Unconstrained’s Post

A solid prescription for Canada's productivity crisis! Here are two quick reads on what Unconstrained knows can reinforce Canadian businesses to fix this crisis. #canadaproducitivitycrisis #getunconstrained #consideryourquest #essentialdynamics

This is one of the reasons I've been sharing so much modern research on the links between #competition and #productivity. Because there are still a lot of people out there that see competition policies as 'domestic consumer protection' tools and not as serious drivers of growth. "Increasing competition in these domestic services is smart public policy because reducing their oligopoly rents would bring the benefit of improved consumer welfare through some combination of lower prices and enhanced services. Still, it is wrong to conflate the benefits of domestic consumer protection (”cost-of-living” strategies) with the strategies needed to capture productivity-enhancing economic rents in the 21st-century global knowledge economy. Cutting needless costs is important, but it can only go so far."

Read Bart van Ark's piece for The Times where he sets out The Productivity Institute and the Centre for Economic Performance's call for a new statutory Growth and Productivity Institution for the UK: https://lnkd.in/epbMqYD7 The article also sets out the three key challenges for UK productivity growth that were identified in The Productivity Agenda: 🔔 Chronic underinvestment 🔔 Lack of knowledge diffusion 🔔 Institutional fragmentation Read Bart's chapter of the agenda with Anna Valero for more analysis of why a new statutory body is needed: https://lnkd.in/eyK9aHDV #productivity #growth #productivityagenda #investment #productivitymatters

Productivity growth stagnation over the last 15 years has impacted the resilience of the UK economy and society, making it harder for people, places, and firms to sustain themselves. What can be done to solve this issue? Read Bart van Ark, Diane Coyle and Jonatan Pinkse's article for Resilience First to find out more: https://lnkd.in/dYAZYXDs The blog is based on the authors' work on The Productivity Agenda, the blueprint for boosting the UK's productivity growth: https://lnkd.in/eyK9aHDV #productivity #growth #productivityagenda #economy #netzero #resilience #resiliencebuilding King's Business School Bennett Institute for Public Policy Alliance Manchester Business School

Read Bart van Ark's piece today for The Times where he sets out The Productivity Institute and the Centre for Economic Performance's call for a new statutory Growth and Productivity Institution for the UK: https://lnkd.in/epbMqYD7 The article also sets out the three key challenges for UK productivity growth that were identified in The Productivity Agenda: 🔔 Chronic underinvestment 🔔 Lack of knowledge diffusion 🔔 Institutional fragmentation Read the agenda for more analysis: https://lnkd.in/eyK9aHDV #productivity #growth #productivityagenda #investment #productivitymatters

Productivity growth stagnation over the last 15 years has impacted the resilience of the UK economy and society, making it harder for people, places, and firms to sustain themselves. What can be done to solve this issue? Read Bart van Ark, Diane Coyle and Jonatan Pinkse's article for Resilience First to find out more: https://lnkd.in/dYAZYXDs The blog is based on the authors' work on The Productivity Agenda, the blueprint for boosting the UK's productivity growth: https://lnkd.in/eyK9aHDV #productivity #growth #productivityagenda #economy #netzero #resilience #resiliencebuilding King's Business School Bennett Institute for Public Policy Alliance Manchester Business School

Productivity growth stagnation over the last 15 years has impacted the resilience of the UK economy and society, making it harder for people, places, and firms to sustain themselves. What can be done to solve this issue? Read Bart van Ark, Diane Coyle and Jonatan Pinkse's article for Resilience First to find out more: https://lnkd.in/dYAZYXDs The blog is based on the authors' work on The Productivity Agenda, the blueprint for boosting the UK's productivity growth: https://lnkd.in/eyK9aHDV #netzeroweek #productivity #growth #productivityagenda #economy #netzero #resilience #resiliencebuilding King's Business School Bennett Institute for Public Policy Alliance Manchester Business School

The 2024 UK Autumn Budget makes measured progress toward solving the country’s productivity puzzle, with targeted investments in workforce skills and infrastructure. Yet, real productivity gains require more than funding allocations alone. As PA Consulting's CEO Christian Norris argues, sustainable productivity growth depends on a shift towards collaborative approaches that span the public and private sectors, underpinned by digital innovation and regional coordination. This involves centring productivity growth at the heart of the government agenda. To an extent, the budget’s initiatives show early alignment with this. By anchoring productivity objectives within policy frameworks and development plans, the UK has an opportunity to not only address immediate economic pressures but also lay the groundwork for long-term growth and resilience.

“If we have any chance of fixing Canada’s productivity challenge, first we must fix how we talk about it.” This principle of strategic design applies equally to the solutions Canadians deserve to address the crisis in our health care systems. More money, people and facilities alone to simply scale existing models is an extremely costly dead end - it’s how we conceptualize and configure; align scopes and ensure interoperability; communicate, coordinate and integrate across existing and wholly new providers and stakeholders across public, nonprofit social enterprise and private sectors; and leverage advanced technology and analytics to drive accessibility, eliminate considerable waste and create value (health and economic outcomes) that we might just be able to bring about the kind of 21st century health system transformation that we all know - and feel in our bones - is necessary.

The Globe and Mail today published (subscription required) a must-read OpED written by Jim Balsillie (cofounder of Council of Canadian Innovators | Conseil canadien des innovateurs). This should serve as the basis for any public policy on how to solve Canada’s productivity crisis. There are far too many nuggets of gold to list but here are key quotes. “We live in a knowledge economy, where value is derived from intangible assets. This economy is epitomized by the global race for intellectual-property (IP) ownership and control of data, transforming global markets into a new landscape, where ideas are owned, data are the new natural resource and algorithms are the new machinery and equipment. Canadian discourse on productivity and our policy making need to reflect that reality. Instead, discourse on the productivity crisis remains stuck in the 1970s, awash with diagnoses and solutions that have no bearing on what moves the productivity dial in the 21st-century economy. If we have any chance of fixing Canada’s productivity challenge, first we must fix how we talk about it.” “Companies that own valuable IP and have requisite data assets scale more easily, pursue or create new markets more quickly and have the capacity to block new entrants completely, including by acquiring early-stage companies on the cheap. Canada’s businesses own dismal amounts of IP, control dismal stocks of data assets and therefore lack the opportunity to invest gainfully.” “But in the contemporary global economy, simply investing in new equipment and machinery is not a source of productivity gains because the same machinery, equipment and capital are also available to low-cost countries. For Canada, deploying this strategy, let alone with government subsidies, is a race to the economic bottom.” ”Lack of competitive intensity” is not the reality for Canada’s entrepreneurs. They already compete globally and face intense competition, not just from direct competitors but also because of strategic behaviour from smart countries that work hand-in-glove with their industries to advance their economic interests.” https://lnkd.in/gHZjZPQw