HAS ECONOMIC GROWTH COME TO AN END?

HAS ECONOMIC GROWTH COME TO AN END? I posted here last October about Professor Robert Gordon’s argument that the technological changes that so dramatically raised our standard of living have consisted of only three industrial revolutions, and—alarmingly—that there is no reason to believe that there will ever be another. That is, most of the important economic innovations that are possible have already occurred. Kids, you should take this argument seriously because a number of very good economists do. (Professor Gordon is a widely respected economist and his views accordingly receive a great deal of respect.) Since October, Gordon’s propositions have received considerable attention and have now been reported in the mainstream media in a very good lead article by Benjamin Wallace-Wells in New York magazine (July 21).