Robert J. Gordon
Robert J. Gordon is a person.
References
2012
- (Gordon, 2012) ⇒ Robert J. Gordon. (2012). “Is U.S. Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the Six Headwinds." U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 18315
- ABSTRACT: This paper raises basic questions about the process of economic growth. It questions the assumption, nearly universal since Solow’s seminal contributions of the 1950s, that economic growth is a continuous process that will persist forever. There was virtually no growth before 1750, and thus there is no guarantee that growth will continue indefinitely. Rather, the paper suggests that the rapid progress made over the past 250 years could well turn out to be a unique episode in human history. The paper is only about the United States and views the future from 2007 while pretending that the financial crisis did not happen. Its point of departure is growth in per-capita real GDP in the frontier country since 1300, the U.K. until 1906 and the U.S. afterwards. Growth in this frontier gradually accelerated after 1750, reached a peak in the middle of the 20th century, and has been slowing down since. The paper is about “how much further could the frontier growth rate decline?”
The analysis links periods of slow and rapid growth to the timing of the three industrial revolutions (IR’s), that is, IR #1 (steam, railroads) from 1750 to 1830; IR #2 (electricity, internal combustion engine, running water, indoor toilets, communications, entertainment, chemicals, petroleum) from 1870 to 1900; and IR #3 (computers, the web, mobile phones) from 1960 to present. It provides evidence that IR #2 was more important than the others and was largely responsible for 80 years of relatively rapid productivity growth between 1890 and 1972. Once the spin-off inventions from IR #2 (airplanes, air conditioning, interstate highways) had run their course, productivity growth during 1972-96 was much slower than before. In contrast, IR #3 created only a short-lived growth revival between 1996 and 2004. Many of the original and spin-off inventions of IR #2 could happen only once – urbanization, transportation speed, the freedom of females from the drudgery of carrying tons of water per year, and the role of central heating and air conditioning in achieving a year-round constant temperature.
Even if innovation were to continue into the future at the rate of the two decades before 2007, the U.S. faces six headwinds that are in the process of dragging long-term growth to half or less of the 1.9 percent annual rate experienced between 1860 and 2007. These include demography, education, inequality, globalization, energy/environment, and the overhang of consumer and government debt. A provocative “exercise in subtraction” suggests that future growth in consumption per capita for the bottom 99 percent of the income distribution could fall below 0.5 percent per year for an extended period of decades.
- ABSTRACT: This paper raises basic questions about the process of economic growth. It questions the assumption, nearly universal since Solow’s seminal contributions of the 1950s, that economic growth is a continuous process that will persist forever. There was virtually no growth before 1750, and thus there is no guarantee that growth will continue indefinitely. Rather, the paper suggests that the rapid progress made over the past 250 years could well turn out to be a unique episode in human history. The paper is only about the United States and views the future from 2007 while pretending that the financial crisis did not happen. Its point of departure is growth in per-capita real GDP in the frontier country since 1300, the U.K. until 1906 and the U.S. afterwards. Growth in this frontier gradually accelerated after 1750, reached a peak in the middle of the 20th century, and has been slowing down since. The paper is about “how much further could the frontier growth rate decline?”
2010
- (Gordon, 2010) ⇒ Robert J. Gordon. (2010). “Revisiting U. S. Productivity Growth over the Past Century with a View of the Future." U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 15834
- ABSTRACT: This paper provides three perspectives on long-run growth rates of labor productivity (LP) and of multi-factor productivity (MFP) for the U. S. economy. It extracts statistical growth trends for labor productivity from quarterly data for the total economy going back to 1952, provides new estimates of MFP growth extending back to 1891, and tackles the problem of forecasting LP and MFP twenty years into the future.
The statistical trend for growth in total economy LP ranged from 2.75 percent in early 1962 down to 1.25 percent in late 1979 and recovered to 2.45 percent in 2002. Our results on productivity trends identify a problem in the interpretation of the 2008-09 recession and conclude that at present statistical trends cannot be extended past 2007.
For the longer stretch of history back to 1891, the paper provides numerous corrections to the growth of labor quality and to capital quantity and quality, leading to significant rearrangements of the growth pattern of MFP, generally lowering the unadjusted MFP growth rates during 1928-50 and raising them after 1950. Nevertheless, by far the most rapid MFP growth in U. S. history occurred in 1928-50, a phenomenon that I have previously dubbed the “one big wave.”
The paper approaches the task of forecasting 20 years into the future by extracting relevant precedents from the growth in labor productivity and in MFP over the last seven years, the last 20 years, and the last 116 years. Its conclusion is that over the next 20 years (2007-2027) growth in real potential GDP will be 2.4 percent (the same as in 2000-07), growth in total economy labor productivity will be 1.7 percent, and growth in the more familiar concept of NFPB sector labor productivity will be 2.05 percent. The implied forecast 1.50 percent growth rate of per-capita real GDP falls far short of the historical achievement of 2.17 percent between 1929 and 2007 and represents the slowest growth of the measured American standard of living over any two-decade interval recorded since the inauguration of George Washington.
