Introduction to the Symposium on Productivity and Well-being, Part I

Four of ductivity estimates.3 The only instances these papers are included in this issue of the where the IPM went beyond its focus of IPM as Part I of the Symposium and the analysis of traditional productivity issues remaining three papers will be published as were articles on the relationship between Part II of the Symposium in the next issue labour productivity and real wages.4 in the Fall of 2. [...] A full understanding of ley College, Chair of the Advisory Commit- the complex relationships between these tee of the Bureau of Economic Analysis and concepts, including the tradeoffs and com- a member of the IPM’s International Advi- plementarities, is in its infancy.6 sory Council kindly agreed to join the two The traditional perspective is that pro- editors as a guest editor for the project. [...] 4 See, for example, the symposium on the decoupling of productivity and pay in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the Fall 2021 issue of the International Productivity Monitor and available at as well as earlier article on the issue by Sharpe and Uguccione (2017). [...] Indeed, life satisfaction in the Two of the articles in the symposium United States and other countries has not refer to the efficiency of the generation of increased during the postwar period, yet in- well-being defined as the level of well-being comes have more than doubled. [...] In other words, minants are income inequality, the equiva- all of the 2.0 percentage point fall in liv- lence effect linked to the parameters of the ing standards of the UK population after equivalence scale and family size and com- 2007 is accounted for by the 2.1 percentage position, the share of household income in point drop in productivity growth.