New Releases by Robert J Gordon

Looks at the magnitude of ICT investment''s contribution to US productivity growth.

"This paper assesses the standard data on output, labor input, and capital input, which imply "one big wave" in multi-factor productivity (MFP) growth for the United States since 1870. The wave-like pattern starts with slow MFP growth in the late 19th century, then an acceleration peaking in 1928-50, and then a deceleration to a slow rate after 1972 that returns to the poor performance of 1870-1891. A counterpart of the standard data is a mysterious doubling in the ration of output to capital input when the postwar era is compared with 1870-1929 ..."--Abstract

During the four years 1995-99 U. S. productivity growth experienced a strong revival and achieved growth rates exceeding that of the golden age'' of 1913-72. Accordingly many observers have declared the New Economy'' (the Internet and the accompanying acceleration of technical change in computers and telecommunications) to be an Industrial Revolution equal in importance, or even more important, than the Second Industrial Revolution of 1860-1900 which gave us electricity, motor and air transport, motion pictures, radio, indoor plumbing, and made the golden age of productivity growth possible. This paper raises doubts about the validity of this comparison with the Great Inventions of the past. It dissects the recent productivity revival and separates the revival of 1.35 percentage points (comparing 1995-99 with 1972-95) into 0.54 of an unsustainable cyclical effect and 0.81 points of acceleration in trend growth. The entire trend acceleration is attributed to faster multi-factor productivity (MFP) growth in the durable manufacturing sector, consisting of computers, peripherals, telecommunications, and other types of durables. There is no revival of productivity growth in the 88 percent of the private economy lying outside of durables; in fact when the contribution of massive investment in computers in the nondurable economy is subtracted, MFP growth outside of durables has actually decelerated. The paper combines the Great Inventions of 1860-1900 into five clusters'' and shows how their development and diffusion in the first half of the 20th century created a fundamental transformation in the American standard of living from the bad old days of the late 19th century. In comparison, computers and the Internet fall short. The rapid decline in the cost of computer power means that the marginal utility of computer characteristics like speed and memory has fallen rapidly as well, implying that the greatest contributions of computers lie in the past, not in the future. The Internet fails the hurdle test as a Great Invention on several counts. First, the invention of the Internet has not boosted the growth in the demand for computers; all of that growth can be interpreted simply as the same unit-elastic response to the decline in computer prices as was prevalent prior to 1995. Second, the Internet provides information and entertainment more cheaply and conveniently than before, but much of its use involves substitution of existing activities from one medium to another. Third, much internet investment involves defense of market share by existing companies like Borders Books faced with the rise of Amazon; social returns are less than private returns. Fourth, much Internet activity duplicates existing activity like mail order catalogues, but the latter have not faded away; the usage of paper is rising, not falling. Finally, much Internet activity, like daytime e-trading, involves an increase in the fraction of work time involving consumption on thejob.

Summarizes the analysis and findings of the Boskin Commission, reviews criticisms, provides responses to criticisms, summarizes recent changes in the CPI and recent research on price measurement.

Bushmen have frequently been the archetypal other in Western intellectual and popular thought. These romantic images portrayed in commercial advertising, art exhibitions, films, and novels are actually less myth than fairy tale, which persist in spite of a sound body of contrary empirical evidence. In this innovative study of bushman imagery, Robert Gordon focuses on a particular event, the Denver African Expedition of 1925, which went off to Africa to seek the cradle of Humanity. The participants claimed to have found the Missing Link in the Heikum Bushmen of the Etosha Game Park and, because the Expedition was a commercial venture, its backers marketed this image. Gordon, an anthropologist, examines the culture of visualization that gave direction to the expedition and was in turn influenced by it. Because the pictures from the Denver Expedition were aesthetically pleasing, they encouraged widespread merchandising of bushman images, which, in turn, had unanticipated consequences. Picturing Bushmen ventures beyond traditional boundaries of area studies, visual theory, and academic anthropology to press for an appreciation of the familiar as well as the spectacular. In evaluating the role of the ethnic photograph, it addresses the perennial questions that haunts field workers: How much are they influenced by the mundane in their own society and when are they exploiting their subjects? It is easy to fall into the error of regarding the Bushmen as more primitive than they really were. -- J. S. Marais, 1939

Images of the Bushman—from the innocent hero of the hit movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy, to “vermin” eradicated by the colonists, to the superhuman trackers conscripted by the South African Defense Forces, and the living embodiment of prehistory for the academic—shape our perceptions rather than the actuality. Looking at this interplay between imagery, history, and policy, Robert Gordon focuses not on the Bushman but on the colonizers'' image of them and the consequences of that image for the people assumed to be Bushmen.To understand the image of the Bushmen, we must place them into the context from which they were abstracted. The Bushman Myth, then, is a study of not only history but also of the sociology of knowledge as well as of the relationship between perceived role and economic class. Lavishly illustrated with archival and recent photographs, the book attempts to convey the extent to which we as Westerners have participated in the creation of the “Bushman” identity. This book with its poignant example of the Bushmen brings us face to face with the complexities and deceptions of our constructions of the “Other.”

This is a discussion paper on customary law. The themes include: The colonial judical structure; Manipulation of customary law; and Conclusion.

This paper reviews the leading ideas that have emerged within two paradigms of price adjustment. Neither, it appears, provides a satisfactory theoretical scheme when taken in isolation. This paper concludes that an attempt to merge the more convincing elements of each is needed, and some suggestions for such a merger are put forward.