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Long run labour productivity growth: Is there a "New Economy"?. Is there a "New Economy"?. ICT obviously offers new possibilities for raising productivity There is a remarkable increase in rates of labour productivity growth in the USA after 1995!
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Long run labour productivity growth: Is there a "New Economy"?
Is there a "New Economy"? • ICT obviously offers new possibilities for raising productivity • There is a remarkable increase in rates of labour productivity growth in the USA after 1995! • A considerable part of that rise comes from the ICT sector! • Euphoria: The business cycle that started in the US in 1991 showed very little inflation, even towards its peak (thanks to efficiency gains from ICT!)
The Kondratieff cycle of 45-60 years length Origin: • Observation of approximately 50 year periods of inflation and deflation since ca. 1780 • Observation of similar fluctuations in real interest rates • Important authors: Nikolai Kondratieff, Jan van Gelderen, Sam de Wolff; 1913-1926 Common sense at those times: • Times of inflation are "good" (demand > supply) • Times of deflation are "bad" (supply > demand)
More recent research • Proof of long-run fluctuations in GNP, industrial production etc. (Bieshaar & Kleinknecht; Metz; Reijnders) • Marxist theories of long-run fluctuations in profit rates (Shaikh, Poletayev, Menshikov, Reati) • Schumpeterian theories of clusters of basic innovations (Mensch, Van Duijn, Haustein & Neuwirth, Kleinknecht)
Stylised Kuznets (1930) model: Breakthrough innovations that create new industries are distributed randomly over the time-axes
Stylised Schumpeter (1939) model: Breakthrough innovations tend to cluster on the time-axes
Types of cycles: • Juglar cycle ('classical business cycle‘; 7-10 years): periodic over-investment • Schumpeter-Kondratieff cycle (45-60 years): new technological trajectories (railways, telephone, electricity, IT, etc.) Less important: • Kitchin cycle (inventory cycle) • Kuznets cycle (migration cycle)