Exploding Productivity Growth: Context, Causes, and Implications
探讨未来潜在产出增长率是乐观估计的4%还是悲观的1.8%，分析人口、劳动参与率、失业率和工作时间等因素如何导致潜在产出与生产率增长趋势的差异，对政策制定者和经济学家有参考价值。
Will potential output grow in the future at a 4 percent annual rate, as several of the more optimistic business economists assume, or at the pathetic 1.8 percent annual rate assumed into the distant future by the trustees of the Social Security Administration? 1 Put differently, will real GDP in seventy-five years be 20 times its current level or a mere 3 1 2 times? Academic research on future supply-side issues has focused mainly on the causes of the post-1995 productivity growth revival, but the growth rate of potential output is of independent interest. Variations in four factors-population growth, labor force participation, the unemployment rate, and hours worked per employee-can create significant differences between the long-run path of potential output and that of trend productivity growth. These differences matter for numerous issues, 207