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This was my guess based on having recently read "The Rise and Fall of American Growth" when this study first dropped. [1] The argument he makes in the book is t
by gdubs 10y ago
This was my guess based on having recently read "The Rise and Fall of American Growth" when this study first dropped. [1] The argument he makes in the book is that a big part of the productivity jump we saw in the middle of the last century wasn't entirely due to the stimulus of WWII as most people assume, but was a synergy of that plus the reduction of workplace injuries, etc, related to the 40 hour work week.
Was frustrated at the time that they seemed to be jumping to conclusions so quickly regarding something that could be transformative to society.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13320511 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13320511
- Altay- 10y agoHaving recently finished The Rise and Fall of American Growth myself, I reached the opposite conclusion. Yes, the decrease from 12+ -> 8 hour workdays helped health and thus productivity and growth as the author persuasively states. But in the final few chapters which look forward rather than back in time, it was my interpretation that the author sees trends in declining hours & labor force participation as headwinds to TFP growth. It is naturally more inefficient to have more shifts and thus more people commuting, etc. The diminishing health returns from 8 - > 6 hour work days not being enough to make up for this loss in efficiency.