Ebook Free The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)
You might not should be question concerning this The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) It is uncomplicated method to get this publication The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) You can merely check out the distinguished with the web link that we supply. Below, you could buy guide The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) by on the internet. By downloading The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World), you could find the soft file of this book. This is the local time for you to start reading. Also this is not printed publication The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World); it will precisely give even more advantages. Why? You might not bring the printed publication The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) or only stack guide in your residence or the office.
The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)
Ebook Free The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)
The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World). In what situation do you like checking out a lot? What regarding the kind of guide The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) The should check out? Well, everybody has their very own reason why ought to review some books The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) Mainly, it will certainly connect to their requirement to obtain expertise from the e-book The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) as well as desire to review just to obtain amusement. Books, story e-book, as well as other entertaining publications end up being so popular today. Besides, the scientific e-books will certainly also be the very best need to select, particularly for the pupils, teachers, doctors, businessman, as well as various other occupations who are warm of reading.
Why ought to be this e-book The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) to review? You will certainly never get the understanding and also experience without obtaining by on your own there or trying on your own to do it. Thus, reading this book The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) is required. You could be great as well as proper adequate to obtain exactly how crucial is reviewing this The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) Even you constantly review by commitment, you could assist yourself to have reading e-book routine. It will certainly be so beneficial and fun then.
But, exactly how is the way to get this e-book The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) Still perplexed? It does not matter. You could enjoy reading this book The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) by online or soft file. Simply download and install the book The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) in the link offered to check out. You will obtain this The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) by online. After downloading, you could save the soft file in your computer system or device. So, it will certainly relieve you to read this e-book The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) in particular time or location. It could be not exactly sure to appreciate reading this e-book The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World), due to the fact that you have great deals of job. However, with this soft documents, you could enjoy checking out in the leisure even in the gaps of your tasks in office.
Once again, checking out behavior will consistently offer useful advantages for you. You might not require to invest sometimes to read guide The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) Simply reserved numerous times in our spare or spare times while having dish or in your office to review. This The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World) will show you brand-new thing that you can do now. It will help you to enhance the top quality of your life. Occasion it is simply an enjoyable e-book The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War (The Princeton Economic History Of The Western World), you can be healthier as well as a lot more enjoyable to appreciate reading.
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, home appliances, motor vehicles, air travel, air conditioning, and television transformed households and workplaces. With medical advances, life expectancy between 1870 and 1970 grew from forty-five to seventy-two years. Weaving together a vivid narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic analysis, The Rise and Fall of American Growth provides an in-depth account of this momentous era. But has that era of unprecedented growth come to an end?
Gordon challenges the view that economic growth can or will continue unabated, and he demonstrates that the life-altering scale of innovations between 1870 and 1970 can't be repeated. He contends that the nation's productivity growth, which has already slowed to a crawl, will be further held back by the vexing headwinds of rising inequality, stagnating education, an aging population, and the rising debt of college students and the federal government. Gordon warns that the younger generation may be the first in American history that fails to exceed their parents' standard of living, and that rather than depend on the great advances of the past, we must find new solutions to overcome the challenges facing us.
A critical voice in the debates over economic stagnation, The Rise and Fall of American Growth is at once a tribute to a century of radical change and a harbinger of tougher times to come.
