Understanding the Growth Slowdown

Brink Lindsey

Dec 2015 · Cato Institute

About this ebook

Companies and industries rise and fall...fortunes are made and lost...jobs are created and destroyed by the millions. These are the headline-grabbing dramas of modern economic life. But, residing beneath the booms and busts is a more deeply consequential drama: the long-term growth of real gross domestic product (GDP). Often only apparent years after happening, shifts in long term growth rates are as momentous as they are subtle.
This new ebook examines the gathering evidence, in the wake of the great recession of 2008, that we are in the midst of one of these profound shifts. The disappointing performance of the U.S. economy in recent years—the slowest post recession expansion since World War II—may not be just a temporary setback after a severe downturn. It could be the “new normal.”

About the author

Brink Lindsey is vice president for research at the Cato Institute. He has written on a wide range of topics including trade policy, globalization, American social and cultural history, and the nature of human capital. His current research focuses on economic growth and the policy barriers that impede it. He is the author of several books including Human Capitalism: How Economic Growth Has Made Us Smarter—And More Unequal; The Age of Abundance: How Prosperity Transformed America’s Politics and Culture; and Against the Dead Hand: The Uncertain Struggle for Global Capitalism.