Another look at productivity

摘要

Every quarter economists and investors wait anxiously for America's Bureau of Labour Statistics (bls) to announce its latest figures on productivity. Economists care because productivity gains are linked to rising standards of living; investors care because those living standards translate into higher consumption, profits and share prices. A trio of new research papers*, however, suggests that the most widely used figures do not measure changes in productivity all that precisely. Using new tools, the last of these papers launches into the biggest debate on productivity— whether technological advance in the past decade have brought about a sea-change in productivity growth.