Sure too, over the past five years, productivity has bounded ahead to an annual rate of almost three percent, after spending 20 years at an average of less than half that level. But when this recent spurt in productivity growth is compared historically, or when it is broken down into its components, the evidence for a nationwide revolution vanishes. For a start there is a statistical illusion to dispel. This is because productivity growth moves in cycles. The opposite happens when output declines, as employers tend not to get rid of labour at the first signs of economic slowdown.
Productivity growth tends to follow and exaggerate the ups and downs of the business cycle.
And it is worth recalling that, during that period in the 1980s, some economists were already beginning to draw the superficial conclusion of a US renaissance based upon computerisation. At that time, though, this was greeted with scepticism from the likes of Robert Solow - and these economists' voices grew silent with the subsequent productivity slowdown at the end of the decade. In contrast to notions of an 'epochal change in the history of production', it seems that, since the 1980s, expectations have merely lowered. This conclusion is reinforced when we note that the level of the late 1990s productivity expansion, currently so acclaimed, is the same as the quarter-century average from 1950 to 1973. It is also worth remembering that US productivity growth during those 'Long Boom' years was itself nothing exceptional, falling below that of all its industrial competitors, including even the lacklustre Britain.