T here is little doubt that we are witnessing a technological revolution. The question is, does this technological revolution have revolutionary economic consequences? In particular, is economic productivity growing at a much faster rate today, and if so, will it continue to do so in the future? In this article, we review recent literature on the measurement of productivity growth in the United...

This article provides comments of three conference panel members on the analyses of the productivity adjustment used in the Medicare Economic Index (MEI), and on exploratory estimates of physician-specific productivity measures. Each has a different background and perspective.

The factors that explain differences in the economic productivity of urban areas have remained difficult to measure and identify unambiguously. Here we show that a synthesis of the classical representation of economic activity in a city in terms of a production function, together with a scaling perspective that accounts for the systematic effects of population size, leads to a new expression fo...

Background In the biofuel industry, land productivity is important to feedstock growers and conversion process product yield is important to the biorefinery. The crop productivity, however, may not positively correlate with bioconversion yield. Therefore, it is important to evaluate sugar yield and biomass productivity. In this study, 2-year-old poplar trees harvested in the first coppice cycle...

BACKGROUND There have been only limited studies assessing the economic burden of HIV/AIDS in terms of direct costs, and there has been no published study related to productivity costs in Nepal. Therefore, this study explores in detail the economic burden of HIV/AIDS, including direct costs and productivity costs. This paper focuses on the direct costs of seeking treatment, productivity costs, a...

A detailed retrospective of the Green Revolution, its achievement and limits in terms of agricultural productivity improvement, and its broader impact at social, environmental, and economic levels is provided. Lessons learned and the strategic insights are reviewed as the world is preparing a "redux" version of the Green Revolution with more integrative environmental and social impact combined ...

This article investigates economic performance when enforceable property rights are missing and subsistence needs matter. It shows that if per capita income is sufficiently high, a windfall gain in productivity triggers behavior that leads to higher growth (the normal reaction). The same shock can produce voracious behavior and lower growth when faced by poor economic agents, in particular when...

A techno-economic sensitivity analysis of the production of synthetic natural gas (SNG) via catalytic supercritical water gasification (SCWG) of microalgae produced in raceway ponds (RP), tubular-, or flat-panel-airlift photobioreactors (FPA-PBR) has been perfomed. The aim of combining microalgae production with SCWG is to close material flows with respect to water and nutrients, the so called ...

This paper studies how a politician’s preferences and abilities to influence public and private sector productivity affect her choices over economic policies. Extremism between policies of leftand right-wing incumbents increases with ability, because voters are more willing to re-elect competent politicians. Positive correlations between certain ability dimensions and preferences amplify politi...