Various papers

7.  What Was the Industrial Revolution?
by Robert E. Lucas, Jr. #23547 (EFG)
http://papers.nber.org/papers/w23547?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntw

9.  The Disappointing Recovery of Output after 2009
by John G. Fernald, Robert E. Hall, James H. Stock, Mark W. Watson #23543 (EFG LS)
http://papers.nber.org/papers/w23543?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntw


7.  What Was the Industrial Revolution?
by Robert E. Lucas, Jr.  -  #23547 (EFG)

Abstract:

At some point in the first half of the 19th century per capita GDP in
the United Kingdom and the United States began to grow at something
like one to two percent per year and have continued to do so up to
the present.  Now incomes in many economies routinely grow at 2
percent per year and some grow at much higher "catch-up" rates. 
These events surely represent a historical watershed, separating a
traditional world in which incomes of ordinary working people
remained low and fairly stable over the centuries from a modern world
where incomes increase for every new generation.  This paper uses
Gary Becker's theory of a "quantity/quality trade-off," consistent
both with Malthusian population dynamics (quantity) and with
demographic transition (quality), to identify a limited set of forces
that were central to this revolution.

http://papers.nber.org/papers/w23547?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntw



9.  The Disappointing Recovery of Output after 2009
by John G. Fernald, Robert E. Hall, James H. Stock, Mark W. Watson  -  #23543 (EFG LS)

Abstract:

U.S. output has expanded only slowly since the recession trough in
2009, even though the unemployment rate has essentially returned to a
pre-crisis, normal level.  We use a growth-accounting decomposition
to explore explanations for the output shortfall, giving full
treatment to cyclical effects that, given the depth of the recession,
should have implied unusually fast growth.  We find that the growth
shortfall has almost entirely reflected two factors:  the slow growth
of total factor productivity, and the decline in labor force
participation. Both factors reflect powerful adverse forces that are
largely unrelated to the financial crisis and recession--and that
were in play before the recession.

http://papers.nber.org/papers/w23543?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntw