Productivity Puzzles

Are economies making the most of their human and material resources? Through most of modern history, we've assumed that progress in technology and efficiency will make every person employed and our work more productive over time. Is this a hopeful trend? Is it still holding true? Will it hold true throughout the 21st Century?

This special episode of Productivity Puzzles has been produced in conjunction with The Conference Board, a non-profit business membership and research group organisation based in New York. For a change, The Productivity Institute’s Managing Director Bart van Ark is not hosting, but is instead being interviewed about global productivity by The Conference Board’s CEO, Steve Odland.

The topics covered in this episode include globalisation, the role of governments in facilitating productive companies, the diffusion of technology, labour shortages and whether productivity growth is linear.

Our guests:

• Steve Odland, CEO of The Conference Board
• Bart van Ark, Managing Director of the Productivity Institute and Professor of Productivity Studies at the Alliance Manchester Business School at the University of Manchester

For more information on the topic:

• The Conference Board, Global Labor Productivity 2022: Stagnating, But Still Above Prepandemic Levels, 2022

About Productivity Puzzles:

Productivity Puzzles is sponsored by Capita and brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research body involving nine academic institutions across the UK, eight Regional Productivity Forums throughout the nation, and a national independent Productivity Commission to advise policy makers at all levels of government. It’s funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. 

Why has economic growth slowed down? Have we already exhausted the benefits from the digital revolution? Are the trusted institutions of the 20th century now failing in the investments most needed for future growth in productivity?

This episode takes a deep dive into the book Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy, which provides a new explanation for why growth has slowed and why we need a reset of institutions and policies. The topics covered include R&D, software, design, training, reputation & branding and business processes.

Intangible capital offers the same characteristic as tangible capital of providing value over time, but it is not something you can touch and feel. It includes many assets that are critical to modern businesses, such as data, software and R&D. Crucially, intangibles are frequently characterised by scalability, sunkenness, spillovers and synergies.

Our guests:

• Jonathan Haskel, Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School and External Monetary Policy Committee member at Bank of England
• Stian Westlake, Chief Executive of the Royal Statistical Society
• Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge

For more information on the topic:

• Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, Restarting the Future. How to Fix the Intangible Economy, Princeton, 2022
• Diane Coyle, Grasping the intangible nettles, The Enlightened Economist, 5 March 2022
• Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, Capitalism without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy, Princeton, 2017
• Diane Coyle and Jen-Chung Mei, Diagnosing the UK Productivity Slowdown: Which Sectors Matter and Why?, The Productivity Institute, 2022

About Productivity Puzzles:

Productivity Puzzles is sponsored by Capita and brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research body involving nine academic institutions across the UK, eight Regional Productivity Forums throughout the nation, and a national independent Productivity Commission to advise policy makers at all levels of government. It’s funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. 

How do we respond to uncertainties that crises create? Are they holding us back in investing, hiring and innovating? Or can crises make us more agile and resilient, perhaps even more creative and inventive? How do we balance risks and opportunities? And what might that mean for productivity? 

The combination of the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit and the renewed level of geopolitical uncertainty from the war in Ukraine will upset our economies, businesses, jobs and living standards for years to come. 

Host Bart van Ark is joined by three experts in economic and business forecasting to discuss how global political and economic uncertainty affects productivity and what we can do to respond.  

Our guests:

•  Jagjit Chadha, Director, National Institute of Economic and Social Research
• Rain Newton-Smith, Chief Economist, Confederation of British Industry
• Paul Mizen, Professor of Monetary Economics, University of Nottingham

For more information on the topic:

• The Bank of England’s Decision Maker Panel
• NIESR, The Economic Costs of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict, 2 March 2022
• CBI, The Economic Impact of Crisis in Ukraine, 14 March 2022
• Edoardo Palombo, Uncertainty, Intangible Capital, and Productivity Dynamics, Queen Mary, University of London, 2020
• Dario Caldra and Matteo Iacoviello, Measuring Geopolitical Risk, AER, 2022.
• Joseph McCann and John W. Selsky, Being Purposeful in Turbulent Environments, People and Strategy, 2012, pp.28-34.

About Productivity Puzzles:

Productivity Puzzles is sponsored by Capita and brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research body involving nine academic institutions across the UK, eight Regional Productivity Forums throughout the nation, and a national independent Productivity Commission to advise policy makers at all levels of government. It’s funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. 

Why do we need new firms? How important is business creation for employment and productivity? How has the coronavirus pandemic affected the churning of businesses? In this episode of Productivity Puzzles, we discuss business dynamism, which is about the birth, growth and decline of businesses, also called churning. The evidence shows that churning is good for the creation of new jobs, for providing opportunities for firm, industries and regions to invest and grow, and a key driver of productivity.

Recent ONS data also shows that while older firms in the UK are the most productive, it’s the newer ones that show the fastest growth in productivity. But there are differences in business dynamics across industries, and also differences across regions. We look at how the business environment needs to change and what policies need to be put in place to see more new firm creation and what is needed to help them grow and become more productive.

