As Bob Solow famously said, just before the increase in productivity growth of 1996–2003, “the computer is everywhere except in the growth data.” And there are serious researchers who have made serious arguments that we will soon be seeing more rapid growth in the productivity data.
Factors determining productivity growth Clearly, a key question for economic forecasters, and even more so for U.S. citizens, and indeed for the entire global economy, is whether we should anticipate a return of the more rapid productivity gains experienced in the IT boom and for the quarter century after the end of World War II, or should instead resign ourselves to tepid economic growth in future years.