Britain’s Productivity Problem – and Why It Really Matters

Living standards in a more competitive world

Spend a few days in London and you could be forgiven for thinking Britain is an economic utopia. The cafés are full. Construction cranes dominate the skyline. The subway is moving. Money is clearly moving.

Yet beneath the surface, the foundations look less solid.

Economists obsess over productivity for good reason. At one level, productivity measures how much value each worker produces per hour. That is the simplest way to put productivity even if some would say that that assessment is too simplistic.