Saturday, June 8, 2013

circuit — Robert Gordon on the death of innovation and end of growth


circuit calls attention to Robert Gordon's estimation of growth prospects and adds his take.

Fictional Reserve Barking
Robert Gordon on the death of innovation and end of growth
circuit

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm optimistic about growth and innovation. The next round of innovation will be state-driven, because it will mainly involve the creation of more efficient, organized, sustainable and integrated systems for delivering energy, growing food, transporting people and things, and educating people.

miller B said...

typical malthusian garbage

circuit said...

Tom: Thanks for posting. BTW, Gordon's macro textbook published in 1978 is one of the best textbook ever. It's focus was on policy rather than high theory. For instance, it acknowledges the endogeneity of the money supply (horizontal LM) when the Fed targets an interest rate and also includes a fair and balanced write-up of the job guarantee program.

miller B: I'm usually very skeptical of these ideas. But you should know that Gordon is one of the leading expert on US productivity. I tend to think he's using this approach as a way to call out the complacency of governments with respect to policy measures that would improve long-term growth prospects.

Tom Hickey said...

Gordon's macro textbook published in 1978 is one of the best textbook ever

Thanks, circuit. What about later editions? It's now in the 12th.

circuit said...

Don't know about later versions. Though I could see how some stuff got taken out as a result of real world changes. For instance, perhaps some of the central banking stuff was re-written when the Fed experimented with other monetary control regimes in the 80s. All in all, it's a good reference book. It covers some interesting policy ideas that don't get discussed much in modern texts (especially regarding fiscal policy)

Jose Guilherme said...

On Macro textbooks we should also consider the Canadian Edition (by Lavoie and Seccareccia) of the Baumol-Blinder manual.

It has two chapters on Money that are right on the spot - great explanation of endogeneity and the payments and clearing mechanism with absolutely nothing on the money multiplier and IS/LM. Perhaps the best treatment of Money that one may find among the many books in the market on the topic "Economics 101".