Priorities and Directions for Future Productivity Research: An OECD Perspective

This article puts forward three priority areas for future productivity research. It first identifies important data gaps related to non-produced, non-financial assets such as land and sub-soil assets as the exclusion of these assets can lead to biased multifactor productivity growth estimates. It then highlights the health and education sectors as a focus for future productivity research, given the challenges of capturing quality change in these sectors as well as the public provision of much of the output and absence of market prices. Finally, it points out that research is needed on the implications of globalization on productivity measurement, giving the example of intellectual property, which is produced in one country, but used in many.