Showing papers by "Robert M. Solow published in 2003"

The Roaring Nineties: Can Full Employment Be Sustained?

Abstract: 1990s surprised economists by its rapidly falling unemployment rate at low and constant inflation. This book is the result of a project jointly sponsored by the Century Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation, whose aim was to understand the reasons for this unexpected performance. The two editors chose the topics and authors and wrote a long and very useful introduction to the book, which reflects as much their own view as that of the contributors. The

Productivity Growth, Inflation, and Unemployment: Does the “New Economy” Measure Up to the Great Inventions of the Past?

Abstract: A widespread belief seems to be emerging, at least in the popular press, that the U.S. economy is in the throes of a fundamental transformation, one which is wiping out the 1972–95 productivity slowdown, along with inflation, the budget deficit, and the business cycle. A typical recent comment, in a Wall Street Journal article, claimed that “when it comes to technology, even the most bearish analysts agree the microchip and Internet are changing almost everything in the economy” (Ip, 2000). Or as an article in Fortune ( June 8, 1998, pp. 86–87) magazine put it, “The [computer] chip has transformed us at least as pervasively as the internal combustion engine or electric motor.” Alan Greenspan (1999) appears to be among the technological enthusiasts. He recently stated: “A perceptible quickening in the pace at which technological innovations are applied argues for the hypothesis that the recent acceleration in labor productivity is not just a cyclical phenomenon or a statistical aberration, but reflects, at least in part, a more deep-seated, still developing, shift in our economic landscape.” The true enthusiasts treat the New Economy as a fundamental industrial revolution as great or greater in importance than the concurrence of inventions, particularly electricity and the internal combustion engine, which transformed the world at the turn of the last century. There is no dispute that the U.S. economy is awash in computer investment, that productivity has revived, and that the late 1990s were extremely good years for the U.S. economy. Indeed, Robert M. Solow has now declared obsolete his 1987 paradox that “we can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics” (Uchitelle, 2000). However, room remains for a degree of skepticism.

Reflections on Growth and Development

Abstract: Economists share an intuitive grasp of the distinction between growth and development. When I write the words and you read them, we understand roughly the same thing. It is much harder to be precise about the relation between the two. This is probably because most dimensions of economic growth are quantifiable, while the phrase “economic development” seems to refer to more complex qualitative aspects of social and economic organization that are hardly measurable and in fact only imperfectly definable. The same pattern occurs elsewhere, for example in the growth and development of children. We measure their growth directly, through height and weight or even vocabulary. But child development involves the emergence of capabilities and behavior patterns whose very description may be problematic and disputed. This contrast probably explains why there is such a well-developed body of evolving theory about growth, well enough established to be written up in textbooks and taught to undergraduates. The study of economic development, on the other hand, has produced a much smaller amount of theory; and the theory that exists is much less systematic,and certainly less cumulative. Descriptions and discussions of economic development tend to be more politicized (for want of a more accurate word). This is not an aberration; it seems to come with the territory.

Productivity Growth, Inflation, and Unemployment: The Collected Essays of Robert J. Gordon

Abstract: Part I. The History, Theory, and Measurement of Productivity Growth: Introduction 1. Does the new economy measure up to the great inventions of the past? 2. Interpreting the 'one big wave' in US long-term productivity growth 3. The disappearance of productivity change 4. The concept of capital 5. Is there a tradeoff between unemployment and productivity growth? 6. Forward into the past: productivity retrogression in the electric generating industry Part II. Interpreting Productivity Fluctuations over the Business cycle: Introduction 7. Fresh water, salt water, and other macroeconomic elixirs 8. Are procylical productivity fluctuations a figment of measurement error? 9. The jobless recovery: does it signal a new era of productivity-led growth? Part III. The Theory of Inflation-Unemployment Tradeoff: Introduction 10. Alternative responses of policy to external supply shocks 11. Supply shocks and monetary policy revisited 12. The theory of domestic inflation 13. The Phillips Curve now and then Part IV. Empirical Studies of Inflation Dynamics in the United States: Introduction 14. Can the inflation of the 1970s be explained? 15. The output cost of disinflation in traditional and vector autoregressive models 16. German and American wage and price dynamics: differences and common themes 17. Foundations of the Goldilocks economy: supply shocks and the time-varying NAIRU.