Yeah, there&#x27;s a lot of problems with measuring economic productivity. Almost to the point where I wonder if it&#x27;s informative at all. In Australia, we&#x27;ve had a 10 year slump in measured productivity (MFP). During the same period, commodity prices were at all-time historical highs and we were raking in a tonne of national income (as our exports are heavily weighted towards commodities).<p>Guess which sector has been the biggest drag on MFP? Yep. Commodities. Because market prices were so high, it was profitable to throw a crap-load of inputs to extract fairly marginal outputs. Hence the drag on MFP. Now that the &#x27;mining boom&#x27; is over, our national productivity will probably rise while our living standards fall due to the sharp reduction in national net income.<p>Productivity should not be seen as an end in itself, although it seems to dominate political discourse on the economy. I wonder if there are more sensible (and calculable) metrics that we could use...