Why Is Manufacturing Productivity Growth So Low?

We examine the recent slow growth in manufacturing productivity. We show that nearly all measured TFP growth since 1987 — and its post-2000s decline — comes from a few computer-related industries. We argue conventional measures understate manufacturing productivity growth by failing to fully capture quality improvements. We compare consumer to producer and import price indices. In rapidly changing industries, consumer price indices indicate less inflation, suggesting mismeasurement in standard industry deflators. Using an input–output framework, we estimate that TFP growth is understated by 1.4 percentage points in durable manufacturing and 0.3 percentage point in nondurable manufacturing and is slightly overstated in nonmanufacturing industries.