By 2000 or so, an emerging consensus held that the pickup in productivity growth was, for the most part, the product of rapid technological progress and increased investment in new information and communication technologies (ICT) during the 1990s (Jorgenson and Stiroh, 2000; Oliner and Sichel, 2000). According to this view, rapid developments in ICT promoted U.S. productivity growth in two ways.
The region’s output is bottoming out as South America’s recession is being partially offset by a better situation in Mexico and Central America. The region’s recovery has been helped by higher than expected growth in Brazil in the first two quarters of 1999, while inflation remained subdued. Most observers expect inflation to be some 10% in 1999, the lowest level in 50 years.