The NERI webinar 'Northern Ireland's Productivity Challenge: Exploring the issues' took place as a Zoom webinar on Wednesday 16th March 2022 at 14:30. Dr. David Jordan, Research Fellow, Queen's Management School, Queen's University Belfast
Abstract:
Productivity has been identified as central to explaining Northern Ireland’s persistent economic underperformance. Northern Ireland has the lowest productivity of any UK region, at almost 20% below the UK level. This productivity gap has widened over the past decade, with Northern Ireland also falling further behind both the Republic of Ireland and the EU average.
A number of potential explanations for this productivity gap have been identified, but existing research has predominately examined these in isolation. Explanations include a higher concentration of low productivity sectors, geographic peripherality, an infrastructure gap, low levels of investment in research and development, and low levels of human capital. There is also evidence to suggest public policy, and institutions and governance, contribute to the productivity gap.
The evidence demonstrates there is no single explanation for Northern Ireland’s productivity gap. While both structural and peripherality problems exist, neither mean low productivity is an inevitable outcome. The areas of investment, human capital, and infrastructure all display deficiencies, which suggests there is scope for policy to correct these failures. Coordinated policy interventions across several areas are therefore needed, alongside a greater understanding of why past policies have been ineffective, including the role of political institutions, if Northern Ireland’s productivity challenge is to be met.
Webinar Format:
Dr. David Jordan (Queen's Management School) presented on joint research done with Professor John Turner (Queen's Management School) on the findings of their paper titled 'Northern Ireland’s Productivity Challenge: Exploring the issues'. The paper is available here.
The paper was written for The Productivity Institute, which is a UK-wide organisation that works across academia, business and policy to better understand, measure and enable productivity across the UK, and is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
NERI Co-director, Paul Mac Flynn responded to the presentation. The discussion was then open to the attendees and the chairperson, Dr. Tom McDonnell, NERI collected questions and presented them to Dr. David Jordan and Professor John Turner. Please find the video here.