Definition of "productivity" []

• The quality of being productive. (noun)
• Economics The rate at which goods or services are produced especially output per unit of labor. (noun)
• Ecology The rate at which radiant energy is used by producers to form organic substances as food for consumers. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "No doubt the few percentage point increase in productivity from the slave class make a higher pie, and slightly more than linear growth."
• "Economists always forget that a job with no corresponding increase in productivity is a net loss, it is simply another squirrel hauling walnuts."
• "Using the conventional national economic accounts, we find that the rate of increase in productivity is large enough to account (in the statistical sense) for almost the entire growth of product per capita."