Stephen D. Oliner and Daniel E. Sichel
Economic Review, Vol. 87, No. 3, 2002
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Productivity growth in the U.S. economy jumped during the second half of the 1990s, a resurgence that many analysts linked to developments in information technology (IT). However, shortly after this consensus emerged, demand for IT products fell sharply, leading to a debate about the connection between IT and productivity and about the sustainability of the faster growth.
This article contributes to this debate in two ways. First, the authors provide updated estimates of the proximate sources of growth using a growth accounting framework that focuses on information technology. Their results confirm that the acceleration in labor productivity after 1995 was driven by the greater use of IT capital goods and the more rapid efficiency gains in the production of these goods. Second, to assess whether the pickup in productivity growth is sustainable, the authors analyze the steady-state properties of a multisector growth model. This exercise generates a range for labor productivity growth of 2 percent to 2 3/4 percent per year, which suggests that much—and possibly all—of the resurgence is sustainable.
The analysis also highlights that future increases in output will depend on the pace of technological advance in the semiconductor industry and on the extent to which products embodying these advances diffuse through the economy.
August 2002