AN ATTEMPT TO MEASURE INCREASES IN COMPUTER PRODUCTIVITY. I have posted several times, such as here, about the paradox that the technological revolution in computers has not produced much by way of measured productivity improvement.
Jaames Pethoukis on the AEI site quotes from this post in which Steve Cichon in 2014 counted up the value from a 1991 Buffalo newspaper ad of the electronic goods that he had theoretically replaced with his iPhone. The items would have cost about $3150, an amount which would have been equivalent to $5100 in 2012 dollars.
Pethoukis quotes Goldman Sachs economists who wrote: “How much better is Grand Theft Auto V than Grand Theft Auto IV? And how much more value do we now derive from our internet connection compared with a decade ago? It is very difficult for a statistician to know, and when we do not know our default assumption tends to be that there is little change.” Cichon’s comparison is a rough attempt to approximate some of the improvements.