Monthly Report No. 03/2020

Chart of the month Health expenditures in CESEE countries by Vasily Astrov, Richard Grieveson and Beate Muck Opinion Corner The legacy of the coronavirus will not go away soon by Josef Poschl Decoupling of productivity from wages a phenomenon of the Central European manufacturing core? by Joris M. Schroder The question of whether wage growth has been keeping up with productivity growth has sparked a debate about potential ‘decoupling’ in EU-CEE countries. There is strong cross-country variation in the extent of wage-productivity decoupling, and in the underlying reasons for it, but patterns are related to countries’ industry structures. The impact of foreign managers on productivity in the United Kingdom by Dimitrios Exadaktylos, Massimo Riccaboni and Armando Rungi We evaluate the contribution of foreign managers to the competitiveness of manufacturing firms in the United Kingdom. We find that domestic companies benefit from productivity gains after recruiting at least one foreign manager. These productivity gains are typically to be found in a range between 9 and 12 per cent. We argue that limits to the international circulation of talent after Brexit risk damaging the competitiveness of domestic manufacturing companies. Monthly and quarterly statistics for Central, East and Southeast Europe