General Purpose Technologies
Abstract
Electricity and Information Technology (IT) are perhaps the two most important general purpose technologies (GPTs) to date. We analyze how the U.S. economy reacted to them. The Electricity and IT eras are similar, but also differ in several important ways. Electrification was more broadly adopted, whereas IT seems to be technologically more "revolutionary." The productivity slowdown is stronger in the IT era but the ongoing spread of IT and its continuing precipitous price decline are reasons for optimism about growth in the 21st century.Download Info
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 11093.Length:
Date of creation: Jan 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11093
Note: DAE EFG PR
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Keywords:Other versions of this item:
- Jovanovic, Boyan & Rousseau, Peter L., 2005. "General Purpose Technologies," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 18, pages 1181-1224 Elsevier.
- Peter L. Rousseau & Boyan Jovanovic, 2004. "General Purpose Technologies," 2004 Meeting Papers 103, Society for Economic Dynamics.
- O3 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change; Research and Development; Intellectual Property Rights
- N2 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2005-02-01 (All new papers)
- NEP-BEC-2005-02-01 (Business Economics)
- NEP-DEV-2005-02-01 (Development)
- NEP-ENE-2005-02-01 (Energy Economics)
- NEP-INO-2005-02-01 (Innovation)
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