A Retrospective Look at the U.S. Productivity Growth Resurgence (original) (raw)
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Information Technology and U.S. Productivity Growth
Industrial Productivity in Europe Growth and Crisis, 2010
The rapid productivity growth in the US during the Information Age, prior to the dot-com bust in 2000, and the large contribution of the IT producing sector, is well known. Less known are the sources of the surprisingly rapid TFP growth during the slow growth period after 2000. We construct an account of US economic growth by aggregating over detailed industries using a new data set based on the NAICS classification. We find that, post 2000, TFP originating from the IT-Producing sector decelerated relative to the IT boom, but still accounted for 40% of aggregate productivity growth. This deceleration was counterbalanced by the contribution from IT-Using sectors, which buoyed aggregate TFP growth to almost the same rate as the 1995-2000 period. For aggregate GDP, the contributions to the growth rate of 2.8% during 2000-2007 were: capital input (1.7% points), labor input (0.4) and TFP (0.7).
Journal of Productivity Analysis, 2011
The rapid productivity growth in the US during the Information Age, prior to the dot-com bust in 2000, and the large contribution of the IT producing sector, is well known. Less known are the sources of the surprisingly rapid TFP growth during the slow growth period after 2000. We construct an account of US economic growth by aggregating over detailed industries using a new data set based on the NAICS classification. We find that, post 2000, TFP originating from the IT-Producing sector decelerated relative to the IT boom, but still accounted for 40% of aggregate productivity growth. This deceleration was counterbalanced by the contribution from IT-Using sectors, which buoyed aggregate TFP growth to almost the same rate as the 1995-2000 period. For aggregate GDP, the contributions to the growth rate of 2.8% during 2000-2007 were: capital input (1.7% points), labor input (0.4) and TFP (0.7).
Projecting Productivity Growth: Lessons from the US Growth Resurgence
The New Economy and Beyond, 2006
This paper analyzes the sources of U.S. labor productivity growth in the post-1995 period and presents projections for both output and labor productivity growth for the next decade. Despite the recent downward revisions to U.S. GDP and software investment, we show that information technology (IT) played a substantial role in the U.S. productivity revival. We then outline a methodology for projecting trend output and productivity growth. Our base-case projection puts the rate of trend productivity growth at 2.21% per year over the next decade with a range of 1.33-2.92%, reflecting fundamental uncertainties about the rate of technological progress in IT-production and investment patterns. Our central projection is only slightly below the average growth rate of 2.36% during the 1995-2000 period.
Potential Growth of the US Economy: Will the Productivity Resurgence Continue
Business Economics, 2006
This paper analyzes the sources of U.S. productivity growth through 2004 and presents medium-term projections for the U.S. economy. We attribute a substantial portion of productivity gains over the past decade to production and use of information technology equipment and software. In the most recent years, we also identify a growing contribution from sources outside the technology- producing sectors. Our base-case projection for the GDP growth rate is almost exactly three percent. We emphasize the substantial range of uncertainty by presenting an optimistic projection of 3.5 percent and a pessimistic projection of only 1.9 percent.
Will the U.S. Productivity Resurgence Continue?
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
S. productivity growth has accelerated in recent years, despite a series of negative economic shocks. An analysis of the sources of this growth over the 1995-2003 period suggests that the production and use of information technology account for a large share of the gains. The authors project that during the next decade, private sector productivity growth will continue at a rate of 2.6 percent per year, a significant increase from their 2002 projection of 2.2 percent growth.
ICT-specific technological change and productivity growth in the US 1980-2004
2008
This paper studies the impact of the information and communication technologies (ICT) on U.S. economic growth using a dynamic general equilibrium approach. We use a production function with six different capital inputs, three of them corresponding to ICT assets and other three to non-ICT assets. We find that the technological change embedded in hardware equipment is the main leading non-neutral force of the U.S. productivity growth and accounts for about one quarter of it during the period 1980-2004. As a whole, ICT-specific technological change accounts for about 35% of total labor productivity growth. JEL classification: E22, O30, O40.
The Canadian Journal of Economics / Revue canadienne d'Economique, 1999
This paper examines trends in computer usage and the effect on productivity growth for a cross-industry panel of firms during the period 1977-93. We link firm-level computer asset and financial data from a variety of public and private data sources, including Computer Intelligence (a market research firm), the Census Bureau's Enterprise and Auxiliary Establishment Surveys, and Compustat. We find that computers--especially personal computers--contributed positively to productivity growth and yielded excess returns relative to non-computer capital, providing further evidence refuting the Information Productivity Paradox. These results appear robust with respect to econometric specifications and to choice of data. Moreover, our results suggest that the excess returns from computers first increased and then decreased over our sample period, and reached a peak in 1986 or 1987. In addition, we find evidence that computers are complementary with skilled labor and that they help reduce inventory levels.