Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth

William Nordhaus

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2021, vol. 13, issue 1, 299-332

Abstract: What are the prospects for long-run economic growth? One prominent line of economic thinking is the trend toward stagnation. Stagnationism has a long history in economics, beginning prominently with Malthus and occasionally surfacing in different guises. Prominent themes here are the following: Will economic growth slow and perhaps even reverse under the weight of resource depletion? Will overpopulation and diminishing returns lower living standards? Will unchecked CO2 emissions lead to catastrophic changes in climate and human systems? Have we depleted the store of potential great inventions? Will the aging society lead to diminished innovativeness?

JEL-codes: D83 E25 O31 O32 O41 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (37)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20170105 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.3886/E111881V1 (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20170105.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity" Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth (2015)
Working Paper: Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:13:y:2021:i:1:p:299-332

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/mac.20170105

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics is currently edited by Simon Gilchrist

More articles in American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().