 Host Bart van Ark is joined by:

•  Anthony Impey, CEO of Be The Business, an independent not-for-profit organisation helping small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) boost their performance
• Clare Elsby, Head of People and Culture at Elsby & Co, an accountancy firm specialised in the SME market.
•  Jakob Schneebacher from the Office for National Statistics

 Publications mentioned in the podcast

•  Spotlight on Innovation, FSB Policy Report July 2018 How Government can unlock small business productivity 
•  ONS: Firm-level labour productivity measures from the Annual Business Survey, UK: 1998 to 2019

For more information on the topic: 

• ONS, Business demography, UK: 2020; Change in the number of UK businesses broken down by district and industry
• A. Duncan et al., Trough to Boom: UK firm creation during the COVID-19 pandemic, NIESR, May 2021
• B. Nasbitt, Firm Creation, Geography and Productivity, in Covid-19 and Productivity: Impact and Implications, Section 7, pp. 88-105

About Productivity Puzzles:

Productivity Puzzles is sponsored by Capita and brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research body involving nine academic institutions across the UK, eight Regional Productivity Forums throughout the nation, and a national independent Productivity Commission to advise policy makers at all levels of government. It’s funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. 

Productivity is key to sustained economic growth, but how does it make each of us financially better off? Do productivity gains always end up in our pockets in terms of better pay?

In this episode, we’ve invited scholars from the US, Canada and the UK to discuss their recent research, published in the International Productivity Monitor, which suggests productivity doesn't always make everyone better off.

We are going to explore how and why the links between productivity and pay have changed over time, look at the key drivers and discuss what can be done about it. And if productivity doesn’t always lead to wage growth, what happens if that changes - are companies that pay better likely to become more productive?

Let’s find out.

Our guests are:

Anna Stansbury, Assistant Professor of Work and Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management. 

Larry Mishel, a distinguished fellow at Economic Policy Institute in Washington DC.

Andreas Teichgräber, a researcher at the Centre Economic Performance at London School of Economics, and a member of the Programme on Innovation and Diffusion (POID).

For more information on the research discussed in this episode and published in the International Productivity Monitor Edition 41, visit:

• Have Productivity and Pay Decoupled in the UK? By Andreas Teichgräber and John Van Reenen.
• Productivity and Pay in the United States and Canada by Jacob Greenspon, Anna Stansbury, Lawrence H. Summers.
• The Productivity-Median Compensation Gap in the United States: The Contribution of Increased Wage Inequality and the Role of Policy Choices by Lawrence Mishel and Josh Bivens.  
• The Evolution of the Productivity-Median Wage Gap in Canada, 1976-2019 by Andrew Sharpe and James Ashwell.

About Productivity Puzzles:

Productivity Puzzles is sponsored by Capita and brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research body involving nine academic institutions across the UK, eight Regional Productivity Forums throughout the nation, and a national independent Productivity Commission to advise policy makers at all levels of government. It’s funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

How do we level up regions in a sustained manner - raising productivity and living standards, and reducing inequalities? Why do institutions matter and what should change to make it work? 

The government introduced its Levelling Up agenda to the UK as part of its 2019 election manifesto and a long-promised White Paper on the subject is expected soon. There has been no shortage of suggestions in recent months on what to do to advance economic and social progress in UK-wide regions and cities, and how to reduce inequalities between places and groups in the population. 

In this episode, we’ve stepped back a bit from those critical needs and asked ourselves the questions of how policy, institutions and fiscal mechanisms can become less centralised, better coordinated and more long-term oriented.

Host Bart van Ark talks with three of The Productivity Institute’s thematic leads - Professors Diane Coyle, Andy Westwood and Philip McCann - to discuss their recent research relating to Levelling Up in relation to UK industrial policy, local growth and fiscal implications of governance devolution.

Productivity Puzzles is sponsored by Capita and brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research body involving nine academic institutions across the UK, eight Regional Productivity Forums throughout the nation, and a national independent Productivity Commission to advise policy makers at all levels of government. 

For more information:

UK’s Industrial Policy: Learning from the past?  By Diane Coyle and Adam Muthar

• Read the Insight Paper
• Read the Executive Summary 

Levelling Up, Local Growth and Productivity in England by Andy Westwood, Marianne Sensier and Nicola Pike

• Read the Insight Paper
• Read the Executive Summary

The fiscal implication of levelling up and UK governance devolution by Philip McCann

• Read the Insight Paper
• Read the Executive Summary

Ahead of the government’s White Paper in Levelling Up expected in 2022, The Productivity Institute has collated its “Levelling Up” related insights

• Levelling Up: Insights from The Productivity Institute 

The Productivity Institute is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. To find out more, visit: https://esrc.ukri.org/about-us/strategy-and-priorities/productivity/

Find out more about at www.productivity.ac.uk

Are healthy workers productive workers? And if so, why do companies still struggle to put health and well-being at the centre of good business performance? And how can this be changed? 

In this episode, host Bart van Ark is joined by Sir Cary Cooper, Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Alliance Manchester Business School. He’s a world leading expert on workers’ health and well-being and also President of the Chartered Institute of Personal Development in the UK. 

