This Master Class will review the literature around management and productivity. This is an old research area in economics – the founding president of the American Economic Association, Francis Walker, published a paper in 1887 “On the sources of business profits” in the first year of the QJE on management practices  – but has had a recent revival with many papers in top-5 journals on management in the last few years. To overview this exciting new interest we will focus on five key topics:

1. The concept of productivity: labor and total factor productivity, and some of the basic facts on differences in levels and dispersion across firms and countries.
2. The large-sample work trying to measure and evaluate management practices – both using the World Management Survey and the recent Census MOPS surveys.
3. The recent work on randomized control trials on management practices, trying to evaluate the causal impact and durability of better management practices.
4. Research focusing on individual “managers” (typically CEOs) rather than “management practices” – for example, Jack Welch or Carlos Ghosn rather than firms like Toyota or Walmart.
5. Some of the key outstanding research and policy questions in the field.