Writing in Cityam.com, Sam Dumitriu, Research Director at the Entrepreneurs Network, addresses a longer term problem with current efforts to improve national productivity – the problem being that, despite more brainworker inputs, the impact of their new-ideas is becoming more and more marginal It is no secret that Britain is in a productivity slump (if …
Category: 20. Nations
Jul 02
High productivity figures pre-Covid masked some underperformance
Martin Wall, writing in the Irish Times, reports that Leo Varadkar, Tánaiste (Irish Deputy PM) says the government is seeking to have a record 2.5m people in work in 2024 – he offers some ideas which other nations might consider Ireland’s high national productivity figures before the Covid crisis masked significant areas of underperformance in …
Jun 20
Back to dreary normal?
Chris Dillow makes several interesting points in an article in the Investors Chronicle, finishing on a ‘slender’ positive note The economy is returning to normal. Latest figures show that since November real GDP has risen 3.5 per cent and the number of employees by 429,000. Yes, both are still well below pre-pandemic levels, but we’re getting there. Which …
Oct 06
£300 million to boost UK manufacturing productivity by 30%
Businesses with creative ideas to boost the UK’s manufacturing capacities are set to receive £300 million of joint government and industry funding according to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, UK Research and Innovation and The Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP in the announcement below – on the plus side, any such investment has to …
Aug 23
Academics to boost productivity growth and level-up living standards
Here we go again – our leaders announce the supreme importance of productivity growth to the improvement and levelling up of UK living standards – then they have to be seen to be ‘doing something’ – so three years ago they set up a PLG (Productivity Leadership Group), but that has had no notable success …
Jul 06
Next CBI boss finds ray of hope in coronavirus crisis
A dash of optimism from NEIL CRAVEN for the MAIL ON SUNDAY – however, given the track record of the CBI and ‘Be the Business’ summarised below and their evident failure to date to improve UK productivity, we note the lack of practical support and ideas for UK managers in the following piece- but nevertheless …
Jun 18
CBI a closed-shop for McKinsey alumni?
The CBI (Confederation of British Industry) claims to be the UK’s largest employers’ group, although the IoD (Institute of Directors) might dispute this claim – they assume to be the mouthpiece for British management, forever putting their views for change to the UK government They have just announced that Tony Danker – apparently ‘a business …
May 05
Pandemic offers a productivity boost?
An interesting article by Chris Dillow was recently published in the Investors’ Chronicle Has the coronavirus solved the UK’s problem of stagnant labour productivity? It’s a strange question, but one posed by Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts. It expects that in 2021 we’ll be producing 2.8 per cent more than we did in …
Mar 15
Financial data can be ‘dangerously misleading’
This is a transcript of a second broadcast interview of UK economist Ed Smythe by the USA’s Real News Network GREGORY WILPERT: Welcome to the Real News Network. I’m Gregory Wilpert, joining you from Quito, Ecuador. The Bank of England has raised interest rates in the UK for the first time in a decade. The …
Feb 27
Universal Credit conflicts
In a new report, presented to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, researchers argue Universal Credit should focus on supporting people into decent and productive work where their skills and capabilities will be developed and used effectively. A ‘work first, then work more’ approach facilitated by Universal Credit, which is focused on placing conditions …
Feb 23
Following the wrong stars?
“The lacklustre level of productivity growth in the UK, commonly measured as the level of output per hour worked, has been evident ever since the financial crisis in 2008/09 and has, as of yet, shown so signs of coming to an end” So claimed an article by Eleanor Stevenson, written for Ebury Partners UK …
Jan 12
The puzzle to persist?
According to Valentina Romei, writing in the Financial Times, the last decade saw living standards in the UK grow at their slowest rate since the second world war She says: “The jobs bonanza, and the economy’s performance as a whole, was undermined by weak productivity, which grew at its slowest level in 60 years” She …
Dec 10
Wasted time at school
Government sanctioned waste has a lot to answer for Ministers might bang on about the importance of productivity improvement but their thinking seems restricted to vital investment in infrastructure, R&D and skills training Drive around any town mid-afternoon and see streams of kids walking home from school – and wonder what they do when they …
Nov 11
Productivity crisis fixed?
