Productivity in the United States: Trends and Cycles

Abstract

Productivity growth in the US has taken a sharp downturn in recent years. Two experts provide a new body of comparative data on productivity since 1948 by major sector and industry. The book analyzes 20 industries to highlight trends and fluctuations in productivity and to provide a better context for the discussion of policy options. The authors set forth the causes of productivity advances based on growth accounting for the business economy as a whole. They detail interindustry regressions, with particular reference to the productivity slowdown since 1966. They look at both the traditional measure of productivity (labor output per hour) and the more recently developed measure of total factor productivity, which takes into account capital as well as labor inputs. The quarterly and annual data are used to relate changes to other basic variables, such as factor prices, unit costs, and product prices. An appendix presents data for 35 industries. 42 references, 8 figures, 30 tables.