Research

Revisiting the Global Decline of the (Non-Housing) Labour Share (with Germán Gutiérrez)

American Economic Review: Insights, September 2020, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 321-38.
Published version | Online Appendix | Replication package | Data | Slides
Bank of England Staff Working Paper, no. 811, July 2019.
Media coverage: The Economist, Hutchins Roundup, Central Banking, Bloomberg, Le Figaro.

Economic Integration and Unit Labour Costs

European Economic Review, July 2021, vol. 136.
Published version | Online Appendix | Replication package
Bank of England Staff Working Paper, no. 799, May 2019.
A previous version was circulated under the title "Economic Integration and the Non-tradable Sector: the European Experience" and was selected for the Young Economists' session at the ECB Forum on Central Banking in Sintra.

Firms’ Margins Behaviour in Response to Energy Shocks: Evidence from the UK (with Ed Manuel and Ivan Yotzov)

Economics Letters, February 2024, vol. 235.
Published version
Media coverage: The Guardian.

Business Creation during COVID-19 (with Saleem Bahaj and Anthony Savagar)

Economic Policy, 2024.
Published version | Presented at the 78th Economic Policy Panel | Slides
Bank of England Staff Working Paper, no. 981, May 2022.
Media coverage: BBC, Financial Times.

Working papers

Trade in Banking Services under Regulatory Barriers: Evidence from the UK (with Shania Bhalotia and John Woods)

Are Software Assets Mostly Proprietary? Some Evidence Using UK and US National Accounts Data (with Josh Martin)

Paper prepared for the 38th IARIW General Conference, August 2024.

Work in progress

Tradability and Goods' Prices: A Tale of Two Regions (with Germán Gutiérrez, Joseba Martinez and Thomas Philippon)

We provide new evidence on how trade exposure shapes manufacturing prices and the allocation of productivity gains, comparing US and EU industries from 1992–2017. Two patterns emerge. In tradables, where global competition is strong, prices have moved in lockstep across the Atlantic. In nontradables, relatively sheltered from foreign rivals, US prices have risen about four times faster than in Europe despite similar wages and industry mix. The gap is robust to alternative definitions, unrelated to compositional shifts, and evident in narrowly comparable product prices. A decomposition attributes it to slower US productivity growth and rising market power, a pattern absent in tradables. Using variation in import penetration, we find that greater trade exposure lowers prices and profit shares. Openness sustains competitive discipline and efficient allocation, making competition policy crucial in nontradables where trade discipline is more limited.

Other publications

Policy papers

Structural change, global R* and the missing-investment puzzle (with Andrew Bailey, Ambrogio Cesa-Bianchi, Marco Garofalo, Richard Harrison, Nick McLaren and Rana Sajedi). Supporting paper for a Speech by Andrew Bailey, Bank of England, July 2022.
Bank of England Staff Working Paper, no. 997, October 2022.

Firm Ownership and the Labour Share (with Antoine Vatan)
Unpublished working paper, November 2018.

A European Disease? Non-tradable inflation and real interest rate divergence
CESifo Economic Studies, 63(2), pp. 210-234, February 2017.
Media coverage: La Tribune.

World Trade Flows Characterization: Unit Values, Trade Types and Price Ranges (with Charlotte Emlinger)
CEPII Working Paper, n°2014-26, December 2014.
Database: World Trade Flows Characterization.

Ending the Euro Area Crisis: Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones (with A. Bénassy-Quéré, Y.-E. Bara, B. Carton, C. Destais)
G-MonD Policy Paper, n°2012-01, November 2012.

Internal vs. External Devaluation (with Y.-E. Bara)
La Lettre du CEPII, n°324, August 2012.
The French version of this article was published in Problèmes économiques, n°3063, March 2013.

Selected blog posts

"Three facts about the rising number of UK business exits", with J. Barkema and M. Froemel (2024). Bank Underground, 18 April.
"Profits in a time of inflation: some insights from recent and past energy shocks in the UK", with I. Yotzov and E. Manuel (2023). Bank Underground, 30 August. Also published on VoxEU.
"Booming entrepreneurship during the Covid-19 pandemic", with S. Bahaj and A. Savagar (2022). Bank Underground, 22 June.
"How economic integration fuels macroeconomic imbalances" (2019). Bank Underground, 5 September.
"Is there really a global decline in the (non-housing) labour share?", with G. Gutiérrez (2019). Bank Underground, 7 August.
"Structural reforms: why did the term become so 'toxic'?", (2015). CEPII's blog, 29 May.
"Six Pack: the case for a simplified scoreboard", with A. Bénassy-Quéré, L. Nayman (2012). CEPII’s blog, 14 November.
... and more. You can find all of my contributions to CEPII's blog here.

Selected publications, media and policy interventions in French

"L'impact, pour les TPE et PME, de l'ANI sur le partage de la valeur : une perspective macroéconomique", Table ronde organisée par la Délégation aux entreprises, Sénat, 25 mai 2023. Slides
"Superprofits et petits salaires : le partage de la valeur", Entendez-vous l'éco ?, France Culture, 22 février 2023.
"Le partage de la valeur ajoutée n’a pas encore dévoilé tous ses mystères", Regards croisés sur l'économie, 2019/1, N° 24, pp. 131-140, janvier 2020.
"Le partage de la valeur ajoutée : un problème capital", avec A. Vatan, chapitre 5, L’économie mondiale 2019, La Découverte, septembre 2018.
Slides | Vidéo de présentation.
"Partage de la valeur ajoutée, une déformation au détriment du travail", avec A. Vatan, et
"Déséquilibres courants en zone euro, un problème de taille du secteur exportateur". Carnets graphiques, dir. Isabelle Bensidoun & Jézabel Couppey-Soubeyran, CEPII, 2018.
"La zone euro a-t-elle perdu l'équilibre ?". La Tribune, 22 mars 2017.
Aussi publié sur The Conversation et le blog du CEPII. Vidéo sur Xerfi Canal.
"Divergence des prix relatifs : une maladie européenne ?", La Lettre du CEPII, n°369, septembre 2016.
"Déséquilibres des balances courantes en zone euro : où en est-on ?", chapitre 3, L’économie mondiale 2015, La Découverte, september 2014.
"L’économie mondiale en mutation", chapitre 1, L’économie mondiale 2014, La Découverte, september 2013.
... et plus encore. Retrouvez l'ensemble de mes publications en français sur le blog du CEPII ici, et le résumé long de ma thèse ici.

Workshop

Firm Dynamics, Market Structures and Productivity in the Macroeconomy

Edition V: Co-organized by Queen Mary University of London, Bank of England, University of Bristol and the University of Kent
29 May 2025 at Queen Mary University of London
Programme
Edition IV: Co-organized by the University of Kent, the University of Bristol and the Bank of England
21st October 2024 at the University of Bristol
Programme
Edition III: Co-organized by the University of Kent, the University of Bristol and the Bank of England
4-5 April 2024 at the University of Kent
Programme | Previous editions

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sophie.piton@bankofengland.co.uk