- Sales Rank: #17495 in eBooks
- Published on: 2016-01-12
- Released on: 2016-01-12
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year
A New York Times Bestseller
Shortlisted for the 2016 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award
Longlisted for the 2016 Cundill Prize in Historical Literature, McGill University
"Robert Gordon, author of The Rise and Fall of American Growth, which is the Thomas Piketty-esque economic must read of the year, is gaining traction in policy circles with a persuasive argument that the inventions that drove growth and productivity over the last 100 years or so weren't the personal computer or the Internet, but the internal combustion engine, indoor plumbing and electricity. . . . His conclusion: unless the techno-optimists come up with some really seismic invention quickly, our children are likely to be worse off economically. . . . Those who keep track of such things should bone up on their Gordon."--Rana Foroohar, Time
"[T]his is a book well worth reading--a magisterial combination of deep technological history, vivid portraits of daily life over the past six generations and careful economic analysis. . . . This book will challenge your views about the future; it will definitely transform how you see the past."--Paul Krugman, New York Times Book Review
"[An] authoritative examination of innovation through the ages."--Neil Irwin, New York Times
"Robert Gordon has written a magnificent book on the economic history of the United States over the last one and a half centuries. . . . The book is without peer in providing a statistical analysis of the uneven pace of growth and technological change, in describing the technologies that led to the remarkable progress during the special century, and in concluding with a provocative hypothesis that the future is unlikely to bring anything approaching the economic gains of the earlier period. . . . If you want to understand our history and the economic dilemmas faced by the nation today, you can spend many a fruitful hour reading Gordon's landmark study."--William D. Nordhaus, New York Review of Books
"Mr. Gordon uses exhaustive historic data to buttress his thesis."--Greg Ip, Wall Street Journal
"The biggest challenge for studies of long-run growth is measuring not income but prices. We have records of how much money people earned in 1870 and of the sales of goods and services. But how should we compare an 1870 dollar with a 2015 dollar? We are so used to using a standard Consumer Price Index inflation adjustment that we forget the reckless assumptions needed to compare currency values across a century-and-a-half divide. . . . [The Rise and Fall of American Growth] is full of wonder for the miraculous things that America has accomplished."--Edward Glaeser, Wall Street Journal
"A masterful study to be read and reread by anyone interested in today's political economy."--Kirkus
"Normally, these kinds of big-think books end with a whimper, as the author totally fails to identify solutions to the problem he is writing about. But Gordon's conclusion offers some admirably definitive policy advice."--Matthew Yglesias, Vox
"Magnificent. . . . Even if history changes direction, and Mr. Gordon's rise-and-fall thesis proves to be wrong, this book will survive as a superb reconstruction of material life in America in the heyday of industrial capitalism."--The Economist
"Every presidential candidate should be asked what policies he or she would offer to increase the pace of U.S. productivity growth and to narrow the widening gap between winners and losers in the economy. Bob Gordon's list is a good place to start."--David Wessel, WSJ.com's Think Tank blog
"[W]hat may be the year's most important book on economics has already been published. . . . What Gordon has provided is not a rejection of technology but a sobering reminder of its limits."--Robert Samuelson, Washington Post
"Robert Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Growth is an extraordinary work of economic scholarship. . . . Moreover, this is one of the rare economics books that is on the one hand deeply analytical . . . And on the other a pleasure to read. . . . [A] landmark work."--Lawrence Summers, Prospect
"Ambitious. . . . The hefty tome, minutely detailed yet dauntingly broad in scope, offers a lively portrayal of the evolution of American living standards since the Civil War."--Eduardo Porter, New York Times
"Two years ago a huge book on economics took the world by storm. Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century . . . became a surprise bestseller. . . . Robert Gordon's tome on American economic growth stretches to 768 pages and its central message is arguably more important."--David Smith, Sunday Times
"A landmark new book."--Gavin Kelly, The Guardian
"Looking ahead, judging presidents by policies rather than outcomes may be all the more important. In a new book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the economist Robert Gordon argues that we are in the midst of an era of meager technological change. Yes, we now have smartphones and Twitter, but previous generations introduced electric lighting, indoor plumbing and the internal combustion engine. In Mr. Gordon's view, technological change is just not what it used to be, and we had better get used to slower growth in productivity and incomes."--N. Gregory Mankiw, New York Times
"The Rise and Fall of American Growth is likely to be the most interesting and important economics book of the year. It provides a splendid analytic take on the potency of past economic growth, which transformed the world from the end of the nineteenth century onward. . . . Gordon's book serves as a powerful reminder that the U.S. economy really has gone through a protracted slowdown and that this decline has been caused by the stagnation in technological progress."--Tyler Cowen, Foreign Affairs
"[A]n important new book."--Martin Ford, Huffington Post
"[A] lightning bolt of a new book."--Harold Meyerson, The American Prospect
"So powerful and intriguing are the facts and arguments marshaled by Gordon that even informed critics who think he is wrong recommend that readers plow through his The Rise and Fall of American Growth, with its 60 graphics and 64 tables spread over more than 700 pages. You don't need to be an economist to appreciate or understand the book. His thesis is straightforward."--David Cay Johnston, Al Jazeera America.com
"[M]agesterial."--Noah Smith, Bloomberg View
"What is novel about Gordon's approach to this problem is that he doesn't try to find political causes for our economic woes. . . . [E]xhaustive and sweeping in scope, and novel in its thinking about growth."--Chris Matthews, Fortune.com
"[A] fascinating new book."--Jeffrey Sachs, Boston Globe
"For all their differences, the presidential candidates share one defining characteristic: All of them are upbeat about the future (as long as they get elected.) In one of the most important books of recent years, Northwestern University economist Robert J. Gordon offers a radically different view. . . . Powerful and impressive. . . . [M]agisterial, data-filled."--Cass Sunstein, Bloomberg View
"This is a tremendous, sobering piece of research, which does a lot to explain the febrile, nervous state of modern Western democracies."--Marcus Tanner, The Independent
"A new book by economist Robert Gordon--The Rise and Fall of American Growth--is causing quite a stir."--City A.M.
