Noah Smith, Columnist

Hate Globalization? Then Embrace Stagnation

Increased trade and rising productivity – the engine of growth -- go hand in hand.

May 16, 2019 at 10:30 AM EDT

Noah Smith is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion.

Fighting like this won’t help.
Photographer: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

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Economists traditionally have thought that long-term productivity growth is due to technological and organizational improvement. Engineers learn how to make a better car engine, businesspeople figure out how to organize their work teams more efficiently, and so on. These ideas accumulate and since little gets forgotten -- barring resource exhaustion, environmental degradation or major policy mistakes -- humanity gets richer and richer.

Since the mid-2000s, the U.S. has been experiencing a slowdown in productivity growth:

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