The Links Between Productivity and Pay

Productivity Puzzles

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.