Trends in American economic growth, 1929-1982
Denison studies changes in the trend of output and its determinants. Using the growth-accounting methodology that he himself pioneered and refined in earlier studies, he systematically distinguishes changes in the economy's ability to produce--as measured by his series on potential national income--from changes in the ratio of actual output to potential output. He focuses on the decline in the growth of potential national income that started in 1974 and was further accentuated beginning in 1980. He also highlights the pronounced decline, from business cycle to business cycle, in the average ratio of actual to potential output since 1969. Denison organizes his discussion around eight tables that divide the 1929-82 period into three long and seven short periods. The most recent "long period" --1973-1982-- was, says Denison, a period of slow growth which is as yet unfinished. ISBN 0-8157-1809-8 (pbk.) : $10.95