Facing Up to Low Productivity Growth
by Adam Posen (Editor), Jeromin Zettelmeyer (Editor)

About the Author
Jeromin Zettelmeyer has been a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics since September 2016 and was a nonresident senior fellow during 2013–14.
Adam S. Posen has been president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics since January 2013 after first joining in July 1997.

About this book
Labor productivity growth in the United States and other advanced countries has slowed dramatically since the mid-2000s, a major factor in their economic stagnation and political turmoil. Econo-mists have been debating the causes of the slowdown and possible remedies for some years. Unaddressed in this discussion is what happens if the slowdown is not reversed.
In this volume, a dozen renowned scholars analyze the impact of sustained lower productivity growth on public finances, social protection, trade, capital flows, wages, inequality, and, ultimately, politics in the advanced industrial world. They conclude that slow productivity growth could lead to unpredictable and possibly dangerous new problems, aggravating inequality and increasing concentration of market power. Facing Up to Low Productivity Growth also proposes ways that countries can cope with these consequences.

Brief contents
Facing Up to Low Productivity Growth: Introduction 1
I FISCAL IMPLICATIONS
1 Implications of Low Productivity Growth for Debt Sustainability 15
2 Slow Productivity Growth Will Pressure Sovereign Debt Sustainability 51
3 Implications of Lower Trend Productivity Growth for Tax Policy 69
4 Effects of Low Productivity Growth on Fiscal Sustainability in the United States 87
5 Impact of a Productivity Slowdown on Pension Systems in Europe 117
II INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS
6 Productivity in Emerging-Market Economies: Slowdown or Stagnation? 147
7 Living with Lower Productivity Growth: Impact on Exports 185
III IMPLICATIONS FOR WAGES, DISTRIBUTION, AND POLITICS
8 Productivity and Pay: Is the Link Broken? 207
9 Are Slower Productivity and Higher Inequality Related? 245
10 Political Economy of Secular Stagnation: Why Capital in the United States Swipes Right 263
About the Contributors 285
Index 291

Pages: 175 pages
Publisher: Peterson Institute for International Economics (March 19, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 088132731X
ISBN-13: 978-0881327311