Computers and Output Growth Revisited: How Big is the Puzzle?

Stephen D. Oliner and

SDO

Stephen D. Oliner Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Daniel E. Sichel

Daniel E. Sichel Professor of Economics - Wellesley College

Discussants: Robert J. Gordon and

Robert J. Gordon Stanley G. Harris Professor of the Social Sciences - Northwestern University

Jack E. Triplett

JET

Jack E. Triplett Former Brookings Expert

DURING THE PAST 15 years, U.S. companies have poured billions of dollars
into information technology. Yet, through the 1980s, many observers
argued that these companies were not getting their money’s worth.
As hard as analysts scoured the numbers, they could not show that computing
equipment contributed much to productivity growth, leading to
Robert Solow’s famous quip that “you can see the computer age everywhere
but in the productivity statistics.”