New economy

Last updated

Account balance in 2006 Current Account Balance 2006.png
Account balance in 2006

The New Economy refers to the ongoing development of the American economic system. It evolved from the notions of the classical economy via the transition from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy, and has been driven by new technology and innovations. This popular use of the term emerged during the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, where high growth, low inflation, and high employment of this period led to optimistic predictions and flawed business plans. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Origins

A 1983 cover article in Time , "The New Economy", described the transition from heavy industry to a new technology based economy. [5] By 1997, Newsweek was referring to the "new economy" in many of its articles. [6]

After a nearly 25-year period of unprecedented growth, the United States experienced a much discussed economic slowdown beginning in 1972. However, around 1995, U.S. economic growth accelerated, driven by faster productivity growth. From 1972 to 1995, the growth rate of output per hour, a measure of labor productivity, had only averaged around one-percent per year. But by the mid 1990s, growth became much faster: 2.65 percent from 1995–99. [7] America also experienced increased employment and decreasing inflation. The economist Robert J. Gordon referred to this as a Goldilocks economy—-the result of five positive "shocks"—–"the two traditional shocks (food-energy and imports) and the three new shocks (computers, medical care, and measurement)" [8]

Other economists pointed to the ripening benefits of the computer age, being realized after a delay much like that associated with the delayed benefits of electricity shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. Gordon contended in 2000, that the benefits of computers were marginal or even negative for the majority of firms, with their benefits being consolidated in the computer hardware and durable goods manufacturing sectors, which only represent a relatively small segment of the economy. His method relied on applying considerably sized gains in the business cycle to explain aggregate productivity growth. [9]

According to the generally unaccepted Kondratiev wave theory of economy growth, the "new economy" is a current Kondratiev wave which will end after a 50-year period in the 2040s. Its innovative basis includes Internet, nanotechnologies, telematics and bionics. [10]

Dot-coms

In the financial markets, the term has been associated with the Dot-com bubble. [11] This included the emergence of the NASDAQ as a rival to the New York Stock Exchange, [11] a high rate of IPOs, the rise of Dot-com stocks over established firms, and the prevalent use of tools such as stock options. In the wider economy the term has been associated with practices such as outsourcing, business process outsourcing and business process re-engineering.

At the same time,[ when? ] there was a lot of investment in companies in the technology sector. Stock shares rose dramatically. A lot of start-ups were created and the stock value was very high where floated. Newspapers and business leaders[ which? ] were starting to talk of new business models. Some[ who? ] even claimed that the old laws of economics did not apply anymore and that new laws had taken their place[ citation needed ]. They also claimed that improvements in computer hardware and software would dramatically change the future, and that information is the most important value in the new economy.

Some, such as Joseph Stiglitz and Blake Belding, have suggested that a lot of investment in information technology, especially in software and unused fibre optics, was useless. However, this may[ original research? ] be too harsh a judgment, given that U.S. investment in information technology has remained relatively strong since 2002. While there may have been some overinvestment, productivity research shows that much of the investment has been useful in raising output.[ citation needed ]

The recession of 2001 disproved many of the more extreme predictions made during the boom years, and gave credence to Gordon's minimization of computers' contributions. However, subsequent research [ citation needed ] strongly[ quantify ] suggests that productivity growth has been stimulated by heavy investment in information and communication technology.

New kinds of companies

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dot-com bubble</span> Tech stock speculative craze, c. 1997–2003

The dot-com bubble was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Internet, resulting in a proliferation of available venture capital and the rapid growth of valuations in new dot-com startups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kondratiev wave</span> Hypothesized cycle-like phenomena in the modern world economy

In economics, Kondratiev waves are hypothesized cycle-like phenomena in the modern world economy. The phenomenon is closely connected with the technology life cycle.

