Recent Productivity Growth: The Role of Information Technology and Other Innovations

نویسنده

  • Martin N. Baily
چکیده

I am pleased to be talking about one of the truly salient issues for the economy today to such a distinguished audience. The acceleration in productivity growth since the mid-1990s has been an exceptionally important development for the U.S. economy. My remarks are going to run somewhat contrary to the view that information technology has been the overwhelming impetus to the acceleration in productivity growth in recent years. While technology and in particular information technology (IT) are obviously very important drivers of productivity, I want to make the case that perhaps they have been overemphasized in the literature. This might sound a little subversive in the context of this conference; but it really is not, since my comments are entirely consistent with the broader theme running through the sessions, that productivity is linked to innovation. A considerably less controversial point now is that productivity growth has accelerated. Obviously, there was a period when we wondered if the increase in productivity growth starting in the mid-1990s was just a cyclical effect. Now that concern seems to have gone away, in part because measured productivity growth now is even faster than it was from 1995 to 2000. Whether that will survive data revisions and changes in measurement methodologies remains to be seen. However, unless there are drastic revisions, it certainly looks as if the higher rate of productivity growth is staying around for a while.1 Has the Contribution of IT Been Overstated?

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تاریخ انتشار 2004