Debate on "The Great Stagnation" - Tyler Cowen vs. Rob Atkinson

Tyler Cowen's recent e-book, "The Great Stagnation," has attracted praise and generated intense discussion about the changing nature of the modern U.S. economy. The provocative premise is that median household income growth has stagnated since the 1970s because innovation is no longer the key driver of economic growth. True, there have been dazzling advances in technology, but Cowen suggests these new technologies, specifically the Internet, have not really translated into economic growth, employment and productivity gains. Well, the gauntlet is down! ITIF President Rob Atkinson sees it very differently and invited Cowen to debate how much recent innovation and technological change has helped boost economic growth and opportunity. In this video, ITIF presents a spirited debate on the trends that have shaped the economic transformation we are living through and what they tell us about the road ahead.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Rob Atkinson
• Tyler Cowen
• Edward Luce
• ITIF
• George Mason University
• Marginal Revolution
• Financial Times
• Economics
• Innovation
• Debate
• Discussions
• Technology
• Science
• Productivity
• Inequality
• Growth
• Education
• Living Standards

[ithinkronpaulissmart]

Isn't a lot of median income stagnation explained by rising healthcare costs? People are being compensated with benefits instead of wages.

[jmpawluk]

There may be "innovation" going on out there, but unless it actually improves the human condition, what good is it? By definition, technology is the application of science to improve our living conditions. The information "revolution" has run its course, and it hasn't dramatically improved our lives. Marginal increases in signal speed over the next decade are not going have much of an effect on anything.

[Hangingoutbythebay]

See the Wikipedia articles:

Productivity improving technologies (historical)

Economic stagnation

[carmanah56]

An important debate, made inaccessible by the crappy camera and sound work. Didn't hire union, hmm?

[shutuprafa]

At around the 35-40 min. mark, Atkinson actually starts to make some decent points and calls out Tyler on some time series manipulation

[shutuprafa]

He misses the point of Tyler's anecdotal evidence. The average American is not an infovore and misses out on the innovations of these past three decades. Tyler also admits that there was a short productivity boom in the 90s. This guy is just playing around with the time series to suit his argument. Also, the point of Tyler mentioning male wage stagnation is an implicit acknowledgement that we had a one-time gain from opening up job opportunities to females

[shutuprafa]

from watching the opening arguments...I must say, Mr. Atkinson misses Tyler's point. Tyler uses land, education, and the fruits of the Industrial Revolution are EXAMPLES of the low-hanging fruit. He's not saying that now that b/c those things have been exhausted, innovation is virtually impossible.

Atkinson also has his productivity figures wrong, which is kind of pathetic.