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Economic Trends

In this section, we consider major broad economic trends. Economic trends inform our expectations of environmental impacts to be expected in the future.

Technological Advancement

There is evidence that the pace of technological progress is slowing down. For example, Bloom et al. 1 find that research productivity is falling with semiconductors (Moore's law), agricultural yields, life expectancy, and general technological development. This means that more researchers--41 times more since the 1930s--are required over time to make the same gains. Similar results have been found with machine learning 2, and in China and Germany 3 and Japan 4.

One reason this is happening may be that, as knowledge advances, it becomes more difficult to operate at the frontier of knowledge 5.

Artificial intelligence may again accelerate the rate of advancement 6.

References

  1. Bloom, N., Jones, C., Ven Reenen, J., Webb, M. "Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?". American Economic Review 110(4), pp. 1104-1144. April 2020. ↩

  2. Besiroglu, T. "Are models getting harder to find?". Master of Philosophy in Economics, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge. August 2020. ↩

  3. Boeing, P., Hünermund, P. "A global decline in research productivity? Evidence from China and Germany". Economics Letters 197: 109646. December 2020. ↩

  4. Miyagawa, T., Ishikawa, T. "On the Decline of R&D Efficiency". Discussion papers 19052, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI). July 2019. ↩

  5. Jones, B. F. "The Burden of Knowledge and the “Death of the Renaissance Man”: Is Innovation Getting Harder?". The Review of Economic Studies 76(1), pp. 283-317. January 2009. ↩

  6. Agrawal, A., McHale, J., Oettl, A. "Finding Needles in Haystacks: Artificial Intelligence and Recombinant Growth". National Bureau of Economic Research, in The Economics of Artificial Intelligence: An Agenda. April 2018. ↩