I have a new essay up at Human Progress today. Here’s a slice of it:
The productivity slowdown is not an immutable law of nature. It is, at least in part, the consequence of policy choices. Human ingenuity remains as powerful as ever. We have more scientists, more capital, and better tools than any previous generation. The challenge is not generating ideas; it is allowing those ideas to spread.
…
An additional one or two percentage points of annual productivity growth may sound insignificant. Yet when compounded over decades, the effects are transformative. Higher productivity means higher incomes, better health outcomes, more abundant energy, and greater opportunities for future generations. The ideas already exist. The question is whether we will allow them to flourish.
Economist Writing Every Day 
The article seems to be very US focused. The ideas presented are unobjectionable. But I have the suspicion that the global productivity frontier is, well, global. Bad US policies might keep America from reaching the frontier; but the resulting gap between the US and the frontier will probably look more like the easily-observable gap between the UK and the US.And that latter gap is large, but it’s probably also fairly static as a proportion. The UK still gets the latest chips and software; they don’t fall arbitrarily far behind.For the positive example: Singapore does a lot of the things right that the article bemoans the US is doing wrong. And Singapore has grown spectacularly over the last few decades. But I doubt we’ll be able to sustain even a 1 or 2% growth lead over even an unreformed US indefinitely.
Of course, a more efficient US would push the global frontier out ever so slightly faster. And eg legalising imports of Chinese solar cells would be good for the US customer surplus, good for the environment and good for competition and thus future growth.
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