Staying productive in uncertain times

Productivity Puzzles

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.