Public sector productivity: Measurement challenges, performance information and prospects for improvement

Abstract

Improving productivity at the organisational level offers the greatest immediate dividends and could successfully cover the largest departments and agencies at the central or national level. For many decades the measurement of government outputs in national statistics and economic accounts used inputs, which assumes that government productivity neither grows nor falls. Modern solutions exist however, that can generate empirically useful metrics of total outputs from which stakeholders could learn key lessons about the productivity of their agencies over time. This article outlines the tools needed to apply these modern solutions and offers recommendations for improving cross-national productivity data for government. JEL Codes: H10, H11, H30