THE E-DIMENSION
THE E-DIMENSION
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not know whether or how the unmeasured part of productivity
growth has changed.
» The idea that the US economy will grow faster in the future
than it has in the past is an attractive one to almost everyone
in business everywhere. Faster US growth suggests more sales,
more investment, more entrepreneurial opportunities, more
stock market flotations, and so on worldwide. The idea of the
New Economy spread rapidly, perhaps because it supplies a
rationale for business confidence about the future.
» The claim that productivity growth would continue to accelerate
indefinitely is challenged by a worldwide economic downturn
beginning in 2000/01. There seems to be little evidence that the
familiar phenomenon of economic booms and recessions has
ended. To judge whether knowledge industries really boosted
productivity growth starting in the 1990s, we will have to wait
several decades to see the overall trend.
NOTES
1 Financial Times, October 19, 2001.
2 Alan Greenspan, speaking at the Haas Annual Business Faculty
Research Dialogue, University of California, Berkeley, California,
September 4, 1998.
