These two forces lower the economic premium on skill. Over time, information technology advances will increase labor productivity, as more work can be accomplished without battalions of clerks, pools of secretaries, scores of purchasing agents, and layers of supervisors and administrators. In the long run, everybody gains. Everybody today is clearly better off because of the British Industrial Revolution. But it took time for the fruits of the first Industrial Revolution to ripen, and it will take time for everyone to share in the fruit of the Third Industrial Revolution.
Greenwood is professor of economics.