The Economist - UK (2021-11-20)

32 Britain TheEconomistNovember20th 2021

new management practices. Since produc­

tivity increases when people and stuff are

used more effectively, all this bodes well.

Britain’s  productivity  could  certainly

do  with  some  added  oomph.  Before  the

crushing impact of covid­19 restrictions, it

was  languishing.  Between  1995  and  2007

output  per  worker  grew  by  around  2%  a

year,  roughly  matching  the  rate  in  the  25

richest  members  of  the  oecd.  But  during

the next 12 years that figure for Britain was

a dismal 0.4%, compared with an average

of 0.9% among the rest.

Britain has long been known for outdat­

ed  and  ineffective  management  practices,

so innovation here is a promising sign. As

for labour dynamism, a back­of­the­enve­

lope  calculation  from  Juliana  Oliveira­

Cunha  of  the  Centre  for  Economic  Perfor­

mance and her co­authors suggests that if

just  4%  of  workers  moved  from  the  least

productive companies to ones at the other

end of the distribution, and those compa­

nies’  productivity  remained  unchanged,

gdp could grow by a sizeable 6%. (They re­

ject  the  commonly  heard  suggestion  that

improving  Britain’s  long  tail  of  relatively

unproductive firms would make a big dif­

ference,  both  by  debunking  the  idea  that

this  tail  is  indeed  unusually  long,  or  has

grown in the past decade, and by pointing

out  that  these  firms  are  so  unproductive

that even large improvements would bare­

ly register at the level of the economy.)

As an explanation for Britain’s past pro­

ductivity  malaise,  however,  an  insuffi­

ciently dynamic labour market cannot sat­

isfy.  Britain’s  productivity  has  lagged  be­

hind  that  in  other  developed  countries

throughout  recent  decades,  even  as  its

companies created and destroyed jobs at a

pretty  steady  rate  relative  to  overall  em­

ployment. Meanwhile, the rate of such cre­

ative  destruction  in  France  and  America

fell.  Even  as  Britain’s  productivity  growth

slowed  between  the  2000s  and  the  2010s,

the researchers found that its economy ac­

tually  became  better  at  reallocating  work­

ers  from  less  productive  companies  to

more productive ones.

The researchers think that a surer path

to  a  high­wage,  high­productivity  econ­

omy  lies  in  raising  investment.  Between

the public and private sectors, investment

grew by less than 1% in Britain over the five

years to mid­2021, compared with an aver­

age  of  14%  across  France,  Germany  and

America. Higher investment will be expen­

sive in the short term, of course. But with­

out  it,  sustained  real  wage  increases  are

unlikely.  For  all  the  job­switching  going

on,  underlying  wage  growth  from  July  to

September could be as low as 3.4% relative

to the previous year. Meanwhile in October

inflation  reached  4.2%.  Adapting  to  new

challenges  will  requirefixing  the  weak­

nesses  in  Britain’s  economy,  not  merely

playing to its strengths.n

“A

msurprisedtorealisethatany­

bodyevergoesto,livesat,orcomes

from,Norwich,”wrotethenovelistE.M.

Delafieldin1930.ThetownisnotBrit­

ain’sonlyonetofindthatitscharms

eludeoutsiders.TherearealsoSlough

(JohnBetjemaninvited“friendlybombs”

tofallonit),Hull(“adump”,saidPhilip

Larkin)andBromley(“suburbofthe

damndest”,accordingtoH.G.Wells).

Theseopinionsareabrasive,buthintat

anabidingmystery.Theworldisour

oyster.Andyetpeoplehappilyspend

theirlivesinsuchunremarkableplaces.

Newresearchsuggestsa simplerea­

son.“Mostpeopledon’tmove,”saysPaul

Longley,a geographeratUniversity

CollegeLondon.Bycombiningcensus

recordssince 1851 withotherdatasourc­

es,suchaselectoralrolls,heandcol­

leagueshaveplotted40,000British

surnamestoshowhowtheyhavemoved

in150­oddyears.Mostly,theyhaven’t.

“Thevastmajorityoffamilynamesare...

concentratedaroundthelocalesin

whichtheywerefirstcoinedbetweenthe

12thand14thcenturies,”theywritein

NatureCommunications, a journal.

Anonlinetime­lapsetoolanimates

thisinformation(seemapsforsome

snapshots).Regionalnamestendto

remainintheregions,apartfromsome

spreadtoLondonandthenearestbig

city.WalesremainscrowdedwithWil­

liamsesandScotlandwithMacKenzies.

TheJonesesareeasytokeepupwithas

theygentlyoozeacrosstheMidlands.

Thisprobablyseemssurprisingif you

workinorvisitLondon,wherea single

meetingmaycontainpeoplefromall

overnotonlyBritain,buttheworld.

Moreover,theEnglishmiddleclasses

haveallbutinstitutionalisedmigration

throughuniversitiesand,fortherichest,

boardingschools.Buttheirexperiences

areatypical.Formostpeople,saysMr

Longley,“migrationisa traumaticexpe­

rienceandisnotundertakenlightly”.

Surnamesarelinkedtosocialaswell

asgeographicalhorizons.Theresearch­

ersscoredthemonanindexofmultiple

deprivation,from1 (worst)to 100 (best).

IfBritainwereperfectlysociallymobile

theywouldclusteraround50,witha

littlerandomvariation;infact,somedo

markedlybetterandothersworse.

Amongthehundredmostfortunateare

Shapley,EvershedandCharter,which

wouldsoundathomeina Dickensian

lawfirm.Thebottom 100 includesRam,

ScampandPincher,anyofwhichDick­

ensmighthaveusedfora streeturchin.

MrLongleyalsoratedplacesina

similarmanner.Thebottom 100 in­

cludedWigan,LiverpoolandCoventry;

thetopCheltenham,Harrogateand,

despiteH.G.Wells’sdisdain,Bromley.In

Britainfamily,geographyanddestiny

intertwineinanintricatedance—one

thatspanscenturies.

Socialmobility

What’s ina name?

Lots,itturnsout

No place like home

Britain, prevalence of selected surnames

Source: Dr Justin van Dijk, University College London See more: apps.cdrc.ac.uk/gbnames

MacKenzie

Williams

1851 201

1851 201

Jones

1851 201

Low High