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The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War cover

The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War

Robert J. Gordon

Economic History

Gordon argues that the productivity gains from 1870 to 1970—electricity, indoor plumbing, automobiles, antibiotics—were a one-time special century unlikely to be repeated, and that the digital revolution has not come close to matching them in measured welfare improvement. A provocation central to the Progress Studies debate Collison helped start, asking why growth has slowed and whether it can be revived.

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  • Patrick Collison

    On the shelf as a key interlocutor for Progress Studies; Gordon's secular-stagnation thesis is the empirical backdrop against which Collison argues for reviving the engines of growth.

    patrickcollison.com