The Outlook for U.S. Labor-Quality Growth / Canyon Bosler, Mary C. Daly, John G. Fernald, Bart Hobijn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bosler, Canyon.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Daly, Mary C.

Fernald, John G.

Hobijn, Bart.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w22555.

NBER working paper series no. w22555

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2016.

Summary:

Over the past 15 years, labor-quality growth has been very strong--defying nearly all earlier projections--and has added around 0.5 percentage points to an otherwise modest U.S. productivity picture. Going forward, labor quality is likely to add considerably less and may even be a drag on productivity growth in the medium term. Using a variety of methods, we project that potential labor-quality growth in the longer run (7 to 10 years out) is likely to fall in the range of 0.1 to 0.25 percent per year. In the medium term, labor-quality growth could be lower or even negative, should employment rates of low-skilled workers make a cyclical rebound towards pre-recession levels. The main uncertainties in the longer run are whether the secular decline in employment of low-skilled workers continues and whether the Great Recession pickup in educational attainment represents the start of a new boom or is simply a transitory reaction to a poor economy.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2016.