rise in educational attainment — both for college and high school — may soon come to an end. one area where policy may play a role is promoting educational access and readiness for groups for whom educational attainment is relatively low. recent research has shown a substantial return to public investment in early childhood education for economically disadvantaged groups. such programs increase high school graduation, promote income over the life cycle for both participants and their parents, and produce other socially beneficial outcomes, such as greater health. 12 at the other end of the education process, a college degree has long been considered a worthwhile investment, and thus our society should promote access to and readiness for college among a broad range of individuals — in particular through federal support for need - based financial aid. 13 lastly, i will note that ultimately the return on the human capital embodied in our workforce is closely tied to public health. a rise in morbidity or fall in longevity in the u. s. population is not a concern only for humanitarian reasons. workers too ill to perform at their potential represent lost productivity and welfare for society as a whole. research has shown just such a trend among prime - age non - hispanic americans without a college degree. 14 more study is needed to determine what policies would help reverse this trend, and government funding could likely assist the effort. more broadly, programs to promote clean air and drinking water are examples of public health policies that bolster the health and longevity of the present and future workforce as a whole. concluding remarks to conclude, we return to the basic question : how much does productivity growth matter? the basic answer : simple arithmetic says it matters a lot. if labor productivity grows an average of 2 percent per year, average living standards for our children ’ s generation will be twice what we experienced. if labor productivity grows an average of 1 percent per year, the difference is dramatic : living standards will take two generations to double. 15 but fortunately, when it comes to productivity, we are not simply consigned to luck or to fate. governments can take sensible actions to promote more rapid productivity growth. broadly speaking, government policy works best when it can address a need that the private sector neglects, including investment in basic research, infrastructure, early childhood education, schooling, and public health. reasonable people can disagree about the right way forward, but if we as a society are to succeed, we need to follow policies that will support and advance productivity growth. that is easier said than done. but it can be done

coen teulings and richard baldwin, eds., secular stagnation : facts, causes, and cures. london : cepr press, pp. 83 – 89. pinto, eugenio p., and stacey tevlin ( 2014 ). “ perspectives on the recent weakness in investment, " feds notes, no. 2014 – 05 - 21. solow, robert m. ( 1957 ). “ technical change and the aggregate production function, " review of economics and statistics, vol. 39 ( august ), pp. 312 – 20. united states. bureau of the census ( 1975 ). historical statistics of the united states, colonial times to 1970. washington : us department of commerce, bureau of the census, september,. 1 one needs also to recognize that changes in either the average workweek or the employment to population ratio may damp or augment the effect of labor productivity on gdp per capita. 2 byrne, fernald, and reinsdorf ( 2016 ) discuss known measurement challenges and conclude they cannot explain the deceleration of productivity. 3 gordon ( 2014, p. 25 ) enumerates the inventions of the information age — the personal computer, the internet, mobile phones, and so on — and notes that for innovation to continue at such a pace, “ the achievements of the past 40 years set a hurdle that is dauntingly high. " 4 mokyr ( 2014, p. 83 ) considers advances in research methods and tools and concludes that “ the indirect effects of science on productivity through the tools it provides scientific research may dwarf the direct effects in the long run. " 5 david ( 1990 ) cautions that the effect of general - purpose technologies, such as electricity and electronic computing, can take decades to fully unfold. brynjolfsson and hitt ( 2000 ) consider the process followed by firms in leveraging innovations in it equipment and emphasize the role of complementary investment in intangible assets like business reorganization. 6 mohnen and hall ( 2013 ) survey the empirical literature pointing to a link between r & d and productivity. 7 decker and others ( 2016 ) highlight the decline in entrepreneurship and worker mobility ; andrews, criscuolo, and gal ( 2015 ) emphasizes that productivity for firms at the global frontier continues to advance rapidly even as global aggregate productivity growth has slowed. 8 pinto and tevlin ( 2014 ) note that in the context of a long - run growth model, a slow pace of investment is not surprising