Policies for Technological Advance

Without better technology, increases in capital stock generated by investment rapidly run into diminishing returns. And without improvements in 'technologies' of government, organization and education, productivity stagnates.

Somewhat unexpectedly, economists have relatively little to say about what governs technological progress. Why did better technology raise living standards by 2% yearly a generation before though by less than 1% today? Why did technology progress by only 0.25% per year in the early 1800s? Improving literacy, research, and communications and development can help explain faster progress since than before industrial revolution and faster progress in twentieth than in the nineteenth century. Yet as significant a feature of recent economic history as the post-1973 productivity slowdown remains largely a mystery.