Welcome to Institute for Advanced Research on Productivity
This is the beginning of a long project. This site won’t be completed for many years, perhaps a decade or more. Even then, it will always be an active, vibrant source of new ideas and information. That is why a trust was created to fund the operation of this site for decades to come.
It is a long project because it will ultimately contain a great many new ideas about a wide range of topics. Although it’s a lot of information, we will strive to make as much information as possible easily accessible in the form of videos, pictures and audio files.
It is also a long project because we expect there will be little interest in this site—at first. It could be five to ten years before this site picks up significant traffic. However, as the economy goes through the Aftershock, as described in the book by the same name, we expect interest in improving productivity will grow substantially. It will grow slowly at first, but then quite rapidly as it becomes increasingly clear that the only way to grow an economy is by increasing productivity, not by increasing asset bubbles.
Watch Now:
Click on the video to see Bob Wiedemer give you a brief introduction to the site, its purpose and its ideas.
An explanation of why productivity growth is so important to economic growth is given on the “Why Important?” tab on this website. Also available on that tab will be a downloadable section of a chapter from our book Aftershock, called “The Trouble Behind the Bubbles” that discusses this issue in more detail.
This website will focus on the more practical aspects of productivity, as opposed to productivity theory. Specifically, it will discuss how we can improve productivity in each major area of the economy. As we finish a video on improving productivity growth in another sector of the economy, we will add that to the website. We also plan to have MP3 files of each video as well as a transcript to make it easier to search for specific discussion items.
The theoretical basis for productivity growth will be discussed in more detail in the sister website to this one called evolutionaryeconomics.org
The reason for this division is that the theoretical basis for productivity improvement is very much tied to a new economic theory, without which you cannot have a good theoretical basis for productivity growth. A new economic theory is a big topic and worthy of its own web site.
It would also distract form the more “nuts and bolts” focus of this website on just what productivity improvements will look like in areas such as healthcare, education, and agriculture. We want to describe those changes in detail and with pictures (yes, they are worth a thousand words) and that’s a lot to focus on, even for one web site.
We look forward to your feedback on this site and its contents. Feel free to give us a call at 703-787-0139.