IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Login to save this paper or follow this series

A retrospective look at the U.S. productivity growth resurgence

Author Info

  • Dale W. Jorgenson
  • Mun S. Ho
  • Kevin J. Stiroh

Abstract

It is now widely recognized that information technology (IT) was critical to the dramatic acceleration of U.S. labor productivity growth in the mid-1990s. This paper traces the evolution of productivity estimates to document how and when this perception emerged. Early studies concluded that IT was relatively unimportant. It was only after the massive IT investment boom of the late 1990s that this investment and underlying productivity increases in the IT-producing sectors were identified as important sources of growth. Although IT has diminished in significance since the dot-com crash of 2000, we project that private sector productivity growth will average around 2.5 percent per year for the next decade, a pace that is only moderately below the average for the 1995-2005 period.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr277.html
Download Restriction: no
File URL: http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr277.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of New York in its series Staff Reports with number 277.

as
in new window

Length:
Date of creation: 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:277
Contact details of provider: Postal: 33 Liberty Street, New York, NY 10045-0001
Web page: http://www.newyorkfed.org/Email:


More information through EDIRC

Order Information: Web: http://www.ny.frb.org/rmaghome/staff_rp/ Email:


Keywords: Information technology ; Labor productivity;

Other versions of this item:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as in new window
  1. Athanasios Orphanides & David H. Small & Volker Wieland & David W. Wilcox, 1997. "A quantitative exploration of the opportunistic approach to disinflation," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1997-36, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  2. Joseph H. Haimowitz, 1998. "Has the surge in computer spending fundamentally changed the economy?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Q II, pages 27-42.
  3. Karl Whelan, 2002. "Computers, Obsolescence, And Productivity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(3), pages 445-461, August.
  4. L. Slifman & C. Corrado, 1996. "Decomposition of productivity and unit costs," Staff Studies 1, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  5. Carol A. Corrado & Charles R. Hulten & Daniel E. Sichel, 2006. "Intangible Capital and Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 11948, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. Gordon, Robert J, 2000. "Does the 'New Economy' Measure up to the Great Inventions of the Past?," CEPR Discussion Papers 2607, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  7. Stephen D. Oliner & Daniel E. Sichel, 2002. "Information technology and productivity: where are we now and where are we going?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2002-29, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  8. Martin N. Baily & Robert Lawrence, 2001. "Do We Have A New E-Conomy?," NBER Working Papers 8243, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. Rochelle M. Edge & Thomas Laubach & John C. Williams, 2004. "Learning and shifts in long-run productivity growth," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-21, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  10. Orphanides, Athanasios & Wilcox, David W, 2002. "The Opportunistic Approach to Disinflation," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(1), pages 47-71, Spring.
  11. Kevin J. Stiroh, 1998. "Long-Run Growth Projections And The Aggregate Production Function: A Survey Of Models Used By The U.S. Government," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 16(4), pages 467-479, October.
  12. Dale W. Jorgenson & Kevin J. Stiroh, 2000. "Raising the Speed Limit: US Economic Growth in the Information Age," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 261, OECD Publishing.
  13. S. Black & L. Lynch, 1997. "How to compete: the impact of workplace practices and information technology on productivity," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20298, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  14. Susanto Basu & John G. Fernald & Nicholas Oulton & Sylaja Srinivasan, 2003. "The Case of the Missing Productivity Growth: Or, Does Information technology explain why productivity accelerated in the United States but not the United Kingdom?," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2021, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  15. Dale W. Jorgenson, 2001. "Information Technology and the U. S. Economy," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1911, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  16. Stephen D. Oliner & Daniel E. Sichel, 1994. "Computers and Output Growth Revisited: How Big Is the Puzzle?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 25(2), pages 273-334.
  17. Kevin J. Stiroh, 2002. "Information Technology and the U.S. Productivity Revival: What Do the Industry Data Say?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1559-1576, December.
  18. Erik Brynjolfsson & Lorin M. Hitt, 2003. "Computing Productivity: Firm-Level Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 793-808, November.
  19. Stephanie Aaronson & Bruce Fallick & Andrew Figura & Jonathan Pingle & William Wascher, 2006. "The Recent Decline in the Labor Force Participation Rate and Its Implications for Potential Labor Supply," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 37(1), pages 69-154.
  20. Ana Aizcorbe & Stephen D Oliner & Daniel E Sichel, 2008. "Shifting Trends in Semiconductor Prices and the Pace of Technological Progress," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 43(3), pages 23-39, July.
  21. Dale W Jorgenson & Mun S Ho & Kevin J Stiroh, 2006. "Potential Growth of the U.S. Economy: Will the Productivity Resurgence Continue?," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 41(1), pages 7-16, January.
  22. Susanto Basu & John G. Fernald, 2008. "Information and communications technology as a general purpose technology: evidence from U.S. industry data," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 1-15.
  23. Ramon Gomez-Salvador & Alberto Musso & Marc Stocker & Jarkko Turunen, 2006. "Labour productivity developments in the euro area," Occasional Paper Series 53, European Central Bank.
  24. Robert Inklaar & Marcel P. Timmer & Bart van Ark, 2008. "Market services productivity across Europe and the US," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 23, pages 139-194, 01.
  25. Ho, Mun & Jorgenson, Dale & Stiroh, Kevin, 2002. "Projecting Productivity Growth: Lessons from the U.S. Growth Resurgence," Discussion Papers dp-02-42, Resources For the Future.
  26. Martin Neil Baily & Robert J. Gordon, 1988. "The Productivity Slowdown, Measurement Issues, and the Explosion of Computer Power," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(2), pages 347-432.
  27. Carl E. Walsh, 1999. "Projecting budget surpluses," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue sep10.
  28. Timothy F. Bresnahan & Erik Brynjolfsson & Lorin M. Hitt, 1999. "Information Technology, Workplace Organization and the Demand for Skilled Labor: Firm-Level Evidence," NBER Working Papers 7136, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  29. Dale W. Jorgenson, 2001. "Information Technology and the U.S. Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 1-32, March.
  30. repec:cup:cbooks:9780521198875 is not listed on IDEAS
  31. Thomas N. Hubbard, 2003. "Information, Decisions, and Productivity: On-Board Computers and Capacity Utilization in Trucking," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1328-1353, September.
  32. Philippe Aghion & Peter Howitt, 2006. "Joseph Schumpeter Lecture Appropriate Growth Policy: A Unifying Framework," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(2-3), pages 269-314, 04-05.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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

as in new window


Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:277. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Amy Farber)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.