Table Of ContentThe Future of Economic Growth
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The Future of
Economic Growth
As New Becomes Old
Robert Boyer
Senior Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique (CNRS), Professor (Directeur d’Études) at the
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and
Economist at the Centre d’Études Prospectives d’Économie
Mathématique Appliquées à la Planification (CEPREMAP),
Paris, France
THE SAINT-GOBAIN CENTRE FOR ECONOMIC STUDIES SERIES
Edward Elgar
Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA
© The Saint-Gobain Centre for Economic Studies 2004
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior
permission of the publisher.
Published by
Edward Elgar Publishing Limited
Glensanda House
Montpellier Parade
Cheltenham
Glos GL50 1UA
UK
Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.
136 West Street
Suite 202
Northampton
Massachusetts 01060
USA
A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Boyer, Robert, 1943–
[Croissance début de siècle. English]
The future of economic growth : as new becomes old / Robert Boyer.
p. cm. — (Saint-Gobain Centre for Economic Studies)
Translation of: La croissance début de siècle.
1. Economic development. 2. Information technology. 3. Economic forecasting. 4.
Economic history—20th century. I. Title. II. Saint-Gobain Centre for Economic Studies
(Series)
HD83.B69313 2004
338.9—dc22
2003049260
ISBN 1 84376 606 X (cased)
ISBN 1 84376 607 8 (paperback)
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall
Contents
List of Figures viii
List of Graphs and Boxes ix
List of Tables x
Preface to the English edition xi
Acknowledgements xvii
Introduction 1
A shared vision 1
Beyond the myths 2
A kaleidoscopic approach 3
1 A social construct and an analytical challenge 5
Introduction 5
The American economy in the 1990s was no longer the same as
that in the 1960s 5
Combining micro- and macroeconomics, history and geography 8
The difficulty of analysing structural changes in real time 9
Conclusion 13
2 Microeconomic instability and an uncertain organizational model 14
Introduction 14
Digitalized information and redundant networks 14
The three figures of the ‘new economy’ 17
The search for an organizational model for the ‘new economy’ 19
Conclusion 25
3 A growth regime driven by information and communications
technology? 26
Introduction 26
The new and the old economies: a conjunction of two virtuous
circles? 26
The Solow paradox has not been entirely resolved yet 28
Faster potential growth: problems with forecasting 33
The ‘new economy’ has had different effects on different sectors 36
Conclusion 42
v
vi The future of economic growth
4 Genealogy of the ‘new economy’: the institutional change at the
heart of the US trajectory 44
Introduction 44
1973–2000: the long search for successors to the Fordist growth
regime 44
An early deregulation of the product market 51
Increasingly competitive labour markets 53
ICT as a way of overcoming management problems in large
companies 55
The peace dividend 57
A new architecture for economic policy 58
Multiform financial innovations 60
Internationalization underpinned internal US dynamics 62
Should other countries adopt the institutional architecture of the
USA? 63
Conclusion 64
5 The geography of the ‘new economy’: the diversity of
institutional architectures 65
Introduction 65
ICT at the heart of the technological change process 65
Pre-conditions for virtuous growth: two configurations 68
Was the US configuration exemplary or just singular? 70
Three institutional configurations 71
Is it necessary to produce ICT in order to know how to use them? 73
Conclusion 75
6 2000–2002: reassessing the potential of ICT-driven growth 77
Introduction 77
The Internet bubble: from boom to burst 77
Traders and economists forget the lessons of history at their
own peril 86
Consecutive technological paradigms do not resemble one another 90
Conclusion 99
7 The long-term historical outlook after the Internet bubble 101
Introduction 101
Overestimating ICT’s role 101
The end of three major myths 105
Inequalities within and between countries: down with
technological determinism 107
An uncertain mode of regulation 109
Contents vii
The opposition between the old and the new economy is obsolete 115
Conclusion 118
8 The emergence of an anthropogenetic model 120
Introduction 120
ICT as the vector of real-time management? 120
Moving towards a network economy? 124
The transition towards a knowledge economy? 128
In the long run: an anthropogenetic model 136
Conclusion 143
9 Conclusion 145
The future lasts for a long time 145
Behind the success of the ‘new economy’: a crisis already in the
making 145
Multiform institutional changes rather than technological
determinism 147
The geography of the ‘new economy’ actually includes the
Nordic countries 147
ICT is already a mature industry 148
The power of Wall Street instead of Silicon Valley 149
Altered competition but no return to mythical competitive markets 150
Between speculation and utopia: the anthropogenetic model 151
Bibliography 153
Index 168
Figures
1.1 The difficulty in describing ‘structural’ change 12
3.1 A growth regime that results from the conjunction of two
virtuous circles 27
3.2 A number of different factors have contributed to the recovery
in productivity 31
3.3 Corporate reorganizations as a necessary pre-condition for
reviving productivity 32
6.1 Birth and death of the ‘new economy’ 79
7.1 Even an electronic market is based on the assumption that a
whole set of public institutions and legal rules exist 114
8.1 The ‘new’ economy’s path towards an anthropogenetic regime 129
viii
Graphs and Boxes
GRAPHS
4.1 Adjusted and annual variations in growth rate of total US
productivity, 1965–1999 52
4.2 Comparative changes over two cycles in real wages and
productivity 54
4.3 ICT is primarily used for professional purposes 55
4.4 Unlike Japanese stocks, US share prices have been tracking the
diffusion of ICT 61
4.5 1996–2000: the evidence of a financial bubble 62
5.1 The economies that were part of a virtuous circle of growth
regime 66
5.2 Is there any link between the production and the utilization
of ICT? 74
6.1 By 1998 profits were already starting to erode 85
6.2 A capital structure that has become increasingly heavy 85
8.1 A comparison of trends in household spending on durable
goods and on health 138
9.1 Does belief in a new era herald the advent of a crisis? 146
BOX
8.1 Access to information is no substitute for competency and
knowledge 133
ix
