Productivity—i.e., the output per person, driven by learning, building, and inventiveness—has steadily improved over time. However, it has risen at different rates for different people, though always for the same reasons—because of the quality of people’s education, inventiveness, work ethic, and economic systems to turn ideas into output. These reasons are important for policy makers to understand in order to achieve the best possible outcomes for their countries, and for investors and companies to understand in order to determine where the best long-term investments are.
