
DeStefano, T., Kneller, R., and J. Timmis (2025). “Cloud Computing and Firm Growth” (see voxeu), Review of Economics & Statistics, 107 (6): 1638–165.
Cloud computing enables a shift in ICT from investment in fixed capital to pay-on-demand services available everywhere. This paper uses new firm-level data to examine the impact of cloud on firm growth and geography of their activity, using zip-code-level instruments of the timing of high-speed fiber availability and speeds.
Cloud leads to the growth of employment and revenue, especially for young firms. For incumbents, we find smaller scale effects but dispersion of activity through closing establishments and decentralizing employment farther from the headquarters.
Presented at NBER Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Conference 2019 and NBER Economics of Digitization Conference 2019. Featured paper in CESifo newsletter May 2020.
DeStefano, T., and J. Timmis (2024). “Industrial Robots and Export Quality”, (see World Bank blog, Voxeu blog), Journal of Development Economics, Volume 168, May 2024, 103248.
This paper combines cross-country and cross-industry data on industrial robotics with detailed HS 10-digit trade data to estimate the effects of robot use on export quality over 2000-2015. We instrument home-country robot adoption with diffusion in their (pre-existing) export customers. We find that robotics lead to quality catch-up of developing country exports overall, and also catch-up of initially lower-quality exports in either developing or advanced economies.
Grover, A., S. Lall and J. Timmis (2023). "Agglomeration Economies in Developing Countries : A Meta-Analysis" (see Brookings blog), Regional Science and Urban Economics, Volume 101, 103901
Recent empirical work suggests that there are large agglomeration gains from working and living in developing country cities. However, many developing country cities are costly, crowded, and disconnected. This paper presents a meta-analysis of more than 1200 agglomeration elasticities from 70 studies in 33 countries.
It finds that the elasticity estimates in developing countries are at most 1 percentage point higher than in advanced economies, but not significantly so. It finds that pollution, homicide, and congestion are significantly higher in developing country cities. No evidence is found for productivity gains in light of the high and increasing costs of working in developing country cities.
Bajgar, M., Berlingieri, G., Calligaris, C., Criscuolo, C., and J. Timmis (2023). “Industry Concentration in Europe and North America”, Journal of Industrial and Corporate Change
This paper presents new evidence on industry concentration trends in Europe and North America. The paper uses two novel data sources: representative firm-level concentration measures from the OECD MultiProd project, and business-group-level concentration measures using matched Orbis-Worldscope-Zephyr data. We find a clear increase in industry concentration in Europe and North America, both for manufacturing and nonfinancial services, which is not driven by digital-intensive sectors.
As featured in the Economist – 15th November 2018 – “Special Report on Competition”, the Economist - 8th August 2020 "When big isn't beautiful: What more should antitrust be doing?" and Harvard Business Review - 14th November 2019 "Superstar Firms Are Running Away with the Global Economy"
Bergeaud, A., Criscuolo, C., Ito, K., Ikeuchi, K. and J. Timmis (2023) “Global Value Chains and Domestic Innovation”, (see voxeu), Research Policy, Volume 52, Issue 3, 104699
This paper explores how changes in both position and participation in Global Value Chain networks affect firm innovation. We find Japan’s position in the GVCs has shifted from being at the core of Asian value chains towards the periphery relative to other countries in the network, i.e. becoming less “central”. These decreases in forward centrality – from key suppliers - are associated with decreasing firm patent applications.
DeStefano, T., Kneller, R., and J. Timmis (2022). “The (Fuzzy) Digital Divide: The Effect of Universal Broadband on Firm Performance”, Journal of Economic Geography, Volume 23, Issue 1, pp. 139–177.
This paper uses geographical discontinuities in broadband availability across the UK to capture the causal effects on firms on both sides of the digital divide. We find for urban firms that broadband causes an increase in firm size, but not productivity. In contrast, in rural locations broadband has weaker significant effects.
DeStefano, T., Kneller, R., and J. Timmis (2018), Broadband Infrastructure, ICT use and Firm Performance: Evidence for UK firms, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 155, pp. 110 - 139.
This paper uses the arrival of broadband, to study the causal effects of heterogeneous types of ICT on firm performance. We find that these ICTs impact the scale of firms, through employment and sales, but not their productivity.
C. Criscuolo and J. Timmis (2018), The Changing Structure of GVCs: Are Hubs Central for Firm Performance?, International Productivity Monitor, 34, pp. 64-80
This paper uses network “centrality” metrics to reflect position within Global Value Chains (GVCs), identifying central hubs and peripheral countries and sectors. Using cross-country firm-level, we find that GVC hubs can play a role in the catch up of initially less-productive firms or countries.
C. Criscuolo and J. Timmis (2017), The Relationship Between Global Value Chains and Productivity, International Productivity Monitor, 32, pp. 61-82
This paper reviews the evidence linking Global Value Chains (GVCs) and productivity. We outline the key trends uncovered in GVCs, how these relate to productivity, and the policy implications.
