"The sudden drop in America's productivity rate beginning in the early 1970s and the simultaneous increase in income inequality made a generation of American economists pessimistic about the nation's ability to grow faster or to deal with the growing gap between the rich and everyone else. Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison review the historical record and offer an elegant explanation of why the productivity drought occurred and why it is finally over.

The potential for a sustained era of economic expansion more equitably shared is on the horizon, thanks to the revolution in computer and information technology that has now come of age." "But potential, the authors argue, is one thing; realization is another. Though optimistic about the productivity boom, Bluestone and Harrison do not believe that the payoff to the technology revolution can be fully realized without a sea change in economic policy."--BOOK JACKET.