National Productivity Week 27th January 2025 | Visit Website

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The Institute’s key research themes are led by ten academic partners spread across the UK.

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We’re a UK-wide research organisation exploring what productivity means for business

Businesses are crucial to solving the UK’s productivity problems.

Can productivity rescue the global economic recovery?

Can productivity rescue the global economic recovery? Productivity Puzzles Season 1, Episode 16 was released on Wednesday, 11 May 2022

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. Does that still hold true?

This special episode of Productivity Puzzles has been produced in conjunction with The Conference Board, non-profit business membership and research group organisation based in New York. This time, 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 two discuss what can be learnt from the pandemic, labour and supply chain shortages and the effects of the slowdown in globalisation. 

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:

To catch up with past episodes:

About Productivity Puzzles

Productivity Puzzles is brought to you by The Productivity Institute. It is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.