Ronald Bailey Wonders If U.S. Economic Stagnation Is Inevitable

In “Is U.S. Economic Growth
Over?,” a 2012 working paper for the National Bureau of Economic
Research, the Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon
argued that the country was in for 25 to 40 years of very slow
growth. In particular, Americans in the bottom 99 percent of the
U.S. income distribution could expect only 0.2 percent annual
increases in their real per capita disposable incomes. Faltering
technological innovation contributes substantially to the fall off
in future growth. Gordon has just published another study,“The
Demise of U.S. Economic Growth: Restatment, Rebuttal, and
Reflections,” in which he seeks to bolster his earlier conclusions.
Reason Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey thinks Gordon
is too pessimistic about the trajectory of technological progress,
but admits that the economist has a point when it comes to the
doleful direction of the economic headwinds.

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