Is Danielle Wood Australia's most interesting econocrat?
She is tasked with leading the institution trying to solve one of the economy's trickiest challenges. But Dani Wood insists she is up for it.
Danielle Wood is going to make some changes at the Productivity Commission. Wood is upfront about this in an interview with Capital Brief, three months into her five-year term as chair of the economic institution.
Driving this is what she calls a “pretty bad” period for developed economies between the global financial crisis and the COVID pandemic. In Australia, average productivity growth languished at around 1.2% over this time. The 1990s and early-2000s averaged around 2.1%. In the US, average annual productivity growth fell to 1.1% in the past 10 years compared to 1.6% for the two decades prior.
Wood wants to see Australia return to stronger growth over the next decade.
But she has to navigate the tricky task of getting the government to listen to suggestions it might not always want to hear.