An economic bubble is a period when current asset prices greatly exceed their intrinsic valuation, being the valuation that the underlying long-term fundamentals justify. Bubbles can be caused by overly optimistic projections about the scale and sustainability of growth, and/or by the belief that intrinsic valuation is no longer relevant when making an investment. They have appeared in most asset classes, including equities, commodities, real estate, and even esoteric assets. Bubbles usually form as a result of either excess liquidity in markets, and/or changed investor psychology. Large multi-asset bubbles, are attributed to central banking liquidity.

Business cycles are intervals of general expansion followed by recession in economic performance. The changes in economic activity that characterize business cycles have important implications for the welfare of the general population, government institutions, and private sector firms. There are numerous specific definitions of what constitutes a business cycle. The simplest and most naïve characterization comes from regarding recessions as 2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. More satisfactory classifications are provided by, first including more economic indicators and second by looking for more informative data patterns than the ad hoc 2 quarter definition.

Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production process, i.e. output per unit of input, typically over a specific period of time. The most common example is the (aggregate) labour productivity measure, one example of which is GDP per worker. There are many different definitions of productivity and the choice among them depends on the purpose of the productivity measurement and data availability. The key source of difference between various productivity measures is also usually related to how the outputs and the inputs are aggregated to obtain such a ratio-type measure of productivity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Technology shock</span>

Technology shocks are sudden changes in technology that significantly affect economic, social, political or other outcomes. In economics, the term technology shock usually refers to events in a macroeconomic model, that change the production function. Usually this is modeled with an aggregate production function that has a scaling factor.

International economics is concerned with the effects upon economic activity from international differences in productive resources and consumer preferences and the international institutions that affect them. It seeks to explain the patterns and consequences of transactions and interactions between the inhabitants of different countries, including trade, investment and transaction.

Robert JamesGordon is an American economist. He is the Stanley G. Harris Professor of the Social Sciences at Northwestern University. Gordon is one of the world’s leading experts on inflation, unemployment, and long-term economic growth. His recent work asking whether economic growth in the US is “almost over” has been widely cited, and in 2016, he was named one of the 50 most influential people in the world by Bloomberg.

The productivity paradox, also referred to as the Solow paradox, could refer either to the slowdown in productivity growth in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s despite rapid development in the field of information technology (IT) over the same period, or to the slowdown in productivity growth in the United States and developed countries from the 2000s to 2020s; sometimes the newer slowdown is referred to as the productivity slowdown, the productivity puzzle, or the productivity paradox 2.0. The 1970s to 1980s productivity paradox inspired many research efforts at explaining the slowdown, only for the paradox to disappear with renewed productivity growth in the developed countries in the 1990s. However, issues raised by those research efforts remain important in the study of productivity growth in general, and became important again when productivity growth slowed around the world again from the 2000s to the present day.

A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and many recessions coincided with these panics. Other situations that are often called financial crises include stock market crashes and the bursting of other financial bubbles, currency crises, and sovereign defaults. Financial crises directly result in a loss of paper wealth but do not necessarily result in significant changes in the real economy.

Economic stagnation is a prolonged period of slow economic growth, usually accompanied by high unemployment. Under some definitions, slow means significantly slower than potential growth as estimated by macroeconomists, even though the growth rate may be nominally higher than in other countries not experiencing economic stagnation.

The Telecoms crash, also known as the Telecommunications Bubble was a stock market crash that occurred in 2001, after the bursting of the dot-com bubble.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Moderation</span> Phenomenon in economies of developed nations since the mid-1980s

The Great Moderation is a period in the United States of America starting from the mid-1980s until at least 2007 characterized by the reduction in the volatility of business cycle fluctuations in developed nations compared with the decades before. It is believed to be caused by institutional and structural changes, particularly in central bank policies, in the second half of the twentieth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lost Decades</span> Period of economic stagnation in Japan

The Lost Decades is a lengthy period of economic stagnation in Japan precipitated by the asset price bubble's collapse beginning in 1990. The singular term Lost Decade originally referred to the 1990s, but the 2000s and the 2010s have been included by commentators as the phenomenon continued.

The Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) is a journal of macroeconomics published twice a year by the Brookings Institution Press.[1] Each issue of the journal comprises the proceedings of a conference held biannually by the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. The conference and journal both "emphasize innovative analysis that has an empirical orientation, take real-world institutions seriously, and is relevant to economic policy."[2]

The 1990s economic boom in the United States was an economic expansion that began after the end of the early 1990s recession in March 1991, and ended in March 2001 with the start of the early 2000s recession during the Dot-com bubble crash (2000–2002). It was the longest recorded economic expansion in the history of the United States until July 2019.

Real business-cycle theory is a class of new classical macroeconomics models in which business-cycle fluctuations are accounted for by real shocks. Unlike other leading theories of the business cycle, RBC theory sees business cycle fluctuations as the efficient response to exogenous changes in the real economic environment. That is, the level of national output necessarily maximizes expected utility, and governments should therefore concentrate on long-run structural policy changes and not intervene through discretionary fiscal or monetary policy designed to actively smooth out economic short-term fluctuations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manufacturing in the United States</span> Overview of the manufacturing industry of the United States of America

Manufacturing is a vital economic sector in the United States. The United States is the world's second-largest manufacturer after the People's Republic of China with a record high real output in 2021 of $2.5 trillion.

In economics, secular stagnation is a condition when there is negligible or no economic growth in a market-based economy. In this context, the term secular means long-term, and is used in contrast to cyclical or short-term. It suggests a change of fundamental dynamics which would play out only in its own time. The concept was originally put forth by Alvin Hansen in 1938. According to The Economist, it was used to "describe what he feared was the fate of the American economy following the Great Depression of the early 1930s: a check to economic progress as investment opportunities were stunted by the closing of the frontier and the collapse of immigration". Warnings of impending secular stagnation have been issued after all deep recessions since the Great Depression, but the hypothesis has remained controversial.

Progressive capitalism is an approach to capitalism that seeks to improve the current neoliberal American capitalism that emerged in 1980. Progressive capitalism aims to improve economic results through four defining beliefs, namely the vital role businesses play in the economy by creating jobs, fostering innovation, enabling voluntary exchange, and providing competitive goods and services; the recognition of the important role public goods, public institutions, public services and public infrastructure play in supporting businesses including: research, schools, health care, social insurance, taxation, labor law and regulation of markets; the need for the state to be involved in design and oversight of the playing field; and the integration of social justice, stewardship of natural resources and responsibility to all major stakeholders. It is being advocated by Ro Khanna and Joseph Stiglitz.

References

  1. Current account balance, U.S. dollars, Billions from International Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook Database. Report for Selected Countries and Subjects. April 2008
  2. Mystery Solved. Newsweek, Jan 28, 2001.
  3. Top 10 Buzzwords. By Kent German. A CNET article (2001) joking at the "new economy" beliefs.
  4. The New Economy Was a Myth, Right? Wrong. By James Surowiecki. Wired article on the aftermath of the [dot-com bubble] criticizing the new economy critics.
  5. The New Economy By Charles P. Alexander Monday. Time magazine, May 30, 1983.
  6. Newsweek / The Daily Beast.
  7. Gordon, Robert J. (2000), "Interpreting the 'One Big Wave' in U.S. Long-term Productivity Growth," Productivity, Technology and Economic Growth, v. 1.
  8. Foundations of the Goldilocks Economy: Supply Shocks and the Time-Varying NAIRU. By Robert J. Gordon. Northwestern University and NBER. February 3, 1999 revision of the paper presented at Brookings Panel on Economic Activity, Washington, D.C., September 4, 1998.
  9. Gordon, Robert J. (2000), "Does the 'New Economy' Measure up to the Great Inventions of the Past?," The Journal of Economic Perspectives, v. 14, pp. 49–74.
  10. On the way of the "New economy": conceptions of Russia’s innovational evolution / “The State and The Society”. By Ashot Grigoryan. International conference, Moscow, 2005, p. 82–85.
  11. 1 2 "Goldman Sachs | Commemorates 150 Year History - The Late 1990s Dot-Com Bubble Implodes in 2000". Goldman Sachs. Retrieved December 25, 2023.

Further reading