Productivity Puzzles: Recent Episodes

The Productivity Institute

Join Bart van Ark, Professor of Productivity Studies at the University of Manchester, and the managing director of The Productivity Institute as he brings you discussions with leading minds from the UK and abroad about how to improve productivity for almost everything: from health care to car manufacturing, at national and regional levels, for business and for your own personal productivity.

This podcast series investigates why UK productivity is lower than in many other countries and why are there such large differences in productivity across and within the regions and devolved nations. We’ll also get the best insights from research on smart policies and effective business practices to increase productivity and find out how this will drive prosperity, wellbeing and inclusive sustainable growth.

Productivity Puzzles is brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research project involving nine academic institutions across the UK, eight regional productivity forums throughout the nation, and a national independent Productivity Commission to advise policymakers at all levels of government.

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

The Productivity Institute is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Should the next Prime Minister embrace productivity as a cornerstone of the policy agenda for the new UK government in September? Can it help to get us through the economic winter ahead of us, and onto a path of sustained recovery? What policies are most critical, what should be continued, strengthened or perhaps stopped?

The final episode of Season 1 of Productivity Puzzles looks at the policy agenda for the new government, with discussion on the key elements that will help productivity to recover. In the short-term, what role does productivity have in dealing with the current problems of rising cost and shortages of labour and energy? Over the long-term, what should the government focus on to address the issues in a fundamental way?

To access the Making Public Sector Productivity Practical report referenced in this episode, visit Capita’s website.

Host Professor Bart van Ark is joined by:

Diane Coyle, Co-director of theBennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge
Catherine Mann, External member of the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England
Adrian Pabst, Deputy Director at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR)

For more information on the topic:

Diane Coyle, Tax cut vows are a distraction from the UK’s woeful productivity, FT, August 2nd, 2022.
Bart van Ark and Diane Coyle, Can public services improve their productivity without new funding?, The Productivity Institute, 2022.
Bart van Ark, Making Public Sector Productivity Practical, The Productivity Institute, 2022.
Paul Mortime-Lee and Adrian Pabst, Covid-19 and Productivity: Impact and Implications, NIESR/TPI, 2022.
Arnab Bhattacharjee, Max Mosley, Adrian Pabst, and Tibor Szendrei, Outlook for UK Households, the Devolved Nations and the English Regions, NIESR, National Institute UK Economic Outlook – Summer 2022.
NIESR/TPI, Productivity in the UK: Evidence Review, June 2022.
Philip McCann, Levelling Up: The Need for an Institutionally Coordinated Approach to National and Regional Productivity, 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.

Despite showing slow productivity growth over the past decade, the public sector has performed better than the private sector and there is quite a bit of scope for further improvement. This instalment of Productivity Puzzles delves into how and why productivity could grow in the public sector.

This episode is a prelude to the publication of the Making Public Sector Productivity Practical report, which is soon to be released by The Productivity Institute and Capita. You can pre-register to access the report on Capita’s website.

Host Professor Bart van Ark is joined by:

Paul Abraham, Managing Director & Client Partner at Capita Public Service
Stephen Aldridge, Chief Economist and Director of Analysis and Data at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Anna Smart, Systems Thinking/Organisational Design Lead at London Borough of Camden

For more information on the topic:

Making Public Sector Productivity Practical - Executive Summary, 2022, Bart van Ark.
Improving public sector efficiency to deliver a smarter state, 2016, Stephen Aldridge, Angus Hawkins and Cody Xuereb.
Institutional drivers of efficiency in the public sector, OECD, 2007, Wouter van Dooren, Zsuzsanna Lonti, Miekatrien Sterk and Geert Bouckaert.

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 can productivity benefit not just business and the economy, but also ourselves? What does it take for a society to grow productivity and raise well-being? Can digital technology make us happier, as well as more productive?

In this episode, we look at which investments are needed to create more well-being and what role social factors, such as trust, play in raising productivity and well-being. The discussion is varied, with conversations about how we measure well-being effectively and what further data is needed to make informed choices, as well as a debate on whether digital technology has a positive impact on our lives and on our productivity as a whole.

Host Professor Bart van Ark is joined by:

Conal Smith, Senior Economist at the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington
Tim Hazledine, Professor of Economics at the University of Auckland Business School (retired)
Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge

For more information on the topic:

The International Productivity Monitor, number 42, is available from The Productivity Institute resource centre with copies of all of the papers referenced in this episode.
Well-being and Productivity: A Capital Stocks Approach, 2021, Conal Smith and Jaimie Legge.
Trust, Deep Trust, Productivity and Well-being in 136 Countries, 2021 Tim Hazledine.
Time Use, Productivity, and Household-Centric Measurement of Welfare in the Digital Economy, 2021, Diane Coyle and Leonard Nakamura.
World Happiness Report, 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.

Did you know that the manufacturing sector in Wales accounts for a larger share of the economy than elsewhere in the UK? That the Welsh economy is also developing exciting new activities in arts and culture and tackling the difficult balancing act between raising productivity and improving health and well-being head on?

In this episode, we take a deep dive into the productivity performance of Wales and how it stacks up against the rest of the UK. We’ll discuss the key drivers, sectors and resources as well differences between large and small businesses and regions. There is also an interesting question on how productivity fits in with the Welsh Wellbeing of Future Generations Act and the parallels between Net Zero and productivity growth.

Host Professor Bart van Ark is joined by:

Andrew Henley, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Economics, Director of Research Engagement and Impact Cardiff Business School
Rhian Elston, Investment Director at Development Bank of Wales.
Ben Cottam, Head of Wales, Federation of Small Businesses (FSB)

For more information on the topic:

Wales’ Productivity Challenge: Exploring the issues
The Wales Productivity Forum
Scoping the future of Innovation Policy in Wales, May 2021 by Rick Delbridge, Dyla Henderson and Kevin Morgan

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.

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.

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

This year marks the centenary of Northern Ireland’s creation. What has it done for the economy? And in particular for the productivity of its people and businesses? Has greater economic stability in the 23 years since the Good Friday agreement helped to advance productivity? And what will Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol mean for productivity going forward? Host Bart van Ark talks to three experts - Dame Rotha Johnston, Professor John Turner and Dr. Esmond Birnie about the productivity pearls and perils in Northern Ireland.

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

Are hybrid working models good for productivity? Do employers and employees think differently about the pros and cons? And how does flexible working affect our mental health and well-being? Is there a trade off with productivity that we need to think about? Let’s find out.

In this episode, host Bart van Ark talks to Andy Start, CEO Government Services (Capita) & Professor Diane Coyle of the University of Cambridge about how the pandemic has dramatically changed the way many of us work and the positive and negative effects its had on personal and organisational productivity.

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

In this episode Bart talks to Lord Jim O’Neill, Dame Nancy Rothwell & Professor Philip McCann about raising productivity in the Northern Powerhouse, a powerful concept introduced more than five years ago with the aim to rebuild a competitive economy in northern England. Our guests have been there from the start and discuss what it’s delivered so far, its challenges, future directions and how it contributes to the government’s levelling-up agenda.

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

In this episode Bart talks to Prof. Diane Coyle, Dr. Jennifer Dixon & Kaya M. Dreesbeimdiek on productivity in UK health care during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

They discuss how we measure health productivity. What has happened to health productivity during the COVID-19 pandemic? How do we rebuild a resilient health care sector to enable higher productivity in an uncertain 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

Could COVID 19 be the game changer for the economy and create a true productivity miracle in the coming years? In this episode Bart talks to McKinsey’s Jan Mischke and Tera Allas about a recent report by the McKinsey Global Institute: “Will productivity and growth return after the COVID-19 crisis?”

They discuss why businesses should focus on operational efficiency to improve productivity, how the boldest firms have emerged the strongest from the crisis and how rapid digitisation is transforming the retail and healthcare sectors.

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

In this episode Bart talks to three esteemed economists - Andy Haldane, Dame Kate Barker and Professor Nick Crafts - who explain what productivity actually is and why it matters to everyone.

They discuss why UK productivity has slowed down since the 2008 financial crisis, creating a rising gap between the UK and other advanced economies in Europe. They also explain why increased productivity is important for raising living standards - drawing on lessons from the industrial revolution, how it has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and what critical things can be done to manage the post-crisis challenges.

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

Why does productivity matter? How can it drive business success, economic recovery, but also prosperity, wellbeing and inclusive sustainable growth?

Join Bart van Ark, Professor of Productivity Studies at the University of Manchester, and the managing director of The Productivity Institute as he bring you discussions with leading minds from the UK and abroad about how to improve productivity for almost everything: from health care to car manufacturing, at national and regional levels, for business and for your own personal productivity.

We’ll investigate why UK productivity is lower than in many other countries and why are there such large differences in productivity across and within the regions and devolved nations. We’ll also get the best insights from research on smart policies and effective business practices to increase productivity and find out how this will drive prosperity, wellbeing and inclusive sustainable growth.

Productivity Puzzles sponsored by Capita and brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research project 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.

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

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/