“Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run, it’s almost everything.”

Economic Development Productivity North America

February 16, 2021Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman’s aphorism remains apt for a US economy looking to rebuild. The years after WWII are particularly instructive, when productivity grew 2.8 percent a year from 1947 to 1973. Our new memo looks deeply into the postwar period to find ideas about how to boost productivity now.

Productivity was particularly strong in the 1950s and 1960s but has been weak in the last decade.

To read the article, see “America 2021: Rebuilding lives and livelihoods after COVID-19,” February 16, 2021.