Productivity Growth Is Slower Than You Think. Should You Be Worried?

October 30, 2017, 5:30–7:30 p.m., Gleacher Center

Despite the rapid spread and high utilization of new technologies, like smartphones, search engines, and social networking sites, the US and other major economies around the world have been experiencing slow measured productivity growth for more than a decade. Some have proposed this reflects a measurement problem—that standard economic statistics are not up to the task of measuring the impact of these transformative technologies. I show that, in several different ways, the data do not support this “mismeasurement hypothesis.” The productivity growth slowdown is real and costly. I explore prospects for future productivity growth and ask whether current nascent technologies might break the world out of its slow-growth slump.

The Myron Scholes Global Markets Forum is part of the Initiative on Global Markets (IGM) and is generously sponsored by Myron Scholes.

Speaker Profile

Chad Syverson is the J. Baum Harris Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

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