Among developed economies, the United States has performed uniquely well in the past decade. The key characteristic of this outstanding growth has been a post-1995 acceleration in U.S. productivity—that summary measure indicates the ability of an economy to produce the same goods more cheaply, generate a greater standard of living than in the past from the same people, factories, and equipment, and to use innovation to produce different and higher-quality goods than in the past. In short, productivity is the single-best summary measure of the overall long-term performance of an economy and the United States stands out in recent years.
