The Paradox Portal
Economic/Social

Productivity Paradox (Solow Paradox)

Computers are everywhere except in productivity statistics

Overview

The observation that massive investment in IT hasn't produced expected productivity gains.

Despite huge investments in computers and information technology since the 1970s, productivity growth was disappointing until the late 1990s. Robert Solow quipped: 'You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.'

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