Understanding Productivity, book launch, 5pm Monday 24 August

The University of Technology Sydney invites you to the launch of Understanding Productivity, a new international collection of essays edited by Roy Green and Phillip Toner (Routledge, 2026).

Productivity growth has slowed across the advanced economies, even as technology has grown more powerful. The reasons sit inside a black box that is rarely opened: how productivity is defined and measured, what happens inside firms and workplaces, and the industrial structure beneath it all.

Understanding Productivity opens that box. It brings together leading international contributors across the contested terrain of productivity, from measurement and business dynamism to research and innovation, management quality, workplace relations and climate change, spanning mainstream economic analysis through to institutional and political economy.

Hear directly from the editors, Emeritus Professor Roy Green AM of UTS and Dr Phillip Toner of the University of Sydney, on the argument at the heart of the book. They will then be joined by Professor David Peetz of Griffith University and Dr Aruna Sathanapally, Chief Executive of the Grattan Institute, for a panel moderated by Ingrid Marsh, followed by audience questions and networking.

The aim of the evening is to open the productivity black box and help shape new thinking on productivity in the Australian economy.

Read more about the book and where to find it on the Routledge Website