In 1989, the MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity produced the Made in America report. One of the recommendations of Made in America was to establish the Industrial Performance Center (IPC) to carry on the interdisciplinary investigations of industrial productivity, innovation, and competitiveness that the Commission had begun. Established in 1991, with the help of a major grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the IPC has brought together faculty and students from all five MIT Schools in research collaborations on industry. Since its inception, the faculty, students and affiliates of the IPC have produced numerous books, articles, papers and other publications that have advanced the understanding of strategic, technological, and organizational developments in a broad range of industries.

Article | October 9, 2023

How American Adults Obtain Work Skills: Results of a New National Survey
Paul Osterman

Osterman is the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Professor of Human Resources and Management at MIT Sloan, as well as a member of the Department of Urban Planning.

Employer-provided training is an important determinant of economic outcomes, yet our understanding of its extent and distribution is well out of date—with the most recent national survey being from 2008. This article updates our understanding of employer-provided training.

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Article | September 24, 2023

A Smarter Strategy for Using Robots
Ben Armstrong

Ben Armstrong is Executive Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

Julie Shah

Julie Shah is Faculty Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

Despite advances in automation technology, the promise of productive and flexible automation, with minimal involvement of human workers, is far from reality, for two main reasons. First, adoption of automation technology has been limited. Second, when firms do automate, what they gain in productivity they tend to lose in process flexibility, resulting in what the […]

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Report | September 1, 2023

Building the Infrastructure for Innovation: Three Lessons from the CHIPS and Science Act
Ben Armstrong

Ben Armstrong is Executive Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

Bill Bonvillian

Richard Roth

A spotlight is on the U.S. semiconductor industry. After decades of decline, there is a wave of new investment from private industry and the federal government to jumpstart domestic chipmaking with the goal of making U.S. semiconductor production more cost competitive and technologically advanced. Whereas the United States did not have any chipmaking capacity at […]

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Working Paper | July 24, 2023

Radical Technological Innovations and How to Promote Them
Florian Metzler

Florian Metzler is a Research Scientist at the IPC, where he leads the Progress Studies program.

New technologies that exhibit large (>10x) jumps in performance limits compared to incumbent technologies are radical technological innovations. This paper considers three cases that exhibit such jumps: the evolution of engines from the early 18th to the late 20th century (with the transition from coal-based steam engines to hydrocarbon-based internal combustion engines); the evolution of […]

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Book | March 6, 2023

Learning by Building: Complementary Assets and the Migration of Capabilities in U.S. Innovative Firms
Elisabeth B. Reynolds

Executive Director, MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future; Executive Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center; Principal Research Scientist; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Hiram Samel

Joyce Lawrence

As policymakers in the United States debate how the economy can regain its vitality following the Great Recession, many see innovation as the key to prosperity.

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Report | August 8, 2022

Where are the Good Jobs in Manufacturing?
Ben Armstrong

Ben Armstrong is Executive Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

American manufacturing has experienced a new wave of energy and investment. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, market demand for U.S. manufacturing has grown, and new policies like the CHIPS and Science Act have dedicated new public investment to the future of domestic production. Despite this momentum, manufacturers have faced a persistent challenge as […]

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Article | March 21, 2022

Unraveling the Silicon Valley Consensus
Ben Armstrong

Ben Armstrong is Executive Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

The Silicon Valley Consensus is that innovative cities grow faster than non-innovative ones—but that’s not always the case.

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Article | March 21, 2022

Why Innovation Hubs Fail
Ben Armstrong

Ben Armstrong is Executive Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

Successful innovation hubs depend on who is leading, and how.

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Article | March 21, 2022

Industrial Policy and Local Economic Transformation: Evidence From the U.S. Rust Belt
Ben Armstrong

Ben Armstrong is Executive Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

State and local governments frequently invest in policies aimed at stimulating the growth of new industries, but studies of industrial policy and related economic development initiatives cast doubt on their effectiveness.

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Article | March 21, 2022

The Puzzle of the Missing Robots
Suzanne Berger

Suzanne Berger is the John M. Deutch Institute Professor of Political Science at MIT.

Ben Armstrong

Ben Armstrong is Executive Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

Robots in particular are the object of public concerns about employment. But in most American manufacturing plants—particularly small and medium firms.

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Report | March 21, 2022

The Work of the Future: Shaping Technology and Institutions
David Autor

David Autor is Ford Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, co-director of the NBER Labor Studies Program, and co-leader of both the MIT Work of the Future Task Force and the JPAL Work of the Future experimental initiative.

David Mindell

David Mindell, an engineer and historian, is Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing at MIT.

Elisabeth B. Reynolds

Executive Director, MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future; Executive Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center; Principal Research Scientist; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Economic and social disruptions often accompanied changes, with painful and lasting results for workers, their families, and communities. Along the way, valuable skills, industries, and ways of life were lost.

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Book | January 10, 2022

The Work of the Future, Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines
Elisabeth B. Reynolds

Executive Director, MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future; Executive Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center; Principal Research Scientist; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

David Autor

David Autor is Ford Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, co-director of the NBER Labor Studies Program, and co-leader of both the MIT Work of the Future Task Force and the JPAL Work of the Future experimental initiative.

David Mindell

David Mindell, an engineer and historian, is Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing at MIT.

Why the United States lags behind other industrialized countries in sharing the benefits of innovation with workers and how we can remedy the problem.

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