ARE THE PAST 250 YEARS OF RAPID ECONOMIC GROWTH ONLY AN INTERLUDE?

ARE THE PAST 250 YEARS OF RAPID ECONOMIC GROWTH ONLY AN INTERLUDE? Professor Gordon is an authority on economic productivity, which can be thought of as the output that we can achieve or have achieved from defined inputs. He raises the question in the summary: “There was virtually no growth before 1750, and thus there is no guarantee that growth will continue indefinitely. Rather, the paper suggests that the rapid progress made over the past 250 years could well turn out to be a unique episode in human history.” Underlying his question is the premise that economic growth has been achieved because of technological change, and there is no way of knowing whether technological change will continue. Professor Gordon’s judgment is that economic growth (in terms of what the economy can produce) has in fact been slowing down for the past 50 years. In this related article, Professor Gordon says: “Growth in the frontier economy gradually accelerated after 1750, reached a peak in the middle of the 20th century, and has been slowing since.”