Industrial economics; productivity; microdata; labour economics; skills and technology

Productivity effects of firm behaviours; skill mismatch; skill biased technological change; firm performance; panel data; production functions

Kate is an applied economist who has been working on factors relating to productivity and small firms for the past 30 years.  As a fisheries economist at Portsmouth in the 1990s, Kate studied the efficiency of fishers and firms which led to an interest in the efficient combination of inputs to produce outputs.  From here, she began working on UK manufacturing microdata and was among the first to use ONS data for productivity analysis, with her mentor and supervisor, Professor Richard Harris.  From here, Kate moved to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) in London and worked on externally funded research projects on productivity, skills and technology.  She was part of the original EUKLEMS consortium, led by Professors Bart van Ark and Mary O'Mahony, specialising in the labour accounts data for the UK.  Kate worked in Swansea and in Kent before joining Brighton as the Dean of the School of Business & Law in 2024. 

Kate continues to publish on technology, skills and firm performance, including barriers to growth and survival.  She has coauthored papers published in many journals, including the Review of Economics and Statistics, Labour Economics, the Journal of Productivity Economics, Regional Studies, The Manchester School and Small Business Economics.   

Kate has supervised 4 PhD students to completion and has acted as both an internal and an external examiner.