The productivity puzzle: Is the UK bouncing back?

Wednesday 28 April 2021 | 16:45 - 18:00 | Webinar

Productivity has been stagnating in Western economies since around 2005 once the impact of the tech revolution was fully felt. Understanding long term trends in productivity is vitally important for investors. As Paul Krugman’s saying goes, “productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything.”

Things might at last be changing, spurred by the response to Covid-19, including the vaccine task force in the UK and operation warp speed in the US. These have unlocked both new approaches to economic development and new biotechnologies.

Join CFA UK's session with experts in productivity from both sides of the Atlantic who will discuss:

• Successful policy interventions to increase productivity
• What else is needed
• Where things might be heading
• Critically important information for long term investment success

Where recordings are made, these are a member benefit that are accessed through the member-only platform, CFA UK Discover.

Timings

Registration: 16:40

Event: 16:45 - 18:00

CPD points: 1.15

Speakers

John Kay, Economist, Author

John Kay is an economist whose career has spanned the academic world, business and finance, and public affairs. He has held chairs at the London Business School, the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and is a fellow of St John’s College, Oxford, where he began his academic career in 1970. He is a fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

John is a director of several public companies and a contributing editor of the Financial Times. He chaired the review of UK equity markets and long-term decision-making which reported to the secretary of state for business, innovation and skills in July 2012. He is the author of many books, including The Truth about Markets (2003), and his latest book, Greed is Dead, co-authored with Paul Collier, which was published in July 2020

Andrew Smithers, Founder Smithers & Co

Andrew Smithers founded Smithers & Co in 1989. Before that he ran S G Warburg's successful asset management business for many years (now part of BlackRock). A regular financial commentator and columnist, and author of many academic publications, he co-authored Valuing Wall Street with Stephen Wright (published March 2000). He wrote Wall Street Revalued: Imperfect Markets and Inept Central Bankers (published July 2009), and is also the author of Chapter 6, Can We Identify Bubbles and Stabilize the System? in The Future of Finance, published by the LSE in September, 2010.

Robert Lerman, Institute Fellow, Urban Institute

Robert Lerman is an Institute fellow in the Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population at the Urban Institute as well as professor of economics at American University and a research fellow at IZA in Bonn, Germany. A leading expert on apprenticeship, he recently established the American Institute for Innovative Apprenticeship. His current research focus is on skills, employer training, apprenticeship programs in the United States and abroad, and housing policies.

Susan Houseman, Vice President and Director of Research, Upjohn Institute for Employment Research

Susan Houseman is Vice President and Director of Research at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. As a recognised expert on temporary help employment, outsourcing, and nonstandard work arrangements, her research has examined trends in employers’ use of these arrangements and their implications for workers’ wages, benefits, and employment stability. Susan’s research on outsourcing and offshoring has also highlighted measurement problems in US statistics.

David Adler, Co-editor of The Productivity Puzzle

David Adler is co-editor, with Larry Siegel, of The Productivity Puzzle, and author of the monograph The New Economics of Liquidity and Financial Frictions, both published by the CFA Institute Research Foundation. He is a senior advisor to XA Investments, an alternative investments manager and distributor based in Chicago.