For this month’s talk we are delighted to welcome the winners of the ONS Research Excellence Award – Impact of Analysis Award – Collaboration with Government.

This talk will show our study on how businesses adjust to significant rises in energy costs. This matters for both the current energy crisis and the longer-term shift towards Net Zero. Using firm-level real-time survey and administrative data backed by a pre-registered analysis plan, we examine how firms respond to the energy price shock triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine along with output, price, input, process and survival margins. We find that, on average, firms pass on some cost increases, build up cash reserves, and face higher debt, but do not yet see layoffs or bankruptcies. However, effects are highly heterogeneous by size and industry: small firms tend to increase cash reserves and prices, while large firms invest more in capital. We estimate separate elasticities for small industry cells and use clustering techniques to identify firm-adaptation archetypes. These estimates can help tailor firm support in the energy transition both in the short and the long term.

Affiliations:

Thiemo Fetzer – University of Warwick, University of Bonn, CAGE Research Centre

Christina Palmou – Office for National Statistics, ESCoE King’s College London

Jakob Schneebacher – Competition and Markets Authority, ESCoE King’s College London

How do firms cope with economic shocks in real time? Thiemo Fetzer, Christina Palmou and Jakob Schneebacher ESCoE Discussion Paper No. 2024-16 November 2024 is available here.

Meet the presenter.

Christina Palmou, Office for National Statistics (ONS)

Christina is an Economist at the ONS Economic microdata transformation team and an ESCoE PhD student at King’s College London. She was previously a Senior Economist in the Renewing the Centre team at the Tony Blair Institute where she worked on issues surrounding atypical work, workers’ rights and net zero, and a Senior Econometrician at Oxford Economics.

Learn more about the series.

Each year, the ONS organises a collection of online research events called the Research Excellence Series. The series showcases exceptional research projects that use a diverse wealth of invaluable research data. These data are used by researchers to produce new insights, inform change and make a difference in people’s lives.

Research Excellence Series 2025 will delve into the story of a unique research project. From inception to methodology, dissemination and impact. These sessions will be hosted by an eclectic range of speakers from across the research community.

This year’s series will include the winners from the ONS Research Excellence Awards 2024.

The events will take place through Microsoft Teams. They will also be recorded and available to watch later.

Getting in touch

For more information about this event, please visit the ONS SRS website, or email srs.engagement.team@ons.gov.uk.