"If he's right, and one links this with growing income inequality, our would-be leaders will have difficulty in making the case for achieving the American dream through steady incremental progress achieved through collaboration and political compromise."--Michael Hoffmann, Desert Sun
"Robert Gordon's new book on productivity in the U.S. economy, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, is masterful. . . . Gordon skillfully lays out myriad information about the history and trends of productivity. One can learn a great deal."--Edward Lotterman, St. Paul Pioneer Press
"[I]mpressive."--Peter Martin, Sydney Morning Herald
"In his unsettling new book, Gordon, who teaches at Northwestern, weighs in on the role of technology in the U.S. over the past century-and-a-half. He does so forcefully, so forcefully, in fact, as to wipe the smiles off the faces of most techno-optimists, myself included."--Peter A. Coclanis, Charlotte Observer
"[A] thoughtful new book."--David D. Haynes, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"[The Rise and Fall of American Growth] is this year's equivalent to Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century: an essential read for all economists, who are unanimously floored by its boldness and scope even if they don't agree with its conclusions."--Adam Davidson, New York Times Magazine
"Gordon makes a compelling case for why the era of fast growth in America ended around 1970 and will not return in the foreseeable future, if ever."--Dick Meyer, DecodeDC
"Gordon argues that we are not going to get another surge soon and that there are several headwinds that are going to work against faster growth, including income inequality, education as a differentiator and not an equalizer, the debt overhang, and demography."--John Mason, TheStreet.com
"[The Rise and Fall of American Growth] challenges every political claim, and every pundit's remedy, regarding how to get the lackluster American economy to boom again in the decades ahead, as it once did a half-century or more ago. . . . [The book] represents the culmination of Gordon's many years of investigation into this key economic question of our age, namely: 'Why is it that the American economy has never been able to return to the happy boom years of our grandparents' time?' Why is it that, decade after decade, administration after administration, annualized productivity growth has only been about one-half to one-third that of the age of Truman and Eisenhower?"--Paul Kennedy, Tribune Content Agency
"[M]asterful. . . . Gordon skillfully lays out information about the history and trends of productivity. One can learn a great deal. . . . The Rise and Fall of American Growth is a rare example of a work with solid economics that can be understood, and enjoyed, by nearly any lay person."--Ed Lotterman, Idaho Statesman
"As an economic historian, Gordon is beyond reproach."--Edward Luce, Financial Times
"Provocative."--Associated Press
"The Rise and Fall of American Growth, is a deep dive into the past with an eye to the future. . . . [The book] is part of a fascinating debate about future prospects for the American economy."--Knowledge@Wharton
"[The Rise and Fall of American Growth] has set the wonky world of economics aflame."--Ryan Craig, TechCrunch
"Magisterial."--John Kay, Financial Times
"[A] contentious new book."--Margaret Wente, The Globe & Mail
"[A] fabulous new book. . . . [I]mpressive."--Dr. Mike Walden, Morganton News Herald
"Northwestern Bob Gordon's new book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, offers a deeper explanation for the underlying mechanics behind slowed economic growth."--Jon Hartley, Forbes.com
"So much of what the presidential candidates and the American people want to accomplish over the next four years and beyond depends on the U.S. economy growing faster, and more inclusively, than it has in recent years. This year's hot economics book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, by one of America's most distinguished macroeconomists, Robert Gordon, casts a pall on whether this is possible, arguing that the U.S. had a golden century of increasing innovation from roughly 1870 to 1970, but this was unique."--Robert Litan, Fortune.com
"Gordon's book offers the definitive account of how the many technological innovations between 1870 and 1940 dramatically improved life in the United States."--Richard A. Epstein, Hoover Institution's Defining Ideas blog
"[M]agiserial. . . . The Northwestern University professor lays out the case that the productivity miracle underlying the American way of life was largely a one-time deal."--Matt Phillips, Quartz
