The University of Sheffield
Department of Economics

The economics of the firm and industrial economics
A number of people work in this area including: Sarah Brown and Karl Taylor on risk preference and entrepreneurship; Mustafa Caglayan on the impact of uncertainty; Andy Dickerson on sectoral and spatial variations in productivity;
Michael Dietrich who coordinates The European Network on the Economics of the Firm; Pamela Lenton on the cost structure of further and higher education; Simona Mateut on firms´ financial and investment decisions; and Jolian McHardy on competition and regulation in bus and air passenger transport and monopoly, complementary monopoly, networks and welfare losses.

Our firm and industry work also has strong linkages with our labour and education, and health clusters.

Specific areas of research:

  • measurement and nature of transaction costs
  • firm growth and development
  • firm corruption
  • entrepreneurship and risk preference
  • industry network analysis
  • the impact of uncertainty

Current and recent projects in this area include:
Title People Description Funder / Sponsor
Self-Employment and Risk Preference Sarah Brown, Mike Dietrich, Aurora Ortiz and Karl Taylor We explore the relationship between self-employment and attitudes towards financial risk using U.S. individual level data from the Survey of Consumer Finances and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.
“Self-Employment and Risk Preference” Sheffield Economic Research Paper Series 2007008.
  
Research and development and uncertainty Mustafa Caglayan and Christopher F Baum (Boston College) This work investigates the impact of macroeconomic uncertainty of firms' R&D activities, and so creates a bridge in this area between the macro context and the micro decisions.  
Trade credit and financial constraints Mustafa Caglayan and Simona Mateut This work investigates the use of trade credit for firms that face financial constraints  
Regulation and competition on transport networks Jolian McHardy, Steve Trotter and Mike Reynolds We use theoretical network models to examine the implications for welfare and service provision of different competitive and regulatory transport regimes.
McHardy, J.P. and S.D. Trotter (2006) “Competition Effects in a Deregulated Air Passenger Industry” Transportation Research Part A, 40 (1): 74-93.

McHardy, J.P., Reynolds, M.M. and S.D. Trotter “Network Regulation using an Agent.” Sheffield Economic Research Papers, SERP2007004.
McHardy, J.P., Reynolds, M.M. and S.D. Trotter “On the Economics of Integrated Ticketing.” Sheffield Economic Research Papers, SERP2005007.
McHardy, J.P., and S.D. Trotter “Airport deregulation and airline competition.” Sheffield Economic Research Papers, SERP2005003.		 £4k –University of Hull Research Council
Firm corruption Michael Dietrich, Jolian McHardy and Abhijit Sharma (University of Bradford) This, essentially theoretical, project is part of an on-going interest in firm, rather than state, corruption. It explores firm corruption using a game theory framework.  
Learning to grow Mike Dietrich, Simona Mateut (with Piercarlo Zanchettin, University of Leicester) We develop a new theoretical explanation of the impact of age and size on firms' growth and search for evidence of significant learning effects affecting the growth dynamics of young and small firms using balance sheet data for UK manufacturing firms.  
Sectoral productivity differences across the UK
Funder: Sector Skills Development Agency
 Andy Dickerson This research examines sectoral and spatial variations in productivity in the UK. A modified shift-share approach is used to decompose the differentials in order to deduce how much of the spatial variation is due to the sectoral composition and specialisation of high performing sectors regionally and nationally.
Dickerson A P (2005), Sectoral productivity differences across the UK, Sector Skills Development Agency (SSDA) Research Report 13, October 2005.		  
Firm efficiency and performance Michael Dietrich, Ciaran Driver (Imperial College) and Jackie Krafft (University of Nice) This long-term project explores the interaction between firm efficiency and profitability. The particular interest here is the way in which efficiency and performance interact with firm governance.  

For more information on our work in this area please contact Michael Dietrich

email : Michael Dietrich