We Should Be Measuring Well-Being Catalysis, Not (trying and largely failing to measure) Economic Productivity

In most every other area of our economy, not only is productivity a well-defined concept, but it’s often central to how work unfolds. Indeed, much of the astonishing economic growth fueling modernity can be attributed to a more systematic treatment of this fundamental idea. Early uses of the term can be traced back to agriculture, where its meaning

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The problem with ‘productivity’ is that it is concerned with managing and increasing output: producing widgets, quarterly reports, the next release of the software, yet another research report, and meanwhile, always aspiring to do more with less. Less waste, less idle time on the assembly line, and fewer workers. The end game is to speed up the mac... See more

Increasing efficiency is permeating almost every aspect of our society. If the thing that is being made more efficient is beneficial, then the increased efficiency makes the world a better place (overall, the world seems to be becoming a better place). If the thing that is being made more efficient is socially harmful, then the consequences of grea... See more

Our slow growth is a puzzle. We have generated huge amounts of useful knowledge. We have made it easier and easier to access this knowledge from anywhere in the world. We have Jstor and Google Books to dig through existing knowledge, and easy data analysis with Excel. We can collaborate with people all over the world through Zoom and Slack. And mor... See more

Yet another manifestation of the law of accelerating returns as it rushes toward the Singularity can be found in the world of economics, a world vital to both the genesis of the law of accelerating returns, and to its implications. Pharmaceutical drugs are increasingly effective. The statistical methods underlying the productivity measurements tend... See more

What’s causing the productivity slowdown? The subject is controversial among economists, and many different answers have been proposed. Some have argued that it’s merely that existing productivity measures don’t do a good job measuring the impact of new technologies. Our argument here suggests a different explanation, that diminishing returns to sp... See more