"Robert Gordon's new book The Rise and Fall of American Growth has taken the economics world by storm this winter."--Myles Udland, Business Insider
"[M]assive."--Ben Casselman, FiveThirty Eight
"[G]roundbreaking."--Zeeshan Aleem, Mic
"With a painstaking--and fascinating--historical analysis of American productivity, [Gordon] argues that the innovations of today pale in comparison to earlier in our history and that we might actually be entering a period of prolonged stagnation. He may very well be right."--Greg Satell, Forbes.com
"[P]rovocative."--Barrie McKenna, The Globe & Mail
"[I]nfluential."--Martin Neil Baily, Fortune.com
"[A] stimulating book."--George Will, Washington Post
"Compulsive reading."--Andrew Hilton, Financial World
"Gordon is not an alarmist, far from it. His is a sober voice of concern, of caution, which needs to be heard by those in the helm in America. And a fascinating lesson for ambitious and growing countries like India."--Dr R Balashankar, Sunday Guardian
"[A] fascinating convergence of green and mainstream thought."--Tom Horton, Chesapeake Bay Journal
"[T]his panoramic book makes good reading."--Shane Greenstein, Harvard Magazine
"The book's great contribution is the tapestry it weaves of all the innovations that changed most Americans' lives beyond recognition in the century from 1870 to 1970."--Martin Sandbu, Financial Times
"The Rise and Fall of American Growth is unquestionably an important book that raises fundamental questions about the United States' economy and society."--New Criterion
"This is an extremely important book."--Martin Wolf, Financial Times
"[An] impressive book. . . . Gordon's book provides sufficient ammunition to show the colossal problems facing capitalism."--Socialism Today
"Rich with detailed information, meticulous observations, and even anecdotes and stories . . . a fascinating read."--Ricardo F. Levi, Corriere della Sera
"'Some inventions are more important than others.' This is the most important point made by Robert Gordon of Northwestern University in his masterpiece, The Rise and Fall of American Growth."--Martin Wolf, Financial Times
"The Rise and Fall of American Growth is essential reading for anyone interested in economics."--Choice
"In an important new book, economist Robert Gordon makes the case for pessimism. He believes that technologies like smartphones, robots, and artificial intelligence aren't going to have the kind of big impact on the economy that earlier inventions--like the internal combustion engine and electricity--did."--Timothy B. Lee, Vox
"Robert Gordon has written an engaging economic-based history of America. . . . Gordon is to be commended for helping to stimulate a national debate on the current low level of economic productivity."--Allan Hauer, Innovation: The Journal of Technology & Commercialization
"If you want to see how far we have come and how tough life was a century and a half ago, read Gordon's book."--David R. Henderson, Regulation
"I generally read books that I expect to enjoy. But based on the reviews I had seen, I was prepared to be more frustrated than fascinated by Robert Gordon's new book The Rise and Fall of American Growth. So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered how much I liked it. . . . The book was a fantastic read, and well worth the time."--Bill Gates, GatesNotes
"The book is well written, and one can only be in awe of Gordon's mastery of the factual history of the American standard of living."--Robert A. Margo, EH.net
"Monumental."--John Cassidy, NewYorker.com
"Zeitgeist-defining."--Myles Udland, Business Insider
"[A] magisterial treatise."--Nick Gillespie, Reason.com
"[A]n essential read for anyone interested not only in US economic history but also American economic prospects . . . a tremendous achievement."--Diane Coyle, Enlightened Economist
"A comprehensive history of American economic growth."--Eric Rauchway, American Prospect
"Professor Robert J. Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Growth is a magisterial volume that will benefit any serious student of economics, demographics or history."--Wendell Cox, New Geography
"A wonderful new book."--Jeff Sachs, Boston Globe
"The most important economics book of 2016."--Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune
"This spectacular history traces the rise and the plateau of the American economy since industrialization."--Jay Weiser, Weekly Standard
"[A] landmark book. . . . An impressive history of how the American people progressed in their standards of living and productivity in the 'golden century' of 1870-1970."--Stephen M. Millett, Strategy & Leadership
