The rate of increase in output per hour in the nonfarm business sector moved up from just 1-1/2 percent per year between 1973 and 1995 to 2-1/2 percent per year between 1996 and 2000. That acceleration appears to have been largely the result of brisk business investment.
Since then, even with the slump in capital spending from 2001 to early 2003, productivity has risen at a stunning annual rate of 4 percent.