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evidence that industrial robotic automation alone increased labor productivity growth by 0.
percentage points across 17 countries between 1993 and 2007.^15
The potential positive impact of AI-driven automation on productivity is particularly important
given recent trends in productivity. In the last decade, despite technology’s positive push,
measured productivity growth has slowed in 30 of the 31 advanced economies, slowing in the
United States from an average annual growth rate of 2.5 percent in the decade after 1995 to only
1.0 percent growth in the decade after 2005 (Figure 2 ). While a considerable amount of this
slowdown in many countries—including the United States—is due to a slowdown in investment
in capital stock, the slowdown in total factor productivity growth (the component influenced by
technological change) has also been important.^16 This has contributed to slower growth in real
wages and if continued will slow improvements in living standards.
AI-driven automation could help boost total factor productivity growth and create new potential
to improve the lives of Americans broadly. The benefits of technological change and economic
growth, however, are not necessarily shared equally. This can depend on both the nature and
speed of the technological change as well as the ability of workers to negotiate for the benefits of
their increased productivity, as discussed below.
(^15) Georg Graetz and Guy Michaels, “Robots at Work,” Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) Discussion
Paper No. DP10477, 2015 (http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1335.pdf).
(^16) Jason Furman, “Productivity Growth in the Advanced Economies: The Past, the Present, and Lessons for the
Future,” Speech at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington, July 9 2015
(https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/20150709_productivity_advanced_economies_piie.pdf).
-0.
0.
0.
United
States
Canada Japan Germany France United
Kingdom
Italy
1995-2005 2005-
Figure 2: LaborProductivity Growth, G-7 Countries
Percent,Annual Rate
Source: Conference Board, Total Economy Database; CEA calculations.