"Gordon's encyclopedic The Rise and Fall of American Growth, a new history of modern U.S. economic life, [is] perhaps the best yet written."--Jonathan Levy, Dissent
From the Back Cover
"The story of our standard of living is a vital part of American history and is well told in this fascinating book. Gordon provides colorful details and striking statistics about how the way we live has changed, and he asks whether we will live happily ever after. His answer will surprise you and challenge conventional assumptions about the future of economic growth. This book is a landmark--there is nothing else like it." --Robert Solow, Nobel Laureate in Economics
"A towering achievement that will utterly transform the debate on U.S. productivity and growth. Robert Gordon chronicles the stunning swiftness with which American lives have advanced since 1870, and raises profound questions about whether we have benefitted from one-offs that cannot be repeated. Combining eloquent description with forceful and clear economic analysis, Gordon's voice is gripping and compelling. This is economic history at its best."--Kenneth S. Rogoff, coauthor of This Time Is Different
"The Rise and Fall of American Growth is a tour de force with an immensely important bottom line. It is packed, page after page, with insights and facts that every reader will find fascinating and new. A profound book that also happens to be a marvelous read."--George Akerlof, Nobel Laureate in Economics
"Keynes dismissed concerns about economic trends by remarking that in the long run, we are all dead. Gordon turns this upside down by reminding us that we inherited somebody else's long run. If you care about the legacy we will leave future generations, read this richly detailed account of America's amazing century of growth."--Paul Romer, New York University
"Robert Gordon has written the book on wealth--how Americans made it and enjoyed it in the past. If we're going to create more wealth in the future instead of arguing about dividing a shrinking pie, we have to read and understand this book."--Peter Thiel, entrepreneur, investor, and author of Zero to One
"This book is as important as it is unsettling. Gordon makes a compelling case that the golden age of growth is over. Anyone concerned with our economic future needs to carefully consider his argument."--Lawrence Summers, Harvard University
"In The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Gordon looks at the evolution of consumption and the standard of living in the United States from the end of the Civil War to the present day. His work brims with the enthusiasm of discovery and is enriched by personal anecdotes and insights derived over a long and very productive career."--Alexander J. Field, Santa Clara University
"The Rise and Fall of American Growth makes use of economic history to argue that Americans should expect the rate of economic growth to be, on average, slower in the future than it has been in the recent past. Gordon is the most important exponent of the pessimistic view working today and this is an exceptional book."--Louis Cain, Loyola University Chicago
About the Author
Robert J. Gordon is the Stanley G. Harris Professor in the Social Sciences at Northwestern University. His books include Productivity Growth, Inflation, and Unemployment and Macroeconomics. Gordon was included in the 2013 Bloomberg list of the nation's most influential thinkers.
Most helpful customer reviews
61 of 61 people found the following review helpful.
It's All about Growth
By David Shulman
Northwestern economics professor Robert Gordon has a written a mostly very good and a very long book (762 pages in the print edition) on the history of economic growth in the United States from 1870 to the present. In his view it is all about the rise and fall of total factor productivity (the gains in output not due to increased labor and capital inputs, or if you will technological improvements). I know this sound very boring, but he explains the growth in output in terms of how it affected the daily home and work lives of average Americans. In other words he tells a very good story as to how the typical American moved from a completely disconnected life without indoor plumbing in 1870 to a fully connected life with water, sewerage, electricity, radio and telephones by 1940. The American of 1940 would not recognize the life of an American in 1870 while the American of today would readily recognize the life of a typical 1940 American.
To him much of this improvement is due to what he calls the second industrial revolution which was brought into being by the widespread adoption of electricity and the internal combustion engine. along with indoor plumbing remade the economy. In a way his book is a paean to industrial capitalism whose innovations brought about this revolution. Further, although it is hard to believe today, the introduction of the automobile in the early 1900s was the clean technology of its day. Simply put the major cities of the country were knee deep in horse poop and horse piss that local residents struggled to avoid. They were literally swimming in pollution.
Compare this to the third industrial revolution we are experience today involving information technology, computers and communications. Sure those technologies have improved our lives, but how do they compare to indoor plumbing and electric lights. Gordon demonstrates through a careful analysis of the data that the information revolution peaked from 1996-2004 and has since slowed down. Specifically Moore’s Law which states computer chip capacity doubles every 18-24 months which held from the late 1960s to the early 2000s broke down in the past decade to a pace of doubling every four to six years.
Going forward Gordon is a “techno-pessimist.” He views the 1870-1970 period as a one off event. The recent slowdown in productivity and economic growth certainly supports his view. Whether he is right, or not, only time will tell. Where I would disagree with Gordon is that he labels the rise of income inequality as an impediment to growth. To me that is a stretch because during his golden age of 1870-1940 there were two distinct periods of high and rising income inequality. The first was the gilded age of 1895-1910 and second was the roaring twenties. During those two time periods the standard of living for the average American grew rapidly and it is hard to see in the data that it was an impediment to growth especially when Gordon admits the official data grossly understated overall economic growth.
I know that this review has hardly done justice to Gordon’s magisterial work. I highly recommend it for those interested in how our lives came to be.
138 of 153 people found the following review helpful.
America's Future Economic Growth Will be Slower and Less Transformational -
By Loyd Eskildson
There was virtually no economic growth for millennia until 1770 (0.06%/year from AD 1 to AD 1820), only slow growth then until 1870 (the kitchen was often the only heated room in the home, and carrying cold water from the outside and warming it was such a nuisance that some bathed only once/month). The world of 1820 was lit by candlelight, folk remedies 'treated' health problems, and travel was no faster than possible by hoof or sail - the railroad, steamship, and telegraph set the stage for more rapid progress after 1879. Then came remarkably rapid growth in the century ending in 1970, and slower growth since then. The economic revolution of 1870 to 1970 was unique, unrepeatable because many of its achievements could happen only once. Housework was increasingly performed by electric appliances, darkness replaced by light, and isolation replaced not just by travel but also by color television images. Most important, a newborn infant could expect to live not to age 45, but to age 72.
The central 'figure' in these improvements is total-factor productivity growth (economic expansion over and above the growth of capital and labor) - beginning at less than 0.5%/year prior to WWI, rising to over 3% during the 1940s, then falling below 1% after 1970.
What makes the period 1870-1970 so unique is that the inventions during that period cannot be repeated. Electricity made it possible to create much more useful light, the electric elevator allowed buildings to extend vertically instead of horizontally, small electric machines replaced huge and heavy steam boilers that transmitted power by leather/rubber belts - allowing buildings to return to horizontal expansion, motor vehicles replacing horses freed society from allocating a quarter of land to support the feeding of horses and needing a sizable labor force for removing their waste, and the Boeing 707 brought travel to near the speed of sound in 1958. Production/storage of food also was revolutionized during this century - the Mason jar made it possible to preserve food at home, the first canned meats were fed to Northern troops during the Civil War, and during the late 19th century an array of processes foods entered American homes. In 1916, Clarence Birdseye brought a method for freezing food, though this had to wait until the 1950s to become practical until the 1950s when electric refrigerators became capable of maintaining a zero temperature in their freezer compartments. In 1870, shoes and men's clothing were purchased from stores, but women's clothing was made at home by mothers and daughters. By the 1920s, most female clothing was purchased from retail outlets that did not exist in 1970 - urban department stores and mail-order catalogs. Public waterworks revolutionized housewives daily routine and protected every family against waterborne diseases. Development of anesthetics in the late 19th century made gruesome amputations a thing of the past, and antiseptic surgery reduced death rates. X-rays, antibiotics, and modern treatments were all invented and implemented in this special century.
