of businesses unsure of the outlook for demand and their profits. another factor holding back u. s. growth has been repeated shocks to the global economy, sometimes amplified by vulnerabilities growing out of the crisis. the effects of a number of these shocks have spilled over to the united states, including those stemming from the euro - area debt crisis as well as occasional concerns about the strength and durability of emerging market growth, especially in china. these foreign developments contributed to a 15 percent appreciation of the broad dollar since mid - 2014, which, along with weak foreign economic activity, weighed on 2 / 7 bis central bankers'speeches u. s. export growth. concern over the strength of foreign demand also contributed to a steep decline in the price of oil at around the same time. historically, lower oil prices have been a positive for u. s. growth, but the tremendous rise in domestic shale oil production over the past decade has created a powerful counterweight that has offset some of the benefit of lower prices. in the immediate aftermath of the decline in oil prices, investment in the energy sector fell off precipitously, pushing down aggregate investment as well. regarding structural explanations for slow growth, demographics are likely playing a role. in a development that predates the crisis, relatively flat labor input, as measured by hours worked, has weighed on growth. in part, the sluggishness of labor input just reflects long - term demographic trends as baby boomers age and retire. 5 perhaps most important in explaining the growth slowdown has been the lackluster increase of productivity in recent years. labor productivity has averaged an annual growth rate of only 3 / 4 percent since 2011, far below the 2 - 1 / 4 percent pace prevalent over the two decades leading into the financial crisis. why has productivity growth been so anemic? a number of theories have been raised, but there does not appear to be a clear answer — and certainly not a consensus answer. one school of thought is that productivity growth has not slowed down much at all ; rather, new technologies and products have made economic output harder to measure. 6 it is not difficult to think of technological developments that have had a deep and pervasive effect on our daily lives ( smartphone apps, for example ) but perhaps in a manner that is difficult to describe in the existing vocabulary of economic statistics. however, the counter to this argument is that troubles in measuring “ newness ” are not especially new. measuring the effect of

most of their stock indirectly through institutional investors, the responsibilities for active monitoring of corporate management and governance mechanisms have been shifting to institutions. there's good news, bad news, and some promising news to report about this trend. the good news is that we may have reason to expect that institutional shareholders would be especially active in working for good corporate governance. an institutional investor holding a large block of stock naturally reaps more of the rewards of good corporate governance than an individual holding a small number of shares, and the big institutional investor undoubtedly has more leverage with management. in addition, as individuals buy their stock through institutions, the task of forming shareholder coalitions to effect good governance ought to become that much easier. the bad news is that, with some notable exceptions, institutional investors historically appear to have been fairly passive shareholders and have tended to shy away from challenging management directly and from initiating reform - oriented proxy proposals. also some institutional investors may face conflicts of interest in providing active governance if they also compete to sell financial services - like pension - plan administration - to the firms whose shares they hold. to be sure, the evidence on institutional shareholder activism and conflicts of interest is limited, because few institutional investors provide any information about how they vote the shares in their portfolios. so, individual investors interested in corporate governance are unlikely to be able to ascertain anything about how an institutional investor has voted shares on their behalf. although some institutional investors may have been active in behind - the - scenes attempts to promote good management decisions, few details about these efforts are made available to the public, which ultimately bears the risk of stock ownership. and the promising news? just last month, the sec approved new rules that will require investment advisers and mutual funds to disclose their proxy voting policies and specific proxy votes. for most investors in mutual funds, the new rule will provide unprecedented information about how votes are being cast on their behalf. in fact, some have criticized the new disclosure rules for imposing too great a burden on mutual funds and for providing too much information to be useful to most investors. but that criticism misses the point. disclosure of proxy voting records will likely initiate new efforts to educate individual investors on corporate governance issues. disclosures about proxy voting are especially important for index funds. actively managed funds can signal dissatisfaction with corporate officers by selling shares, but index funds, which passively hold a basket of representative companies, cannot. soon, by monitoring the proxy - votes of index - fund managers, investors will be able to