Is US econoic growth over? Falteringinnovation confronts the six headwinds
Roert J Gordon
Northwestern University and CEPR
September 2012
1. Introduction
The prospects for future long-run US economicgrowth were already dismal in 2007 but werelittle noticed in the continuing euphoria overthe invention of the internet and the relateddevelopments in information technology andcommunications (ICT). This Policy Paper pulls
back from the past ve years of nancial crisis to
pose a question with implications that will persistfor decades even if the current internationaleconomic disorder is eventually resolved.This paper is about US economic growth through2007 and the future post-2007 path of potentialor trend output for the subsequent 20 to 50 years.The analysis abstracts almost entirely from thenegative events that have occurred since 2007.We deliberately ignore the separate questions of whether the recession and slow recovery havepulled down the trend growth rate output, andthe size of the “gap” between the trend path andactual real GDP.The ideas developed here are unorthodox yet worthpondering. They are applied only in the contextof the US, because the worldwide frontier of productivity and the standard of living have beencarved out by the US since the late 19th century. If growth of the US productivity frontier slows down,other nations may move ahead, or the slowingfrontier could reduce the opportunities for future growth by all nations as the pace of productivitygrowth in the US fades out.
The paper makes these basic points
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/09/is-us-economic-growth-over/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBigPicture+%28The+Big+Picture%29
Realist - Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same -- hardihood. Give them raw truth.
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