Resolution Foundation / CEP Seminar

Decoupling of Wage Growth and Productivity Growth? Myth and Reality

Speaker: Professor John Van Reenen, Director, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Respondents:
Jared Bernstein, Senior Fellow at the US Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities and former Chief Economist and Economic Advisor to Vice President Joe Biden
Lane Kenworthy, Professor of Sociology and Political Science at the University of Arizona and author of Progress for the Poor and Jobs with Equality

Date: Monday 21 November 2011

Time: 5.15pm for 5.30pm start

Venue: CEP Conference Room, R405, 4th Floor, LSE Research Lab, Lionel Robbins Building, Portugal Street, London WC2A 2AE (map & directions)

!! Places are strictly limited - for more information please contact Jo Cantlay at j.m.cantlay@lse.ac.uk !!

Overview: The focus of the discussion will be on the relationship between productivity and wages. The Resolution Foundation has supported this work in order to bring greater precision to the idea of a ‘decoupling’ of economic growth and material wellbeing – an idea that has risen to particular prominence in the United States. Specifically, Professor Van Reenen’s paper sets out to define different types of ‘decoupling’ which have and have not taken place in the US and UK economies. By looking across different economic definitions and datasets, it seeks to pinpoint more precisely the way in which the relationship between growth and material wellbeing has and has not changed over time.