The Industry Origins of Slow U. S. Productivity Growth

The proposed research will assess four complementary explanations of the productivity growth slowdown – the diminished impact of innovations, reduced capital investment, mismeasurement, and an increased burden of regulations. The project will focus on the 12 largest industries and investigate the sources of slow productivity growth by two approaches. The first will be to assess the importance of past and current innovations by searching through industry trade publications and by interviewing industry experts. The second will be to develop detailed studies of a subset of the industries, based on Census data and other sources, to determine the role of compositional shifts, measurement issues, and regulations.