"But Mr Gordon's tone grows gloomy when he turns to the 1970s. Economic turbulence increased as well-known American companies were shaken by foreign competition, particularly from Japan, and as fuel prices surged thanks to the OPEC oil-price rise. Economic inequality surged as the rich pulled ahead of the rest. Productivity growth fell: having reached an average of 2.82% a year between 1920 and 1970, output per hour between 1970 and 2014 grew by an annual rate of no more than 1.62%. America today faces powerful headwinds: an ageing population, rising health-care and education costs, soaring inequality and festering social ills.
"What chance does the country have of restoring its lost dynamism? Mr Gordon has no time for the techno-Utopians who think that the information revolution will rescue America from such 'secular stagnation.'"
The Economist reviews Robert Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The US Standard of Living since the Civil War.
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