Kneller, R. and J. Timmis (2016), ICT and Exporting: The Effects of Broadband on the Extensive Margin of Business Service Exports, Review of International Economics, 24 (4), pp. 757-796.
This paper builds a novel instrument that exploits exogenous variation in access to broadband technologies owing to the historic telephone network. We find evidence for a causal effect from broadband on trade in business services, but no evidence for an effect on trade in services more generally.
DeStefano, T., Kneller, R., Johnston, N. and J. Timmis. “Do Capital Incentives Distort Technology Diffusion? Evidence on Cloud, Big Data and AI”, (see World Bank blog, Voxeu), submitted.
This paper uses the introduction and changes to a capital incentive policy to examine the impact on physical ICT capital vs digital services such as cloud computing and big data. We find policy increased investment in IT capital and hardware as one would expect; but it reduced the adoption of cloud, big data and artificial intelligence.
Presented at NBER IT and Digitization Summer Institute 2019
DeStefano, T., and J. Timmis. "Strategic Asset Importance and the Adoption of Data-Driven Management Practices", submitted
This paper examines firm adoption of data-driven management practices using data from over 650,000 firms across 16 countries. It exploits an abrupt, externally driven surge in online consumer activity as a natural experiment to identify the causal effect of a sudden rise in a digital asset’s strategic importance on adoption of this practice. the research finds that adopting A/B testing — a practice that enables systematic website experimentation — is associated with measurable gains in revenue and labor productivity.
Cao, Y., De Nicola, F., Mattoo, A., and J. Timmis. "Technological Decoupling? The Impact on Innovation of US Restrictions on Chinese Firms" (see Voxeu), submitted
This paper examines the impact of U.S. export restrictions and technology licensing on Chinese firms’ innovation. It finds that U.S. sanctions reduce the quantity and quality of patent outputs of targeted Chinese firms, primarily due to decreased collaboration with U.S. inventors. However, firms with higher initial patent stock or in sectors with a smaller technological distance to the U.S. are less affected.
Bajgar, M., Ito, K. and J. Timmis. “R&D Spillovers through Buyer-supplier Networks”
This paper studies how R&D spillovers propagate through buyer–supplier networks using a change in the Japanese R&D tax credit system in 2003. The reform increased R&D expenditure, innovative output and sales of the treated firms. We further present evidence of positive forward spillovers to downstream firms: the reform led to productivity increases among firms that had a greater share of suppliers treated by the reform. Conversely, we do not find any evidence of backward spillovers.
“Till death do us part: relationship shocks, supply chain organization and firm performance.” with Tim DeStefano, Keiko Ito and Richard Kneller.
“AI Diffusion Within Multinationals.” with Flavio Calvino, Chiara Criscuolo, Tim DeStefano and Antonio Ughi.
“Global Generative AI Diffusion: Firm Capabilities and Talent Demand .” with Tim DeStefano, Manuel Hoffman, Matt Murtaugh-White and Katherine Stapleton.
Bajgar, M., Berlingieri, G., Calligaris, C., Criscuolo, C., and J. Timmis (2020). “Coverage and Representativeness of Orbis Data” , OECD STI Working Paper No. 2020/06
Bajgar, M., Berlingieri, G., Calligaris, C., Criscuolo, C., and J. Timmis (2019). “Industry Concentration in Europe and North America”, OECD STI Working Paper No. 2019/18
Bajgar, M., Calligaris, S., Calvino, F., Criscuolo, C., and J. Timmis (2019), "Bits and bolts: The digital transformation and manufacturing", OECD STI Working Paper No. 2019/01
Criscuolo, C. and J. Timmis (2018), "GVC centrality and productivity", OECD Productivity Working Paper No. 14
Criscuolo, C. and J. Timmis (2018). "GVCs and centrality: Mapping key hubs, spokes and the periphery", OECD Productivity Working Paper No. 12
Calvino, F., DeStefano, T., and J. Timmis (2017). "Digitalization, SMEs, Start-ups and Dynamism. In OECD (Eds.), Key issues for digital transformation in the G20", Report prepared for a joint G20 German Presidency (pp.115-124). Berlin, Germany.
Bajgar, M., Berlingieri, G., Calligaris, C., Criscuolo, C., and J. Timmis. “Coverage and Representativeness of Orbis Data”
This paper describes the coverage and representativeness of Orbis cross-country firm-level data. We benchmark against industry-level data from OECD STAN as well as micro-aggregated data from the OECD MultiProd and DynEmp projects, which draw on official microdata representative of the entire firm population.
Results indicate that Orbis is more suitable for studies that: i) take a global perspective; ii) analyse top performers and multinationals; and iii) focus on mean performance or changes within firms rather than the entire firm distribution or entry and exit.