In September 2026, Reuters reported that an International Monetary Fund (IMF) paper presented to European finance ministers estimated that artificial intelligence could raise European productivity by about 1% over five years. The estimate is meaningful but modest enough to challenge unrealistic expectations. In a speech accompanying the analysis, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva argued that productivity gains depend on organisations redesigning products, processes and workflows rather than simply adding

The version of NBER Working Paper 35275 circulated in the newsletter received on 1 June 2026 studies AI coding tools using data on more than 100,000 GitHub developers and their tool usage. Its matched event-study analysis finds substantial increases in coding activity, with smaller gains as the outcome moves from commits to projects and actual releases. This article concerns that archived version. The NBER page subsequently lists a September

Are you ending the weeks tired, with brain overload? The mental load resulting from telework is the consequence of multiple tasks not completed or lacking their usual quality. How can you minimise this effect, enjoy your weekend and be back on form Monday morning? I invite you to declare Friday afternoon a protected zone. No meetings, no conference calls, no emails… only time dedicated to baseline tasks with a

Why talk about productivity? We have a clear business challenge in the UK. Productivity is a major issue for Government and Philip Hammond devoted his first Budget speech as Chancellor of the Exchequer (Minister of Finance) in 2017 to addressing it.1