This episode is hosted by Bart van Ark, Professor of Productivity Studies & Director of the Productivity Institute at Alliance MBS, a UK-wide organisation which aims to lay the foundations for an era of sustained and inclusive productivity growth by bringing together academic research, policy studies and business engagement.

After several decades of work on productivity issues, Bart will take the audience of this lecture on a tour through “global productivity land”. He will assess what he has learned about the drivers of and barriers to productivity, and what he thinks we still need to discover.

He will place today’s productivity puzzles in the western world in a long-term and international comparative perspective, presenting evidence and narratives for the three countries he has worked in particular - the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. Beyond that the productivity experiences of the European Union and Asia will feature in the background.

He addresses the role of technology, innovation, skills, policy and institutions, but also looks at the key challenges for the productivity agenda of the future, namely climate change and the distributional effects of productivity.

This event is facilitated by Professor Ken McPhail, Deputy Head and Director of Research at Alliance Manchester Business School.