Preface: Technology, Growth, and the Labor Market

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta E C O N O M I C R E V I E W Third Quarter 2002 I n 1998, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan posed the provocative question, Is there a “new economy”? He described the new economy’s characteristics as including technological innovations that raise productivity and that have, accordingly, removed pricing power from the world’s producers on a more lasting basis (Greenspan 1998). Although the 2001 recession quelled the discussion about whether the United States, and perhaps even the world, had entered a new era characterized by sustained high levels of economic growth, researchers continue to investigate the effects of technological change on the economy. This issue of the Economic Review contains four papers that examine the underpinnings of the new economy—technology and its effects on macroeconomic growth and the labor market. These papers were among those presented at the “Technology, Growth, and the Labor Market” conference sponsored by the research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University in January this year. This introduction summarizes all the speeches, papers, and discussant comments presented at the conference.2 Researchers were quick to examine the new economy, but many of their early conclusions remain open to debate. Macroeconomists, including Martin N. Baily (2001), Stephen D. Oliner and Daniel E. Sichel (2000), and Kevin Stiroh (2001), Preface: Technology, Growth, and the Labor Market