IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwrup/83en.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Productivity Growth, Investment, and Secular Stagnation

Author

Listed:
  • Guido Baldi
  • Patrick Harms

Abstract

In many advanced economies, the economic recovery from the financial crisis has been sluggish. In light of these developments, it has been argued by various economists that economic growth per capita has already been on a downward trend since the 1980s. Studies suggest that this is largely due to low productivity growth. While factors of production such as labor and capital are being used more productively than ever, growth has been slow in the past years by historical standards. In parallel to this low productivity growth, corporate investment in many countries has been subdued, especially since the financial crisis. In light of recent developments, low growth rates for gross domestic product, investment, and productivity are often predicted for the years ahead. This has prompted some economists to speak of a possible period of secular—i.e., long-lasting—stagnation. A detailed discussion has emerged among scientists and policy advisors about the possible causes of weak economic growth and the appropriate policy measures to prevent secular stagnation from happening. Better incentives for higher private investment, increased public investment, and promoting education are often mentioned as suitable policy measures to stimulate economic growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Guido Baldi & Patrick Harms, 2015. "Productivity Growth, Investment, and Secular Stagnation," DIW Roundup: Politik im Fokus 83, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
  • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwrup:83en
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.519404.de/DIW_Roundup_83_en.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert J. Gordon, 2012. "Is U.S. Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the Six Headwinds," NBER Working Papers 18315, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Era Dabla-Norris & Si Guo & Vikram Haksar & Minsuk Kim & Kalpana Kochhar & Kevin Wiseman & Aleksandra Zdzienicka, 2015. "The New Normal; A Sector-level Perspective on Productivity Trends in Advanced Economies," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 15/3, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Guido Baldi & Ferdinand Fichtner & Claus Michelsen & Malte Rieth, 2014. "Weak Investment Dampens Europe’s Growth," DIW Economic Bulletin, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 4(7), pages 8-21.
    4. Robert J. Gordon, 2015. "Secular Stagnation: A Supply-Side View," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 54-59, May.
    5. Jones, C.I., 2016. "The Facts of Economic Growth," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 3-69, Elsevier.
    6. Barry Eichengreen, 2015. "Secular Stagnation: The Long View," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 66-70, May.
    7. Guido Baldi & Patrick Harms, 2014. "The New Growth Debate," DIW Roundup: Politik im Fokus 18, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    8. Robert J. Gordon, 2014. "The Demise of U.S. Economic Growth: Restatement, Rebuttal, and Reflections," NBER Working Papers 19895, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Joel Mokyr & Chris Vickers & Nicolas L. Ziebarth, 2015. "The History of Technological Anxiety and the Future of Economic Growth: Is This Time Different?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(3), pages 31-50, Summer.
    10. Stefan Bach & Guido Baldi & Kerstin Bernoth & Björn Bremer & Beatrice Farkas & Ferdinand Fichtner & Marcel Fratzscher & Martin Gornig, 2013. "More Growth through Higher Investment," DIW Economic Bulletin, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 3(8), pages 5-16.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Guido Baldi & Patrick Harms, 2017. "The Natural Rate of Interest and Secular Stagnation," DIW Roundup: Politik im Fokus 110, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Guido Baldi & Patrick Harms, 2015. "Produktivitätswachstum, Investitionen und säkulare Stagnation," DIW Roundup: Politik im Fokus 83, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    2. Gilbert Cette & Rémy Lecat & Carole Ly-Marin, 2017. "Long-term growth and productivity projections in advanced countries," OECD Journal: Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2016(1), pages 71-90.
    3. Daniele, Vittorio, 2015. "Una stagnazione secolare? Italia, Giappone, Stati Uniti, 1950-2015 [Towards a secular stagnation? Italy, Japan, United States, 1950-2015]," MPRA Paper 69997, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Giovanna Ciaffi & Matteo Deleidi & Stefano Di Bucchianico, 2022. "Stagnation despite ongoing innovation: Is R&D expenditure composition a missing link? An empirical analysis for the US (1948-2019)," Department of Economics University of Siena 877, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    5. Lichtblau, Karl & Bähr, Cornelius & Millack, Agnes & van Baal, Sebastian & aus dem Moore, Nils & Korfhage, Thorben, 2015. "Zukunft von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft unter Minimalwachstumsbedingungen: Begründungsmuster, Folgen, Handlungsoptionen," RWI Projektberichte, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, number 123324.
    6. Komlos John, 2016. "Has Creative Destruction become more Destructive?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(4), pages 1-12, October.
    7. Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke, 2015. "Economic Impossibilities for our Grandchildren?," NBER Working Papers 21807, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Arntz, Melanie & Gregory, Terry & Zierahn, Ulrich, 2019. "Digitalization and the Future of Work: Macroeconomic Consequences," IZA Discussion Papers 12428, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Lange, Steffen & Pütz, Peter & Kopp, Thomas, 2018. "Do Mature Economies Grow Exponentially?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 123-133.
    10. Guido Baldi & Patrick Harms, 2017. "The Natural Rate of Interest and Secular Stagnation," DIW Roundup: Politik im Fokus 110, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    11. Davide Gualerzi, 2020. "Secular Stagnation Revisited," Bulletin of Political Economy, Bulletin of Political Economy, vol. 14(1), pages 55-79, June.
    12. Duttagupta, Rupa & Narita, Futoshi, 2017. "Emerging and developing economies: Entering a rough patch or protracted low gear?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 680-698.
    13. Peter Flaschel & Sigrid Luchtenberg & Hagen Kramer & Christian Proano & Mark Setterfield, 2021. "Contemporary Macroeconomic Outcomes: A Tragedy in Three Acts," Working Papers 2105, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    14. Klaus Gründler & Niklas Potrafke, 2023. "Population Aging, Retirement, and Aggregate Productivity," CESifo Working Paper Series 10594, CESifo.
    15. Andrea Borsato, 2021. "Does the Secular Stagnation hypothesis match with data? Evidence from USA," Working Papers of BETA 2021-11, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    16. Di Bucchianico, Stefano, 2020. "Discussing Secular Stagnation: A case for freeing good ideas from theoretical constraints?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 288-297.
    17. Gabriele Fiorentini & Alessandro Galesi & Gabriel Pérez-Quirós & Enrique Sentana, 2018. "The rise and fall of the natural interest rate," Working Papers 1822, Banco de España.
    18. Mengheng Li & Ivan Mendieta‐Muñoz, 2020. "Are long‐run output growth rates falling?," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(1), pages 204-234, February.
    19. Singh, Anuraag & Triulzi, Giorgio & Magee, Christopher L., 2021. "Technological improvement rate predictions for all technologies: Use of patent data and an extended domain description," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(9).
    20. Perotti, Enrico & Döttling, Robin, 2017. "Secular Trends and Technological Progress," CEPR Discussion Papers 12519, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:diw:diwrup:83en. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diwbede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.