Despite the existence of well-developed frameworks
within academic economics for thinking about productivity,
there appears to be no consensus amongst
industry researchers about how to investigate productivity
performance in construction. The seminal
report on The Social and Economic Value of Construction
by David Pearce (2003) cites estimates (O’Mahony
and De Boer, 2002) for labour and total factor productivity
(TFP),1 which suggest that the UKconstruction
industry’s international record on average labour productivity
(ALP) is not as good as its record on TFP.