Return of the Solow Paradox? IT, Productivity, and Employment in U.S. Manufacturing

Daron Acemoglu, David Autor, David Dorn, Gordon Hanson and Brendan Price ()
Additional contact information
Brendan Price: MIT

No 7906, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: An increasingly influential "technological-discontinuity" paradigm suggests that IT-induced technological changes are rapidly raising productivity while making workers redundant. This paper explores the evidence for this view among the IT-using U.S. manufacturing industries. There is some limited support for more rapid productivity growth in IT-intensive industries depending on the exact measures, though not since the late 1990s. Most challenging to this paradigm, and our expectations, is that output contracts in IT-intensive industries relative to the rest of manufacturing. Productivity increases, when detectable, result from the even faster declines in employment.

Keywords: Solow paradox; employment; IT capital; productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J2 L6 O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2014-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (116)

Published - published in: American Economic Review, Papers & Proceedings, 2014, 104 (5), 394-399

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Related works:
Journal Article: Return of the Solow Paradox? IT, Productivity, and Employment in US Manufacturing (2014)
Working Paper: Return of the Solow Paradox? IT, Productivity, and Employment in U.S. Manufacturing (2014)
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