Re: article on oil & dollars

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Dean Baker argues that US productivity growth has been exaggerated, since depreciation also sped up. If you adjust for the latter, US productivity growth doesn't look as good. Of course, productivity is really hard to pin down, as Michael Perelman says. 
 
Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine 

________________________________

From: PEN-L list on behalf of Doug Henwood
Sent: Sun 2/27/2005 8:20 PM
To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] article on oil & dollars



Julio Huato wrote:

>I would think that the true determinants of economic power are (1)
>social institutions that constantly drive productivity growth, (2)
>pre-existing productivity levels, and (3) resources.  That's what the
>entire history of capitalism suggests.  No?

According to the official stats, US productivity accelerated after
1995 and the rest of the rich world's didn't. Odd how that happened
as the US international balance deteriorated so radically.

Doug