The Times has announced a project to be run by the strangely named ‘Be the Business’, a government sponsored initiative aimed at solving the productivity crisis said to be afflicting the nation 100 big companies, including Amazon, Aviva, BAE systems, British Land, Cisco, Google and Rolls Royce, ‘will promise to boost UK productivity by encouraging …
Nov 08
More recognition of ‘consumer surpli’
A splendid article by Diane Coyle, Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge and contributor to www.project-syndicate.org, has just been posted by the East African Business Week – it’s entitled ‘Rethinking Productivity’ and helps explain much of the current productivity puzzle supposedly afflicting many developed nations, including the UK The word “productivity” typically …
Oct 21
National inputs also ‘seriously flawed’
Official measures of GDP are said to be ‘seriously flawed’ Now, a report by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) and the Centre for Cities think tank claims ‘millions more people are unemployed than official statistics suggest’ Worse still: “The joblessness rate could be three times higher than thought” because some three million …
Oct 13
At last, official recognition of the ‘GDP gap’
Yian Mui reports on CNBC that the US Federal Reserve wants to know what the internet is worth to you. He says the answer could help the central bank solve one of the most puzzling paradoxes of the modern economy: The current expansion is the longest in history, yet productivity gains are weak and GDP growth, …
Oct 11
New UK ‘Productivity Institute’
Productivity of UK businesses is set to be supercharged with £88 million in new government investment announced the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy: £88 million new government investment to help close the productivity gap between UK and major world economies and turbocharge British businesses investment will help power the next generation supercomputers which …
Sep 26
A National ‘Balanced Scorecard’
All nations – governments and their electorates – need a National Balanced SCorecard (NBSC) of performance measures – a set of cardinals they each can monitor which covers all important factors affecting their standard of living (SoL) and quality of lives (QoL) The NBSC would be a mix of measures – some absolute, some subjective …
Aug 29
BoE powerless in UK productivity crisis
Tim Wallace in the Daily Telegraph reports Mark Carney, Governor of the BoE – Bank of England – saying: “Britain’s economy has a new, lower speed limit” Growth can only get to even modest levels before inflation takes off whereupon ‘we must ease our foot off the accelerator’ Ben Broadbent, one of Carney’s deputies, claims: …
Jul 22
A new ISC rides to the rescue
Puzzle no more about dormant national productivity – the cavalry have arrived in the form of Andy Haldane, chief economist of the BoE (Bank of England) who is to chair the government’s new ISC – Industrial Strategy Council – it’s another quango of sorts for a select few of our great and good to deal …
Jul 15
Further UK education needs
“The new prime minister will have to rise to the skills and productivity challenge, and make sure that everyone, no matter where they come from, can get a chance to have a great job”, says Anne Milton, UK Minister for Skills and Apprenticeships The following is an article she wrote in FEWeek I want the …
Jun 25
Turbocharging Australian productivity
Adrian Blundell-Wignall, former director of the OECD and professor at Sydney University, says: “It’s not enough to tweak R&D incentives – we, Australia, need a detailed plan that will change the whole climate for smart investment and productivity growth During the (recent) election, the focus was on tax cuts and “having a go” The Treasurer …
Jun 11
GDP – Consumer Surpli
Consumer surplus is defined as the difference between the highest price a consumer would have been willing to pay and the price actually paid It’s the unquantified value customers obtain from tangible stuff they buy – such benefits include taking less time or effort to do things, obtaining more fun and pleasure from life, having …
May 04
GDP – Flaws
At present, GDP is universally taken to be not just a measure of national output but also shorthand for national well-being Richard Tomkin, assistant director of the ONS (Office for National Statistics), which collects all the base data, says: “GDP is used as an all-encompassing proxy for people’s living standards although never designed for this” …
Apr 04
Puzzle – What puzzle?
