Restarting the Future: How Intangibles Can Fuel Productivity
- S1E15
- 54:01
- April 27th 2022
Why has economic growth slowed down? Have we already exhausted the benefits from the digital revolution? Are the trusted institutions of the 20th century now failing in the investments most needed for future growth in productivity?
This episode takes a deep dive into the book Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy, which provides a new explanation for why growth has slowed and why we need a reset of institutions and policies. The topics covered include R&D, software, design, training, reputation & branding and business processes.
Intangible capital offers the same characteristic as tangible capital of providing value over time, but it is not something you can touch and feel. It includes many assets that are critical to modern businesses, such as data, software and R&D. Crucially, intangibles are frequently characterised by scalability, sunkenness, spillovers and synergies.
Our guests:
- Jonathan Haskel, Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School and External Monetary Policy Committee member at Bank of England
- Stian Westlake, Chief Executive of the Royal Statistical Society
- Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge
For more information on the topic:
- Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, Restarting the Future. How to Fix the Intangible Economy, Princeton, 2022
- Diane Coyle, Grasping the intangible nettles, The Enlightened Economist, 5 March 2022
- Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, Capitalism without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy, Princeton, 2017
- Diane Coyle and Jen-Chung Mei, Diagnosing the UK Productivity Slowdown: Which Sectors Matter and Why?, The Productivity Institute, 2022
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.
Productivity Puzzles
Join Bart van Ark, Professor of Productivity Studies at the University of Manchester, and the managing director of The Productivity Institute as he brings you discussions with leading minds from the UK and abroad about how to improve productivity for almost everything: from health care to car manufacturing, at national and regional levels, for business and for your own personal productivity.
This podcast series investigates why UK productivity is lower than in many other countries and why are there such large differences in productivity across and within the regions and devolved nations. We’ll also get the best insights from research on smart policies and effective business practices to increase productivity and find out how this will drive prosperity, wellbeing and inclusive sustainable growth.
Productivity Puzzles is brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research project 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.
Find out more about at www.productivity.ac.uk
The Productivity Institute is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. To find out more, visit: https://esrc.ukri.org/about-us/strategy-and-priorities/productivity/