Andrew Bailey, the Bank's governer, said he believes that people are “adaptive creatures”, so many changes that have come about because of the Covid-19 pandemic are unlikely to go away any time soon.
“We do see already evidence of a shift to labour-saving use of digital technology, which in itself raises measured productivity growth,” Bailey told the audience at an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development conference.
“Probably the best example, certainly in the UK, of that is retailing. We saw a 10 percentage point increase in the share of online retailing last year,” he added, also noting that the previous 10-point increase had taken seven years.
“Investment in intellectual property products, things like software and research and development, (is) holding up better than other forms of investment. Now the big question – to which, of course, it’s too soon to provide any firm answer – is to what extent are these changes going to persist...