Return of the Solow Paradox? IT, Productivity, and Employment in U.S. Manufacturing
An increasingly influential "technological-discontinuity" paradigm suggests that IT-induced technological changes are rapidly raising productivity while making workers redundant. This paper explores the evidence for this view among the IT-using U.S. manufacturing industries. There is some limited support for more rapid productivity growth in IT-intensive industries depending on the exact measures, though not since the late 1990s. Most challenging to this paradigm, and our expectations, is that output contracts in IT-intensive industries relative to the rest of manufacturing. Productivity increases, when detectable, result from the even faster declines in employment.
-
-
Copy CitationDaron Acemoglu, David Autor, David Dorn, Gordon H. Hanson, and Brendan Price, "Return of the Solow Paradox? IT, Productivity, and Employment in U.S. Manufacturing," NBER Working Paper 19837 (2014), https://doi.org/10.3386/w19837.Download Citation
Published Versions
Daron Acemoglu & David Autor & David Dorn & Gordon H. Hanson & Brendan Price, 2014. "Return of the Solow Paradox? IT, Productivity, and Employment in US Manufacturing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 394-99, May. citation courtesy of 
More from the NBER
In addition to working papers, the NBER disseminates affiliates’ latest findings through a range of free periodicals — the NBER Reporter, the NBER Digest, the Bulletin on Health, and the Bulletin on Entrepreneurship — as well as online conference reports, video lectures, and interviews.
