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Essentially the main
questions around
the productivity paradox refer
to a couple of questions.
Why did productivity experience
the prolonged slowdown?
What factors explain the
pronounced productivity
decline in the digital age?
These two questions highlight
two very important elements.
The first one is that when
we focus on the
productivity slowdown,
we need to think in
very long term factors.
In other words, the
productivity slowdown
is a long term issue.
The digital age obviously
entered most recently,
but it is a factor
that actually affected
and is affecting a
long term trend.
Taking this perspective and
having in mind these
two questions,
there have been
different explanations
that have been advanced so far.
For example, Bob Gordon in
2016 mentioned that
the reason why we
observe the productivity
slowdown is because we are at
the end of the information
technology revolution.
Other authors have
highlighted other factors,
such as the secular stagnation
that was experienced
a few years ago,
or a strong weakness in demand
that actually drove down the
investment of companies.
There have been some
demographic issues
and so on and so forth.
Of course, the literature in
this respect is quite broad.
Alternative explanations
have instead
focused most on problems
related to the measurement
of the big changes
that the digital economy
actually entails.
In other words,
some authors wonder
if the official statistics
are actually capturing well
the transformations implied by
the digitalization
of our economies.
Lastly, other explanations
have stressed that, for example,
all the benefits of these
recent technologies,
like also the evolution of
artificial intelligence or
machine learning are
yet to come and so,
there might be the
innovation J-curve
proposed by Brynjolfsson,
Syverson and Rock who
essentially argue that in
order for the digital
transformation
generate benefits,
we need to wait some time.