Hours released from housework (eg. they no longer had to lug water from outside, often 8 - 10 times/day, with up to 50 gallons alone for a single load of laundry) became available for women to participate in market work. In 1870, more than half of men were engaged in farming, while working-class jobs in the city required 60 hours/week. Over half of teenage boys were engaged in child labor, and male heads of households worked until disabled or dead.
At the 1851 Crystal Palace exhibition in London, Cyrus McCormick displayed a reaper that could do the work of 40 men, and Samuel Colt's revolver used interchangeable parts - a new and distinctive American method of manufacture.
Total factor productivity after 1970 grew at barely one-third the rate achieved between 1920 and 1970. This puzzling decline in economic growth since 1970 is because advances since 1970 have tended to be channeled into activity having to do with entertainment, communications, and the collection and processing of information. Changes have become evolutionary and continuous. While IT and the communication it enables have progressed much faster after 1970 than before, but total spending on all electronic entertainment, communications, and IT amounted to only about 7% of GDP.
Price indexes miss the quality and welfare benefits of new products (eg. TV vs. radio) , and overstate how much consumers pay for various items (eg. eggs in supermarkets vs. Walmart), and miss the contributions of safer working conditions and transportation (auto and airplane). The welfare benefits to consumers were greatest long ago - eg. the transition from the scrub board to automatic washing machine was more important than the shift from manual to electronic washing machine controls.
Both the Great Depression and WWII directly contributed to the 1920-70 Great Leap in productivity. Had there been no Great Depression, there probably would have been no New Deal that promoted unionization and contributed to a sharp rise in real wages and shorter hours - the former promoting substitution from labor to capital and shorter hours by reducing fatigue. WWII and the New Deal also brought the TVA and Hoover Dam. During the high-pressure WWII economy, production miracles (eg. Henry Kaiser's shipyards) taught firms and workers how to operate more efficiently; also the federal government financed new plants and equipment - their acquisition cost in real terms was equal half the stock of privately owned equipment that existed in 1941. (The 'Republican' version contends that competition pushed American entrepreneurs to streamline and innovate - an explanation that fails to address the subsequent decline in the rate of improvements.) The war's aftermath then brought a pouring of money into higher education, and America's largely uncontested domination of international trade --> economies of scale and more jobs.
Although the book is about the U.S., many of the inventions involved were made by foreigners in their own lands or who had recently moved to America. These include transplanted Scotsman Alexander Graham Bell, Frenchmen Louis Pasteur, Louis Lumiere for the motion picture, Englishmen Joseph Lister for antiseptic surgery and David Hughes for early wireless experiments, and Germans Karl Benz for the internal combustion engine and Heinrich Hertz for key inventions making possible the 1896 wireless patents of the recent Italian immigrant Guglielmo Marconi. There were also new immigrants Alexander Carnegie, Nikola Tesla, Louis Chevrolet, Igor Sikorsky, and Enrico Fermi. The role of foreign inventors in the late 19th century was distinctly more important than 100 years later, when the personal computer and Internet revolution was led almost entirely by Americans, including Paul Allen, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, and Mark Zuckerberg - Sergei Brin is one of the few to have been born abroad.
Breakthrough inventions of the 1920-1970 (Ford's assembly line, Toyota's 'Lean Production') era cannot be repeated, and thus the rapid economic growth they made possible won't be repeated either. Labor force growth has also slowed.
Now the population is aging (requiring higher taxes to pay benefits, cover growing dementia) and educational attainment growth/performance vs. other nations flagging. Declining marginal returns presents another problem - if technology has already reduced costs by as much as 95%, further costs cuts are both harder to achieve and less noticeable. Our recent immigrants are predominantly poorly educated. The ratio of net investment to capital stock has been trending down since the 1960s (thanks to offshoring); there has been significant foreign investment - mostly in 'right-to-work' states. Moore's Law is sowing down - from its original 2 years doubling time to 8 years in 2009, now back to 4 years in 2014. Addressing global warming is fighting a bad, not creating goods; further it will limit the temporary benefits of lower oil/gas costs. 3D printing will not impact mass production very much, though it does help create prototypes and create very low-volume replacement parts. Smart-phones and smart-tablets have been prevalent since 2007 - mostly personal use. Growing government debt is another 'headwind.' Offshoring production (imports represented 5.4% of U.S. GDP in 1970, reached 16.5% in 2014) gives other nations an advantage in learning how to make modifications for new products - eg. those making TVs then learned how to do flat-screens, curved screens, touch screens, solar film, etc. However, pursuit of scale economies and foreign markets makes it unlikely that significant manufacturing will return to the U.S.
