The conclusion of this point of view is, put simply, that more recent innovations have not been as significant as those during earlier industrial revolutions.4 Others, such as Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson at MIT, say that the effects of digitalisation have passed under the radar and that we will see major productivity increases in the future when the new technologies are used more broadly in the business sector.5 Economic historian Joel Mokyr also points out that the productive potential in new technologies will lead to strong pressure for change in the economy.6 As you can hear, there are very differing views on the subject and the assessment of future productivity growth is a question we are constantly struggling with. We are in the “installation phase” Personally, I think that that model from Bart van Ark (2016) is useful when considering the different views. This distinguishes between an “installation phase” and a “deployment phase” for new technology. The first phase involves exploring new markets and growth is limited to a couple of companies. During the second phase the markets are consolidated and there is broad growth in the economy. One can imagine that Brynjolfsson and McAfee consider we are in the first phase, while Gordon thinks we have already passed the second phase. My assessment is that we are probably somewhere in the installation phase with regard to digitalisation.
Jesper Roine, professor at the Stockholm School of Economics has divided them up in a useful manner.3     Automation – a machine doing the work of a person. Digitalisation – converting information to a digital form. Technological advances – broader concept that covers the other two but also other things. The concepts are of course related. Digitalisation can enable automation and is an example of technological advances. In this speech I focus on digitalisation, but will also touch on the automation that follows on from digitalisation. I wish to include in the concept of digitalisation here machine learning, artificial intelligence, 3D printers and the use of cloud services and Big Data. A common collective name often used for several of these technologies is Industry 4.0 or the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Will productivity increase? How far have we come with regard to the digitalisation of the business sector? One hears an awful lot about technological developments in the media and in business journals. From what is written one might easily gain the impression that we can do more and faster. But official data on productivity does not confirm this. The fact that statistics and reality sometimes appear to be disconnected from one another is nothing new. In 1987 economist Robert Solow wrote “you can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics”, when describing the emergence of information and communication technology (ICT) and the relatively low productivity growth in the United States in the 1980s.