? Productivity is to a great extent a measure of producer surplus. If you can sell something at a higher prices, often that leads to 'greater productivity' whe

? Productivity is to a great extent a measure of producer surplus. If you can sell something at a higher prices, often that leads to 'greater productivity' when really it isn't. So if consumers have more buying power, and we make the same amount and quality of stuff, but sell at lower prices, consumers are getting a better surplus i.e. 'consumer profit' ... then that's where productivity can 'disappear' to. Literally higher standard of living. If we measured in some objective price - or - we just measured in terms of 'quality of things produced' we'd see that better.