At MIT Sloan School of Management, Van Reenen explores the impact of technology on society, how people work, and how productivity can be manipulated: “If you can increase productivity, you can increase the size of the economic pie, and that leaves more money to spend on people’s wages or incomes or even on public spending.” According to Van Reenen, anxiety centers around whether there will be enough jobs. But unemployment hasn’t increased as technology has improved. Therefore, we should be thinking instead of how we work – especially whether it will provide “enough income for people to live a good life.”
The renowned economist suggests new technologies are adapted by companies as economic situations improve; how and whether they are used to increase productivity is a management issue. 30% of productivity differences are due to management practices, according to Van Reenen. In this video and at the Academy of Behavioral Economics in January 2019, he explains how to improve those practices and why a willingness to consider foreign investment is an important factor:
John van Reenen is Professor of Management and Economics at MIT Sloan School of Management and speaker at the Academy of Behavioral Economics, which will take place at the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute on 30 January 2019.