The author is reluctant to predict the impact of driverless cars and robots, and is pessimistic overall about the future - he's dismissive of the impact of cell phones and the Internet, perhaps overly so. His rationale - increasing inequality.
A major question for the future - will the best brains of the future build things of significant innovation as in the past, or dedicate their time to tasks like making Twitter more user-friendly? ("We wanted flying cars but instead got 140 characters." Peter Thiel, venture capitalist) Most of those with the highest incomes now come from a background of financial engineering, sports/entertainment, and top management. The first two groups obviously add nothing to our capital assets, and the latter group has repeatedly been shown to be compensated with little/no regard to value-added.
Gordon recommends legalizing drugs (War of Drugs costs an estimated $90 billion/year and is ineffective), allowing foreign-born graduates of our colleges to become citizens, increased taxes on the rich.
Bottom-Line: America's best days are behind us. We've wasted a great deal of the sacrifices our forefathers made to make America great, thanks to paranoid fear of Communism and idiotic pursuit of Free Trade - the latter derived from selfish industrialists and lazy economists who have distorted the thinking of Adam Smith and David Ricardo from nearly 250 years ago
123 of 137 people found the following review helpful.
A profoundly important book and a great read
By Mark Witte
I think of Rashomon; a gripping story told from a series of different angles, each reinforcing but also changing our perspective on what we learned in the others. Gordon breaks America's unprecedented rise in quality of life into two periods, 1870-1940 and 1940-2015. In the first period and then the second, he lays out a series of chapters where each documents one area of the technological change that re-shaped the lives Americans lived. In the 1870-1940 period, these include food, clothes, lighting, communication, entertainment, transportation, healthcare, and finance. In the 1940-2015 period, the parallel stories of improvement are some repeats (food and clothes transportation, entertainment, and healthcare), but also the way computers have worked their way into our lives and how a large share of modern people have to plan for and live lives that extend far beyond the end of their working years. This is all presented with a readable mix of clear data analysis and wonderful supporting anecdotes.
This book is something of a spin-off from Gordon’s influential work on the slowing of growth in the US. His “headwinds” argument is roughly that if the US were to keep up the same rate of technological progress going forward as we saw over the decades from 1987-2007, then the US would see markedly slower income growth for average households due to rising headwinds due to an aging population, rising inequality, limited further educational gains, reductions in the amount of CO2 emissions we will allow, etc. The objection that is commonly raised to his pessimism is that maybe technological growth going forward will vastly outshine what the US enjoyed from 1987-2007 (which, aside from the rise of the commercial internet, home computing, cellphones, and advances in pharma, one might argue wasn’t that great a period to change, right?). So, sure, technological growth going forward might be much greater than what we’ve seen so far (Joel Mokyr makes this case eloquently), but the 1987-2007 benchmark is a hard one to beat. Supporting this view, Gordon points out how the changes that brought the huge improvements in quality of life in the past will be difficult to approach in the future. Sure, Skype is great and cellphones are convenient, but their introduction did far less for human happiness than the introduction of the phone. Granted, it would be nice to be able to get from New York to Tokyo in eight hours, but that gain was nowhere near the boon we gained from moving from ships to airplanes. Certainly most of us would be glad to live to 120, but the gain in those years won’t bring us nearly the joy that the rise in life expectancy we say from 42 in 1890 to 62 in 1940.
Nevertheless, we will always continue to hope for breakthroughs, and this book is an example of that. Gordon has written a timeless classic.
The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World) PDF
The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World) EPub
The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World) Doc
The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World) iBooks
The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World) rtf
The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World) Mobipocket
The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World) Kindle
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar