Private Equity and Consulting as Dengism with American Characteristics

Tyler Cowen and Ben Southwood have a great piece asking: “Is the rate of scientific progress slowing down?” To any student of headlines, the answer is “No,” but this essay is the exception that proves the rule: progress is slowing down. Probably.

But the meat of the essay is the “probably” part, because as it turns out, progress is extremely hard to measure.

The standard way to measure productivity growth is the Solow Residual, i.e.: once you account for changes in the labor supply and…