But, for a country already on the cutting edge of technology to maintain this pace for a protracted period into the future would be without modern precedent. One policy that could enhance the odds of sustaining high levels of productivity growth is to engage in a long overdue upgrading of primary and secondary school education in the United States.
We obviously cannot attribute recent productivity trends to a high level of national saving. Rather, the effectiveness with which we have invested both domestic saving and funds attracted from abroad is the apparent source of our decade-long rise in productivity growth.