IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v106y2016i5p52-56.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Century of Growth and Improvement

Author

Listed:
  • Benjamin M. Friedman

Abstract

The fact that actual economic advance over time normally means producing and consuming different things is usually left implicit in modern models of economic growth. By contrast, qualitative change--new goods and services, and better versions of what already existed--is central to Robert Gordon's history of the improvement of American living standards since 1870. A major contribution of his fine-grained account of this experience is to make clear what this improvement has meant, and why it has mattered to ordinary citizens.

Suggested Citation

  • Benjamin M. Friedman, 2016. "A Century of Growth and Improvement," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 52-56, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:106:y:2016:i:5:p:52-56
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20161069
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.p20161069
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/ds/10605/P2016_1069_ds.zip
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert J. Gordon, 2016. "Perspectives on The Rise and Fall of American Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 72-76, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Grace Taylor & Rod Tyers, 2017. "Secular Stagnation: Determinants and Consequences for Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93(303), pages 615-650, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Steven Bond‐Smith, 2022. "Discretely innovating: The effect of limited market contestability on innovation and growth," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 69(3), pages 301-327, July.
    2. Alje van Dam & Koen Frenken, 2019. "Variety, Complexity and Economic Development," Papers 1903.07997, arXiv.org.
    3. Mengheng Li & Ivan Mendieta‐Muñoz, 2020. "Are long‐run output growth rates falling?," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(1), pages 204-234, February.
    4. Ekaterina Prytkova, 2021. "ICT's Wide Web: a System-Level Analysis of ICT's Industrial Diffusion with Algorithmic Links," Jena Economics Research Papers 2021-005, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    5. Stefano Bianchini & Moritz Müller & Pierre Pelletier, 2022. "Artificial intelligence in science: An emerging general method of invention," Post-Print hal-03958025, HAL.
    6. Cha, Myung Soo, "undated". "Living Standards, Inequality, and Human Development since 1870 : a Review of Evidence," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH 28438, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    7. António Afonso & Eduardo Rodrigues, 2024. "Is public investment in construction and in R&D, growth enhancing? A PVAR approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(24), pages 2875-2899, May.
    8. Oliwia Komada & Krzysztof Makarski & Joanna Tyrowicz, 2021. "Progressing towards efficiency: the role for labor tax progression in reforming social security," GRAPE Working Papers 57, GRAPE Group for Research in Applied Economics.
    9. Charles Bean, 2018. "Central Banking after the Great Recession," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(1), pages 2-15, February.
    10. van der Graaf, Shenja & Ballon, Pieter, 2019. "Navigating platform urbanism," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 364-372.
    11. Bryan Kelly & Dimitris Papanikolaou & Amit Seru & Matt Taddy, 2021. "Measuring Technological Innovation over the Long Run," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 303-320, September.
    12. Erik Berglof, 2016. "European Industrial Policy — Tapping the Full Growth Potential of the EU," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 51(6), pages 335-340, November.
    13. Julian M. Alston & Philip G. Pardey, 2020. "Innovation, Growth, and Structural Change in American Agriculture," NBER Chapters, in: The Role of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Economic Growth, pages 123-165, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Robert J. Shiller, 2017. "Narrative Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 967-1004, April.
    15. Nicholas Z. Muller, 2020. "Long-Run Environmental Accounting in the US Economy," Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 158-191.
    16. Thomsen, Stephan L, 2018. "Die Rolle der Computerisierung und Digitalisierung für Beschäftigung und Einkommen," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-645, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    17. Fabio Pieri & Michela Vecchi & Francesco Venturini, 2017. "Modelling the joint impact of R and D and ICT on productivity: A frontier analysis approach," DEM Working Papers 2017/13, Department of Economics and Management.
    18. Brendan Walsh, 2017. "Life Expectancy in Ireland since the 1870s," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 48(2), pages 127-143.
    19. Carmen M. Reinhart & Franziska L. Ohnsorge & Kenneth S. Rogoff & M. Ayhan Kose, 2022. "The Aftermath of Debt Surges," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 637-663, August.
    20. Peter Goodridge & Jonathan Haskel, 2023. "Accounting for the slowdown in UK innovation and productivity," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 90(359), pages 780-812, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E65 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Studies of Particular Policy Episodes
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • N11 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • N12 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:106:y:2016:i:5:p:52-56. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.