“The Miracle Years Are Over – get used to It” So announced Ruchir Sharma, a contributing opinion writer for the NEW YORK TIMES, in a well-argued article reprinted with only minor tweaks below Across the world, economists have had to downgrade growth forecasts – but it’s not as bad as it sounds Last year (2018) …
Jan 31
Productivity tops Brexit
An article by Peter Barker, Gui Tao and Xinhua – www.xinhuanet.com Improving productivity, instead of the Brexit issue, is the primary task facing the British economy at the moment, says renowned British economist Jim O’Neill “The UK being in or out of the EU (European Union) is not the most important thing facing our economic …
Dec 21
Clusters need roads
An article by Maria Machancoses, a director at Midlands Connectvestment, is fully reproduced below For centuries, good roads have influenced the way we live, work and trade As a nation that makes over 80% of journeys by road, and whose population is forecast to grow to 75m by 2050, investing in our ageing infrastructure is rightly at the top of the agenda. Rather than …
Dec 12
UK productivity gap half-explained?
According to Philip Aldrick, Economics Editor of The Times, Britain’s dismal productivity gap with much of the developed world is due not only to lack of investment, bad management and low interest rates as previously thought Another significant causal factor has been found The UK’s ONS – Office for National Statistics – asked the Paris-based OECD …
Nov 22
Excess regulations and legacy systems solve productivity puzzle?
Brian Caplen, editor of The Banker, says the challenges banks face with regulation and legacy IT systems hold lessons for the wider economy He points out that ‘great minds have been pondering the productivity puzzle – so why, in a time of rapid technological change, is productivity stagnant in many advanced economies?’ The UK has particular …
Oct 19
Immigration pluses and minuses
The USA really should try to attract more immigrant entrepreneurs, according to Claude Barfield of the US National Venture Capital Association and Entrepreneur.com: 40% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by first or second generation immigrants, and more than half of the nation’s billion-dollar startups have an immigrant co-founder According to the National Science Foundation, only 17% of US bachelor …
Oct 05
National distribution of wealth
An interesting, sometimes complex (at least to me), article by Laurie Macfarlane for www.opendemocracy.net follows – it amply demonstrates that totting up any figure for national wealth is not straightforward According to a new OECD working paper, Britain is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Net wealth is estimated to stand at around $500,000 …
Jul 30
Suspect forecasts
Despite numerous forecasting clangers in recent times, the UK’s OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) claims British productivity in the last decade has hardly grown at all and will remain sluggish over the next five years They had assumed, when advising the Chancellor, that it would return to trend after 2008 They have now decided to abandon …
Jul 27
Cheap labour solves productivity puzzle?
Merryn Somerset Webb, editor of the magazine Moneyweek, claims to have solved the productivity puzzle afflicting the UK – actually, all other developed economies are suffering in much the same way “It’s never ever seemed like much of a puzzle to us” she says, adding: “We’ve written many times over the last decade that, if you …
Jul 19
UK – a hub with no spokes
Andy Haldane, chief economist at the BoE (Bank of England) and so one of the finest of finest economic thinkers, recently gave a speech about the UK’s productivity problem to the Academy of Social Sciences – clearly, we should treat his every word with great respect, or should we? The following is a precis of …
Jun 28
Labour has a terrible productivity idea
According to an article for Bloomberg View by Ferdinando Giugliano, one-time member of the Financial Times editorial committee, the UK’s Labour Party has come up with a ‘terrible idea’ for sorting out the country’s current productivity problem John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor, proposes giving the Bank of England (BoE) a yearly 3% productivity growth target to sit …
Jun 21
UK SMEs waste £57 bn a year
NatWest has unveiled research, conducted by the Cebr (Centre for economic and business research) which reveals UK SMEs (defined as companies with 10 – 259 employees) could add up to £57 billion a year – more than the cost of Brexit – to the UK economy if they were as productive as SMEs in Germany …
Jun 10
‘Silver Army’ advances
Excerpts follow from an article about the advancing ‘Silver Army’ by Gary Rotstein in the Pittsburgh post-gazette The future of older workers During a recent three-day presentation at Columbia University, a succession of speakers from academia and the business and health fields focused on the potential productivity of older workers who can help the economy and …
Jun 05
Red-tape stifles productivity
Interesting views appeared in the Daily Telegraph from Sir John Timpson, chairman of the high-street services provider, Timpson. He was asked what he thought the main issues were when it comes to the UK’s productivity problem – his reply is presented below, en toto We’re a nation of pessimists, beating ourselves up about a lack of investment, …
May 26
P.I.N. – a new productivity broadside?
