The UK has experienced a "lost decade" for productivity, with no increase in production efficiency between 2007 and 2017. Beware those who tell you they know the answer to our longstanding productivity woes. It is a highly complex question and there is no consensus on the precise causes, or what we should prioritise to solve the problem. Yet the bald facts are indisputable. In 2015, this country's output was just 76% of the level in the US, and well behind that of most of our other major competitors in the global marketplace.

Artificial intelligence could be the most revolutionary force affecting productivity in the United States economy, says the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. "Everyone in Silicon Valley thinks statisticians are mis-measuring the productivity provided by the internet, but it's not that," says John C. Williams, on a trip to Sydney this week. "Instead, the technologies that we now use and love mostly affect our consumption of leisure rather than affect our output in factories or offices." Positive data showing the US economy is nearing full employment and that inflation is edging higher prompted the US central bank to recently raise interest rates for the second time in three months. The US Fed also announced it will push ahead with plans to gradually shrink its $US4.5 trillion ($6 trillion) bond portfolio.