They discuss the impact of the Covid pandemic on health and productivity, the challenges of new ways of working and why the health and well-being of a workforce should be a more central business imperative.

• The Healthy Workforce: Enhancing Wellbeing and Productivity in the Workers of the Future - Future of Work  by Stephen Bevan and Cary L. Cooper is available in all good bookstores. https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Healthy-Workforce-by-Stephen-Bevan-author-Cary-L-Cooper-author/9781838675028 

• To watch Cary debate the virtues and vices of working from home with Professor Diane Coyle at our business conference, visit our YouTube channel to watch Can hybrid work improve workers’ well-being and productivity? https://youtu.be/YDR2TF257S0 

Productivity Puzzles is sponsored by Capita and brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research body involving nine academic institutions across the UK, eight Regional Productivity Forums throughout the nation, and a national independent Productivity Commission to advise policy makers at all levels of government. 

The Productivity Institute is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. To find out more, visit: https://esrc.ukri.org/about-us/strategy-and-priorities/productivity/

Find out more about at www.productivity.ac.uk

How do we keep our shelves stocked for Christmas? Can we be sure our favourite restaurant will stay open? Does the NHS have the staff to reduce ever-growing waiting lists? Can productivity growth help to face the challenges of rising labour shortages in the UK economy? 

In this episode, we’re taking a deep dive into the issue of an increased shortage of workers in our economy - especially so-called “skilled blue collar workers”. Host Bart van Ark is joined Yael Selfin, a Partner and Chief Economist at KPMG; Anthony Rafferty, Professor in Employment Studies and Managing Director of the Work and Equalities Institute at The University of Manchester; and Tony Venables, Professor of Economics and the Research Director at The Productivity Institute.

Together they’ll discuss if the current labour shortages are something the UK could have been better prepared for - even before the Covid pandemic and ask if the current problems could actually be the trigger to move to a world of higher wages, better skills and higher productivity.

For more information:

-        Read Tony Venables’ blog “Labour shortages, productivity and incomes” https://www.productivity.ac.uk/news/labour-shortages-productivity-and-incomes/

-        Watch Practical Productivity with Mark Logan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZP71oj6zMo&t=1235s  

-        Listen to Episode 8 of Productivity Puzzles https://pod.co/productivity-puzzles/practical-productivity-how-to-transform-performance with Mark Logan (Aston University), Mark Hart (Glasgow University) and Paul Abraham (Capita)

Productivity Puzzles is sponsored by Capita and brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research body involving nine academic institutions across the UK, eight Regional Productivity Forums throughout the nation, and a national independent Productivity Commission to advise policy makers at all levels of government. 

The Productivity Institute is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. To find out more, visit: https://esrc.ukri.org/about-us/strategy-and-priorities/productivity/

Find out more about at www.productivity.ac.uk

How can companies transform their business by becoming more productive? What are the things stopping us doing this? What simple practical techniques are there to restore and increase productivity? In short, what is practical productivity?

We’ve often said it before - productivity is not the thing that keeps most business leaders awake at night. Productivity is not usually part of a company’s KPIs, and while many in our audience don’t need convincing on why productivity matters overall, we don’t necessarily always have clear ideas of what the key levers are at the firm level. So, let’s get practical about productivity.

Host Bart van Ark is joined by:

• Mark Logan, Professor in Practice, School of Computing Science & former COO of Skyscanner;
• Mark Hart, Professor of Economics, Finance and Entrepreneurship at Aston Business School & Deputy Director, Enterprise Research Centre (ERC)
• Paul Abraham, Managing Director & Client Partner at Capita Local Public Service

Productivity Puzzles is sponsored by Capita and brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research body involving nine academic institutions across the UK, eight Regional Productivity Forums throughout the nation, and a national independent Productivity Commission to advise policy makers at all levels of government. 

The Productivity Institute is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. To find out more, visit: https://esrc.ukri.org/about-us/strategy-and-priorities/productivity/

Find out more about at www.productivity.ac.uk

The one big question anyone working on productivity issues gets most is: how do you actually measure it? How do we count what we make? And can we capture everything needed to produce products and services? And can economists and statisticians keep up with the rapid changes in today’s modern economy? 

To answer these questions, host Bart van Ark is joined by Josh Martin, Head of Productivity at the Office for National Statistics, Rebecca Riley, director of the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence and Professor of Practice at King’s Business School and Jonathan Haskel, Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School. Together they discuss productivity measurement from the widget counting days of economist founding father Adam Smith to today’s methods that include the service economy, new technologies, worker well-being and the environment.

Productivity Puzzles is sponsored by Capita and brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research body involving nine academic institutions across the UK, eight Regional Productivity Forums throughout the nation, and a national independent Productivity Commission to advise policy makers at all levels of government. 

The Productivity Institute is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. To find out more, visit: https://esrc.ukri.org/about-us/strategy-and-priorities/productivity/

Find out more about at www.productivity.ac.uk