Productivity Bootcamp

September 30 – October 1, 2015 

Productivity growth drives economies forward and is thus critical to achieving the World Bank Group’s mission of eliminating extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity. As Paul Krugman famously asserted: "Productivity isn't everything, but, in the long run, it is almost everything. A country's ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker.”

To explore the critical role that productivity plays in promoting equitable growth and trade, the World Bank Group would like to invite you to join us for a productivity “boot camp” on September 30 and October 1. Across an intensive day and half, we will review recent literature and techniques that can help in conducting sound productivity diagnostics and in developing evidence based policy aimed at such tasks as enhancing firms’ internal capabilities, improving overall allocative efficiency, and facilitating access to international markets.

We are fortunate to have enlisted three highly regarded scholars on productivity: John Haltiwanger, Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland; Jan De Loecker, Distinguished University Professor of Economics and International Affairs in the Department of Economics at Princeton University; and Chad Syverson, the J. Baum Harris Professor of Economics in the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. Marcela Eslava, Associate Professor from Universidad de Los Andes and one of the top firm dynamics and productivity scholars in Latin America will conclude discussing the research challenges of working with existing firm-level data in LDC’s. The preliminary schedule is below.