Luke Pardue argued in a recent Washington Post commentary piece that the main cause of strong productivity growth in 2023 was not artificial intelligence but rather a surge in new business creation.
Rob Atkinson responded in a letter to the Post’s editors, noting that U.S. labor productivity growth did indeed rebound to 2.7 percent—nearly double the rate of the prior eight years—which is a great thing, because productivity is the key to wage growth. But to suggest business start-ups caused this rebound is to confuse correlation with causation.
Read Atkinson’s letter.
