In
general, productivity measures the effectiveness or efficiency of productive
effort. Productivity can be measured in many different ways. Physical
productivity measures the actual amount of a good or service produced (eg. tons
of steel, or number of haircuts).
Productivity can also be measured in
terms of the value of output. Most commonly, productivity is measured as the
amount of output produced over a certain period of work (e g. output per hour);
this is considered a measure of labour productivity. But other approaches are
also possible, including measurements of capital productivity (output relative
to the value or physical quantity of invested capital) and “total factor
productivity” (which is an abstract statistical measurement of the overall
effectiveness of production).