Supply Side, Demand Side, or Innovation Side?

It has become impossible to deny the so-called secular stagnation gripping the world’s developed economies: Wealth is piling up, but real wages are barely rising and workforce participation is on a downward trend. And policymakers have no plausible idea about how to boost potential and actual growth.

NEW YORK – It has become impossible to deny the so-called secular stagnation gripping the world’s most developed economies: Wealth is piling up, but real wages are barely rising and labor force participation has been on a downward trend. Worse yet, policymakers have no plausible idea about what can be done about it.

Behind this stagnation is the slowdown in productivity growth since 1970. The wellspring of such productivity gains – indigenous innovation – has been badly clogged since the late 1960s (mostly in established industries) and was even more so by 2005.

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher viewed the stagnation that was gripping economies by the 1970s from the supply side. They pushed through tax cuts on profits and wages to boost investment and growth, with debatable results.

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