Rachel is Research Director of the IFS and Co-Director of the Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy (CPP). She is Professor of Economics at the University of Manchester, a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Economic Association and a Research Fellow of CEPR. Rachel won the Birgit Grodal award in 2014, was awarded a CBE in for services to economic policy in 2015 and was made a Dame for services to economic policy and education in 2021. Her research considers the relationship between government policy and economic performance. Her specific interests relate to empirical industrial organisation, the retail food sector, nutrition, innovation, productivity and corporate tax.
Education
PhD Economics, Keele University, 1999
MSc Econometrics and Forecasting, City of London Polytechnic, 1991
BA (Magna cum Laude) Economics, University of Massachussets , 1985
How does firm entry affect innovation incentives and productivity growth in incumbent firms? Micro-data suggests that there is heterogeneity across industries - incumbents in technologically advanced industries react positively to entry, but not in laggard industries.
In Competition and Growth, Philippe Aghion and Rachel Griffith offer the first serious attempt to provide a unified and coherent account of the effect competition policy and deregulated entry have on economic growth.
This paper discusses some of the main issues involved in the measurement of productivity in retail, and how these problems are being tackled in new work using microdata on the UK supermarket industry.
This paper investigates the relationship between product market competition and innovation. We find strong evidence of an inverted-U relationship using panel data.
We analyse a puzzle in the UK corporation tax: by both historic and international standards, corporation tax revenues have been high while the statutory rate has been reduced.
How does entry affect productivity growth of incumbents? In this paper we exploit policy reforms in the United Kingdom that changed entry conditions by opening up the U.K. economy during the 1980s and panel data on British establishments to shed light on this question.
This paper examines the relationship between foreign ownership and productivity, paying particular attention to two issues neglected in the existing literaturethe role of multinationals in service sectors and the importance of R&D activity conducted by foreign multinationals.
This study analyses the macro-economic impact of product market reforms undertaken in the European Union over the 1980s and 1990s by examining a large number of regulations and reforms across EU countries.
This paper examines the relationship between foreign ownership andproductivity, paying particular attention to two issues neglected in the existing literature the role of multinationals in service sectors and the importance of R&D activity conductedby foreign multinationals.
We examine whether discretionary government grants influence the location of new plants, and how effective these incentives are in the presence of agglomeration and urbanisation externalities.
The Chancellor, in his pre-budget report in December, re-emphsized the Government's commitment to close the productivity gap that exists between Britian and its competitor economies.
