Economists, business analysts, and policymakers have all focused considerable attention on U.S. productivity growth in … recent years. This paper presents a broad overview of productivity--both labor and total factor--and discusses why it is such … an important topic. We begin with the official U.S. productivity statistics prepared by the U.S. Bureau of Labor …

level, increased output stability reflects decreased volatility in both labor productivity growth and hours growth as well … input and total factor productivity (TFP) growth and the smaller covariance between them. This relationship suggests that … and labor productivity growth, suggesting again that the labor market dynamics are part of the decline in U.S. output …

productivity (TFP). In contrast, this paper finds large and persistent TFP differences across a group of industrialized countries …