AG on globalization

[Brad De Long]

>Brad DeLong wrote:
>
>>  >[Layoffs promote employment, says AG. "The second derivative of
>>  >output per hour still appears to be positive." Next year in Jackson
>>  >Hole!]
>>
>>  Well, Alan Greenspan said that employment-at-will promotes cost
>>  savings from taking advantage of technological change, that faster
>>  adoption of new technologies means higher productivity growth, that
>>  higher productivity growth means faster warranted real wage growth,
>>  that faster warranted real wage growth means that the sustainable
>>  average unemployment rate that keeps actual real wage growth equal to
>>  warranted real wage growth is lower...
>>
>	Hello, Brad. Welcome back from the heartland.
>
>	So, if employment-at-will has enabled companies to take advantage of
>new technologies, why has there been no structural acceleration of
>productivity growth in 90 percent of the US economy, as Prof. Gordon tells
>us? And if employment-at-will does nothing to help nine tenths of American
>industry, why do we need it? 
>
>	Seth

Dan Sichel says (and I agree) that Gordon's cyclical adjustment 
factors are too large, and are masking an acceleration of trend 
productivity growth outside of durable manufacturing.

But I could be wrong...