Haltiwanger paper contributes to job creation debate
Writing on the Washington Post Opinion page, Robert Samuelson provides a resume of recent thinking on U.S. economic growth, including a new paper by Faculty Associate John Haltiwanger along with Ryan Decker, Ron Jarmin and Javier Miranda.
Samuelson begins with comments from Robert Litan of the Brookings Institution who calls the U.S. economy senile - "as in old, rigid, and undynamic," Samuelson notes. The American business sector, like the population, is aging. The cause appears to be diminishing entrepreneurship.
Prof. Haltiwanger's article details how this reduction in entrepreneurship impacts job creation and productivity.
He points out that nobody knows what's happened to entrepreneurship, but it is falling off and the new jobs generated by growing new companies are not being created at the same rate.