From the Centre for European Reform, this is the CEO podcast.

It is a critical moment.

If we do not act with urgency, we would then severely undermine the liberal order.

Brexit means Brexit, and we're going to make a success of it.

The wind is back in Europe's sales.

We have now a window of opportunity, but it will not stay open forever.

Joining us on the second episode of the Ditchie podcast is Laurence Boone, Chief Economist

and G20 Finance Deputy at the OECD and Duncan Weldon, economist and writer.

Welcome both of you and thanks for your time. The subject is a big one, but I'm sure we can

shed some light. We're going to talk about what explains the productivity slowdown.

I'd like to start with you, Laurence Pugel.

Why is it an important thing to watch?

So productivity is actually driving living standards

and that you want productivity to be the highest

to lift the wages of everybody. That's the first thing.

The second, I think, is it's effectively gone down. Duncan will give some historical sense,

but in the short term, 95, 2005, productivity growth was plus 2%.

2005, today, productivity growth is close to 0.5%.

And that means lower wages for all those who work.

And the work growth of firms, so lower employment.

I understand that one of the big problems with this debate is

measurement of productivity.

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