A Century of Growth and Improvement
American Economic Review · 2016 · Volume 106 · Issue 5
Abstract
The fact that actual economic advance over time normally means producing and consuming different things is usually left implicit in modern models of economic growth. By contrast, qualitative change--new goods and services, and better versions of what already existed--is central to Robert Gordon's history of the improvement of American living standards since 1870. A major contribution of his fine-grained account of this experience is to make clear what this improvement has meant, and why it has mattered to ordinary citizens.
Keywords
Macroeconomics: Production, Business Fluctuations, Cycles, Studies of Particular Policy Episodes, General Welfare, Well-Being, Economic History: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics, Industrial Structure, Growth, Fluctuations: U.S., Canada: Pre-1913, Canada: 1913-, Technological Change: Choices and Consequences, Diffusion Processes
Enable JavaScript for citation tools and additional paper interactions.