Last week I attended the launch of a new initiative for improving UK productivity – I sent the following email to Kate Penney, PIN programme manager – she has already thanked me and promised to pass it on Kate, I thought the launch of the PIN (Productivity Insights Network) last Tuesday evening in London went well – …
May 22
CBI rides to the rescue
Having exchanged pleasant words about my new book Productivity Knowhow with the CBI’s Director General, Carolyn Fairbairn, and members of her team, I chanced upon a report they had written, entitled: FROM OSTRICH TO MAGPIE In it, they: “Set out to find new ways to tackle the striking variation in productivity that exists between UK firms …
Feb 24
How to improve national productivity
They say there are only two ways to produce sustained long term growth in the current material world: Increase the number of workers employed, assuming any one new worker produces as much as any other existing worker – but this is severely limited because: Birthrates, immigration constraints and right-skills availability restrict net increases The world’s …
Feb 18
UK strengths far outweigh weaknesses
Listening to the ex UK foreign secretary, David Miliband, on the BBC Today programme as he banged his tiresome ‘remainer’ drum and the economic gloom in prospect, one was prompted to ask: “Did he not hear the result of the referendum? Most people (outside London) are fed up with being told what to do by arrogant, unelected …
Feb 17
National happiness beats GDP hands down
Economist Ed Conway claims in The Times that “GDP is actually pretty good at measuring the total amount of income generated in Britain” His main point is that: Every politician from right to left obsesses about income above all other measures of progress Yet income comes surprisingly far down the list of what really matters …
Feb 17
Much innovation not reflected in statistics
Susan Athey, ex Microsoft and now Expedia and winner of a prestigious medal for being the best US technology economist, was interviewed by journalist Ana Fuentes The following are extracts from her article: Q. Global growth, now running at 3.5%, might be a lot higher if we took into account the whole contribution from digitalisation …
Jan 25
GDP – Alternative measures
ALTERNATIVE 1 – GVA: One alternative to GDP for measuring the state of an overall economy is GVA – Gross Value Added GVA claims to measure the contribution of each individual producer, industry or sector GVA = Output value – Intermediate consumption (too complex for most) Other definitions include: The value of the amount of goods …
Nov 24
Better ways to boost UK productivity?
Sam Dumitriu of the Adam Smith Institute commented on UK Chancellor Philip Hammond’s budget and the OBR’s prediction that UK growth will be a sluggish 1.5% or lower for the next five years whilst the USA is growing at twice that rate Hammond has offered support to boost R&D spending and sort out the housing crisis …
Nov 24
Brexit – a fillip for UK
The EU was originally set up after WW2 for defence and security reasons – to deter a WW 3 following the ravages of the first two wars Since then, it has steadily grown from the original six founder nations (Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg) to the current 28, including the UK Poor European …
Nov 23
Shoot the productivity messengers?
One groans when leading economists, senior government ministers, even John Humphries on the BBC’s Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme, trot out the same old message about the dire straits of the UK economy viz: “Woeful productivity gap” “Grim reading” “More austerity” “We’re in a new paradigm of lower productivity growth” Philip Hammond, the dour UK …
Nov 23
Government action for big productivity improvements
Words are all very well but good measures leading to worthwhile actions matter most to people and nations And, to boost national productivity, governments must look to: Boost their private sectors by helping them produce the profits which pay for everyone’s SoL (Standard of Living) and underpin their QoL (Quality of Life) Ensure all public …
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