Once the current level of risk recedes, businesses will no doubt move to exploit the profitable investment opportunities made possible by the ongoing advances in technology. However, history does raise some warning flags concerning the length of time that productivity growth remains elevated. Gains in productivity remained quite rapid for years after the innovations that followed the surge in inventions a century ago.
But in other episodes, the period of elevated growth of  2  BIS Review 63/2002  productivity was shorter. Regrettably, examples are too few to generalize. Hence, policymakers have no substitute for continued close surveillance of the evolution of productivity during this current period of significant innovation.