Does the Secular Stagnation hypothesis match with data? Evidence from USA

Andrea Borsato

Working Papers of BETA from Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg

Abstract: The paper adds to the debate around Secular Stagnation in four ways. First, considering US historical data since 1870, the use of the term “Secular Stagnation” in the literature is misleading, since it should concern more long runs. Second, the slow growth in real GDP per capita experienced in more recent times represents a return to what US experienced before 1950. Third, we can speak about Secular Stagnation in terms of labour and multifactor productivity growth: their decline since the 1970s is not comparable to any previous period. In this sense, my findings provide views `a la Gordon (2015) and Hein (2016) with some support, but less to Summers (2014b) negative natural rate hypothesis, which suffers from theoretical weaknesses. Fourth, despite the several approaches often implemented, we trace out a complementary or even convergence in policy implications.

Keywords: Secular Stagnation; Negative interest rates; GDP and Productivity slowdown in growth. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E20 E43 E50 E60 O11 O30 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2021-11

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