Revisiting U.S. Productivity Growth Over the Past Century with a View of the Future

Abstract:     
This paper provides three perspectives on long-run growth rates of labor productivity (LP) and of multi-factor productivity (MFP) for the U. S. economy. It extracts statistical growth trends for labor productivity from quarterly data for the total economy going back to 1952, provides new estimates of MFP growth extending back to 1891, and tackles the problem of forecasting LP and MFP twenty years into the future.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 48

Keywords: capital quality, human capital, labor quality, labour productivity, long-term economic growth, multi-factor productivity, U. S. economic history

JEL Classification: D24, E01, E22, N1, N11, N12

working papers series