Productivity Challenge: the Role of Technology Standards in Innovation and Internationalisation

Technological innovation is a key driver of productivity. The apparently weaker productivity growth
experienced in the UK (and some European countries) vis-à-vis North America has been linked to slower
diffusion in Information Communication Technologies (ICT) and the lack of uptake of digitisation
opportunities uniformly across economic sectors.
Technology standards play a significant role in technology diffusion with important implications for
innovation, internationalisation and attendant productivity growth. A recent study commissioned by the
British Standards Institution (BSI) and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
suggests that standards supported 37% of UK annual labour productivity growth over the 1921-2013 period
(i.e., approximately 28% of annual GDP growth). Recent academic research has also highlighted the
importance of developing open technology standards as a spur to productivity, innovation and firm
profitability. However, business-level mechanisms underlying the standards-productivity relationship
remain a black box - a gap this research seeks to address by considering two predominant channels whereby
learning from standards can enable performance gains, viz. by catalysing innovation and internationalisation
activities.
This PhD project will offer novel insight into standards and technology-led productivity growth, which is a
complex interplay between many distinct influences including innovative inputs, knowledge diffusion,
market incentives, economic geography and institutional governance. Working closely with Dr Li and Prof
Battisti, the PhD candidate will conduct a comprehensive literature review and econometric analyses,
drawing on large-scale secondary firm-level datasets such as the UK Innovation Survey (and other micro
business datasets via the Secure Research Service by ONS). This project will also use the Searle Centre
Database on Technology Standards and Standard Setting Organisations - the most comprehensive dataset
on standards and firm participation in standards development collected by the Northwestern University (US)
(Baron and Spulber, 2018), as well as data on intellectual property such as patents and trademarks. Finally,
this project will be carried out in close collaboration with BSI, the UK's national standards body, to yield
significant governance or policy implications for designing effective standards which expedite the diffusion
of technologies to boost firm performance.
The PhD project will provide a significant contribution to the academic literature. It is also anticipated to
achieve high impact and wider engagement with business practices (via a deeper understanding of
efficiency gains through learning from standards) and policy bodies (via productivity growth and
governance of standards development).