- ABSTRACT: This paper provides three perspectives on long-run growth rates of labor productivity (LP) and of multi-factor productivity (MFP) for the U. S. economy. It extracts statistical growth trends for labor productivity from quarterly data for the total economy going back to 1952, provides new estimates of MFP growth extending back to 1891, and tackles the problem of forecasting LP and MFP twenty years into the future.
2008
- (Gordon & Dew-Decker, 2008) ⇒ Robert J. Gordon, Ian Dew-Becker. (2008). “Controversies about the Rise of American Inequality: A Survey." U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 13982
- ABSTRACT: This paper provides a comprehensive survey of seven aspects of rising inequality that are usually discussed separately: changes in labor's share of income; inequality at the [[bottom of the income distribution, including labor mobility; skill-biased technical change; inequality among high incomes; consumption inequality; geographical inequality; and international differences in the income distribution, particularly at the top.
We conclude that changes in labor's share play no role in rising inequality of labor income; by one measure labor's income share was almost the same in 2007 as in 1950. Within the bottom 90 percent as documented by CPS data, movements in the 50-10 ratio are consistent with a role of decreased union density for men and of a decrease in the real minimum wage for women, particularly in 1980-86. There is little evidence on the effects of imports, and an ambiguous literature on immigration which implies a small overall impact on the wages of the average native American, a significant downward effect on high-school dropouts, and potentially a large impact on previous immigrants working in occupations in which immigrants specialize.
The literature on skill-biased technical change (SBTC) has been valuably enriched by a finer grid of skills, switching from a two-dimension to a three- or five-dimensional breakdown of skills. We endorse the three-way "polarization" hypothesis that seems a plausible way of explaining differentials in wage changes and also in outsourcing.
To explain increased skewness at the top, we introduce a three-way distinction between market-driven superstars where audience magnification allows a performance to reach one or ten million people, a second market-driven segment consisting of occupations like lawyers and investment bankers, and a third segment consisting of top corporate officers. Our review of the CEO debate places equal emphasis on the market in showering capital gains through stock options and an arbitrary management power hypothesis based on numerous non-market aspects of executive pay.
Data on consumption inequality are too fragile to reach firm conclusions. We introduce two new issues, disparities in the growth of price indexes and also of life expectancy between the rich and the poor. We conclude with a perspective on international differences that blends institutional and market-driven explanations.
- ABSTRACT: This paper provides a comprehensive survey of seven aspects of rising inequality that are usually discussed separately: changes in labor's share of income; inequality at the [[bottom of the income distribution, including labor mobility; skill-biased technical change; inequality among high incomes; consumption inequality; geographical inequality; and international differences in the income distribution, particularly at the top.
2000
- (Gordon, 2000) ⇒ Robert J. Gordon. (2000). “Does the "New Economy" Measure up to the Great Inventions of the Past?." NBER Working Paper No. 7833
- ABSTRACT: During the four years 1995-99 U.S. productivity growth experienced a strong revival and achieved growth rates exceeding that of the golden age' of 1913-72. Accordingly many observers have declared the “New Economy” (the Internet and the accompanying acceleration of technical change in computers and telecommunications) to be an Industrial Revolution equal in importance, or even more important, than the Second Industrial Revolution of 1860-1900 which gave us electricity, motor and air transport, motion pictures, radio, indoor plumbing, and made the golden age of productivity growth possible. This paper raises doubts about the validity of this comparison with the Great Inventions of the past. It dissects the recent productivity revival and separates the revival of 1.35 percentage points (comparing 1995-99 with 1972-95) into 0.54 of an unsustainable cyclical effect and 0.81 points of acceleration in trend growth. The entire trend acceleration is attributed to faster multi-factor productivity (MFP) growth in the durable manufacturing sector, consisting of computers, peripherals, telecommunications, and other types of durables. There is no revival of productivity growth in the 88 percent of the private economy lying outside of durables; in fact when the contribution of massive investment in computers in the nondurable economy is subtracted, MFP growth outside of durables has actually decelerated. The paper combines the Great Inventions of 1860-1900 into five clusters' and shows how their development and diffusion in the first half of the 20th century created a fundamental transformation in the American standard of living from the bad old days of the late 19th century. In comparison, computers and the Internet fall short. The rapid decline in the cost of computer power means that the marginal utility of computer characteristics like speed and memory has fallen rapidly as well, implying that the greatest contributions of computers lie in the past, not in the future. The Internet fails the hurdle test as a Great Invention on several counts. First, the invention of the Internet has not boosted the growth in the demand for computers; all of that growth can be interpreted simply as the same unit-elastic response to the decline in computer prices as was prevalent prior to 1995. Second, the Internet provides information and entertainment more cheaply and conveniently than before, but much of its use involves substitution of existing activities from one medium to another. Third, much internet investment involves defense of market share by existing companies like Borders Books faced with the rise of Amazon; social returns are less than private returns. Fourth, much Internet activity duplicates existing activity like mail order catalogues, but the latter have not faded away; the usage of paper is rising, not falling. Finally, much Internet activity, like daytime e-trading, involves an increase in the fraction of work time involving consumption on thejob